The United States last month imposed double-digit tariffs on 59 countries and the European Union, charging that they had not done enough to crack down on imports produced by forced labor. The new tariffs took effect just as the clock ran out on temporary tariffs President Donald Trump had turned to after the Supreme Court defeat.

“After losing at the Supreme Court, the administration is once again trying to illegally raise taxes on families and businesses with a new round of tariffs,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump, who argues that high tariffs will revive American manufacturing, last year overturned decades of U.S. policy that favored lower tariffs and ever-freer trade. Invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, he imposed double-digit tariffs on imports from almost every country, saying America’s longstanding trade deficit amounted to a national emergency.

But the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA did not authorize tariffs. The decision forced the administration to send refunds to importers who’d paid the tariffs. Eager to make up the lost revenue, Trump turned to temporary 10% worldwide tariffs. But they expired at midnight July 24.

Now he’s tapping more durable tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits the president to impose import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in unfair trade practices. Trump used Section 301 to impose big tariffs on China in his first term, and they survived court challenges.

The administration invoked Section 301 to impose the forced-labor tariffs, which range 10% to 12.5% and hit countries that provide 99% of American imports.

“The United States is using its lawful authority to obtain the elimination of unreasonable acts, policies, and practices that burden U.S. commerce,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said. “A foreign country’s failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is unreasonable and burdens U.S. commerce, including American workers, and must be addressed. Section 301 tariffs have proven to be a legally durable tool since the President’s first term, and they remain so now.”

Meanwhile, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has issued a formal order terminating President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” to compensate his political allies. The move follows weeks of negotiations with two Republican senators who were blocking his nomination for the permanent job.

The order leaves in place a declaration — rejected by a judge as improper self-dealing — giving Trump and his family retroactive immunity for any tax audits.

Immigration remains a stronger issue for Trump than the economy or Iran, according to a new AP-NORC poll, even after three people were killed in encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement last month.

Here is the latest:

25 states sue over Trump administration’s latest tariffs, citing Supreme Court ruling

Twenty-five states sued the Trump administration Monday over its latest tariffs, calling them a pretext for replacing import taxes the Supreme Court struck down in February.

The United States last month imposed double-digit tariffs on 59 countries and the European Union, charging that they had not done enough to crack down on imports produced by forced labor. The new tariffs took effect just as the clock ran out on temporary tariffs President Donald Trump had turned to after the Supreme Court defeat.

“After losing at the Supreme Court, the administration is once again trying to illegally raise taxes on families and businesses with a new round of tariffs,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

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Trump Washington surge opponents file complaint

A group of activists opposing the continued law enforcement and National Guard presence in Washington submitted a letter Monday to the D.C. Superior Court chief judge asking that he assess the seriousness and racial aspect of cases being brought by prosecutors during the surge.

Frankie Seabron, of CourtWatch DC, said 100 people a day were being taken into custody for minor crimes that would not have been pursued as vigorously before.

“Judges are not defenseless,” she said, “especially when they know prosecutors are abusing their powers.”

Seabron’s organization was one of several at a protest at Superior Court led by FreeDC.

Ellen Hornstein with Lawyers Defending American Democracy also announced an ethics complaint had been filed last month against Jeanine Pirro with the Attorney Grievance Committee for the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The action cited her behavior in several cases, the reflecting pool vandalism case.

Trump says Pirro ‘folded like a cheap umbrella’

The president reiterated his disappointment with U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for a court filing in which her office blamed a contractor’s shoddy work on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool rather than vandalism.

“I guess she choked. I don’t know what the hell happened,” Trump said, later adding that the former Fox News host “folded like a cheap umbrella” in moving to drop criminal charges against the former Olympian accused of deliberately damaging the pool.

Trump refused to say whether he’d move to fire Pirro. But he also acknowledged that the contractor was “rushing” to finish the project before July 4 — which didn’t ultimately happen.

And he suggested he “didn’t know” the contactor working on it, contradicting his own comments from April when he said he chose the company involved since it had performed work at his golf course in Virginia.

Trump avoids answering whether he supports MLB salary cap

Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement is set to expire Dec. 1 and there’s growing speculation that there could be a lockout that jeopardizes the 2027 season

The central point of contention is MLB owners push for a salary cap. Asked if he supported the owners push for a salary cap, Trump demurred.

“Well, we’re going to talk about that at a different time,” said Trump, a New York Yankees fan. “You know, it’s a complex situation, but not too complex for me.”

The president previously has suggested that he views salary caps in pro sports favorably. Trump in June told reporters that “if you don’t have a salary cap, you don’t have a sport” and suggested MLB “should have done it a long time ago.”

Trump says he looks forward to meeting DC’s new mayor

Trump said he’d welcome meeting with Janeese Lewis George, likely the next mayor of Washington, D.C., after he wrongly referred to her as a communist.

Lewis George is a self-described democratic socialist and a member of the D.C. Council who won the Democratic mayoral primary in June. In the overwhelmingly Democratic city, she is likely to take the top spot in November’s general election. She would succeed moderate Muriel Bowser, who decided to step down after three terms.

“I have not met her yet. I look forward to meeting her,” Trump said of Lewis George.

Trump says oil companies Chevron and Exxon Mobil made ‘too much money’

The U.S. president said major oil companies are earning excessive profits because of high oil prices.

“They made too much money, too much money, “ Trump said. “They ought to give some of that back to the public, and they better cut the retail price.”

Trump said he’s not happy with profits reported by Chevron and Exxon Mobil, even though the higher margins reflected energy prices that had increased after Trump launched a war with Iran and the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed to oil and natural gas tankers.

Trump’s predecessor in the White House, Democrat Joe Biden, also attacked oil companies for their profits when inflation was a major problem with voters.

Trump says he doesn’t know what was agreed to on to advance Blanche’s nomination

The president said, “I understand there’s been a sign off” but that “I don’t know what they agreed” to.

“I think Todd Blanche agreed to reconfirm things that he’s already said. And what he said was OK,” Trump added.

Two Republican Senators who had blocked the confirmation of Blanche, the acting attorney general, to lead the Justice Department said they’d reached an agreement to end the impasse.

Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis said they struck a deal to formally rescind the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that could have been used to compensate Trump supporters who overran the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Despite saying he didn’t know the details of the deal to advance Blanche’s nomination, Trump defended the fund, saying his supporters had been “treated very unfairly.”

Trump defends his exemption from IRS audits because government was ‘weaponized’ against him

The U.S. president defended an agreement to exempt him, his sons and his business from tax audits.

The IRS had until Trump audited presidents since 1977, but the administration struck a deal to avoid audits of Trump as part of what was an initial agreement to end a lawsuit over the leaking of his tax records.

Trump said that before he ran for president in 2016 that an IRS audit of him had been settled. He said the audit was then reopened and he used it during the campaign a decade ago to justify not releasing his tax returns as other candidates have done.

“They went after me illegally and they did a lot of bad things to me like they did to other people,” Trump said. “It was weaponized against me.”

Trump says he’s leaving the Rep. Max Miller situation to the families involved

A day after telling reporters that he’d look into the allegations against the Ohio congressman, Trump said he’ll let the families “figure that out.”

“It’s a very sad thing,” Trump told reporters Monday in the Oval Office. “I know Max. He’s a good person.”

Miller is accused of domestic violence by his former wife, Emily Moreno, the daughter of Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno, who is close to Trump. Miller denies the allegations.

The senator said Sunday that his former son-in-law should not serve in Congress.

“You know, those families, I know they’re working on it. It’s a very sad thing,” Trump said. “Especially when you know somebody so well to be going through that. But it’s accusations, and I’m going to let them figure that out.”

Trump says new talks are ‘last chance’ for Iran to forge deal and avoid escalation of US strikes

President Donald Trump said Monday that newly planned talks with Tehran are the “last chance” for Iran to forge a deal and avoid an escalation of U.S. strikes on the country.

Trump, speaking at the Oval Office, said he expects negotiations that will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and create a pathway for Iran to address United States’ concerns about it’s nuclear program will begin in the next day or two.

The Republican president says, “The first phase is the opening of the straits. The second phase will be the denuclearization.” Trump says that ”will take a little while.”

While Trump has reveled in the U.S. military decimating layers of Tehran’s leadership and devastating its air force and navy, Iran is betting it can outlast Trump as he faces diminished stockpiles of munitions and the difficulty of executing a war that is unpopular with the American electorate ahead of November’s midterm election.

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Trump signs executive order on military spouses

The order creates the “Presidential Military Spouse Commission” to address issues facing troops and their families. Jennifer Hegseth, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s wife, will lead it, Trump said.

The president said the new commission would “develop suggestions to address particular challenges in housing, employment, health care, education, child childcare and just about everything else you can think of.”

Many of the issues have been tackled in various forms by multiple administrations.

Jennifer Hegseth’s role mirrors that of other defense secretary spouses who have advocated for families while their husbands ran the Pentagon. Charlene Austin, Lloyd Austin’s wife, sat on the advisory boards for the Purdue Military Family Research Institute, and Military Child Education Coalition.

Trump calls Iran ‘unbelievably duplicitous’ with regard to peace talks

Trump is venting about the status of peace talks with Iran.

He criticized Iran's leadership for claiming that its meetings with Oman on Monday were focused solely on establishing a temporary route for safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

The president previously said he held off on a massive weekend strike against Iran because there was another framework for a ceasefire and the full reopening of the strait to oil and natural gas tankers.

“Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous!” Trump posted on social media Monday. “They ask for a meeting, some would say “beg,” talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman.’”

Trump said whether “Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking” about preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Breakneck pace in immigration courts is driving up deportation orders

The Trump administration is packing immigration courtrooms with speedier hearings to clear a decades-long backlog in asylum claims. New data shows a historic rise in missed court dates and immediate deportation orders as judges struggle to keep up the pace.

Hundreds of immigrants’ cases a day are being assigned to individual judges as the number of “mega” master hearings significantly increase. More than 1,300 were held in June alone, a nearly threefold jump from the previous June, according to Mobile Pathways, a nonprofit that tracks immigration court data.

The data also shows that courts have severely cut preparation time in complex immigration proceedings, so people are missing hearings and being told they’ve abandoned their asylum claims at unprecedented rates.

Those who favor limiting immigration see this as a course-correction for a longstanding problem. But the nonprofit’s chief operating officer says cases are being closed without being heard.

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GOP holdouts say they will vote to advance Blanche’s nomination for attorney general

Two Republican senators who threatened to block acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s bid to lead the Justice Department said Monday that they will vote to advance his nomination, ending an impasse over plans to create a fund to compensate the president’s allies.

The statement from Republican Sen. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis came after Blanche issued an order late Sunday formally rescinding the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate people who believe they were unfairly prosecuted by the Justice Department.

Cornyn and Tillis had said they would not support Blanche’s nomination without written confirmation that the fund is dead.

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Trump stands to profit off US policy announcements by selling fast access to his social media posts

The president knows the world hangs on his every word. Now he wants you to pay for it.

Trump’s Truth Social business began selling sneak peeks of his social media posts on Saturday, offering early access to market-moving news to Wall Street traders willing to pay up. The move raises the prospect of big profits for Trump’s company, and big questions about insider trading and using public office for private gain.

Similar fast-speed feeds are sold by other social media firms and media providers, but Truth Social doesn’t just distribute the news, it makes it as Trump announces changes on everything from war to central bank leadership to tariffs.

“If this was the CEO of a public company, this would be jail time,” said Irene Aldridge, head of Able Alpha Trading.

Initial sales details may be disclosed when Truth Social’s parent company announces quarterly earnings.

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Democrats’ future is at stake as El-Sayed and Stevens make final push in Michigan

Tuesday’s Senate primary in Michigan between congresswoman Haley Stevens and public health official Abdul El-Sayed is one of the clearest tests yet of where Democratic voters want their party to go.

El-Sayed is a progressive backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders who’s run against much of the Democratic establishment. Stevens is backed by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and has made electability and experience central to her case.

The winner faces Republican Mike Rogers in November for an open seat Democrats likely need to hold to take control of the Senate next year.

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Trump decries negative public polling and claims he’s never been more popular

The U.S. president said on social media that independent surveys showing low approval ratings are false — denying a clear trend of lower support for Trump because of inflation and the Iran war, among other issues.

“My REAL Polling Numbers, not those made up by the Fake News Media, are the best they have ever been,” Trump asserted, providing no data to back up his claim.

The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that just 33% of U.S. adults approve of Trump. That survey from late July also showed a drop since the start of Trump’s second term in adults who “strongly approve” of him.

Contrary to the evidence of multiple surveys, Trump said his popularity is based on his income tax cuts, his job numbers, his efforts to secure the U.S. border with Mexico and his use of American military force in Venezuela and Iran.

Trump going to Los Angeles on Tuesday and speak in Las Vegas on Wednesday

The White House said the president will go to California and Nevada to talk up the economy and border security and slam Democrats ahead of the November elections.

Trump on Tuesday will attend a Republican National Committee dinner at the Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles.

On Wednesday, the president is slated to talk about the economy at Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas.

Falling oil prices help calm Wall Street’s inflation worries, while chip stocks get back to sinking

Oil prices are easing and helping to calm Wall Street’s worries that inflation could potentially get even worse. That has U.S. stock indexes rising early Monday, but several major chip stocks are falling again including Micron and AMD.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 625 points, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.2%. The price of a barrel of Brent crude fell 5.1% to $83.42 after Trump said over the weekend he would hold off on ordering new strikes against Iran at the urging of allies in the region. Treasury yields fell.

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Trump overhaul could gut Head Start preschool quality standards

The Trump administration is planning a dramatic overhaul of Head Start that would gut its quality standards, two people familiar with the deliberations said.

Head Start, established in the 1960s to help fight poverty, has long been considered by experts to be a gold standard for early education. It has more than 100 pages of regulations that cover everything from child-to-teacher ratios and child health screenings to family engagement.

The Republicans would replace these with around a dozen pages of rules that leave most specifics to state and local law, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is not yet public and they feared reprisal.

The draft rules would require more documentation from homeless or unemployed parents, and an early version would have barred even the U.S. citizen children of parents who are in the United States illegally.

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US dollar weakens sharply against Japanese yen after Trump intervenes in market

The U.S. dollar weakened sharply against the Japanese yen on Monday after Trump and Japan’s finance minister confirmed that both sides had intervened in markets.

The yen’s prolonged weakness against the dollar has been a source of frustration for Tokyo. Since Japan imports so much of what it consumes, a weak currency pushes prices higher. High oil prices have amplified pressure on Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to do more to address the rising cost of living.

Normally, foreign exchange markets determine the relative values of currencies, and officials usually stay mum on any interventions, but Trump confirmed it on Sunday.

A weaker dollar makes U.S.-made goods more competitive. Analysts are describing the intervention as a “low-cost” way for Washington to pay a favor to a key U.S. ally.

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Blanche order keeps Trump’s ‘self-dealing’ immunity for any past tax audits

The document released by Blanche on Sunday night keeps a provision of the IRS settlement that provided broad tax-audit immunity for Trump and family, while limiting its scope.

It clarifies that the immunity “applies by its terms only retroactively” to claims open at the time of the settlement, and does not protect the president from examination of future tax filings.

On Friday, Trump’s attorneys notified a court they would appeal a judge’s scathing ruling that characterized the settlement of the president’s lawsuit against the IRS as an improper exercise in self-dealing.

The judge said that because Trump manipulated the court system by suing an agency he controls, the government cannot claim in official proceedings that the agreement resulted from a legitimate legal process.

Trump says talks on Iran war will begin on Monday after he holds off on ‘massive’ strikes

Trump said new talks to wind down the war in Iran and revive traffic through the Strait of Hormuz will start Monday afternoon, after announcing he is holding off on new massive strikes he had threatened to unleash on the country. Iranian state media, however, quoted the country’s foreign ministry as saying Tehran was not currently holding negotiations with the United States.

Israel struck the Gaza Strip again over the weekend, after the U.S. and Hamas said a deal was reached for the militant group to disarm, a potential step toward ending the war in Gaza that depends on Israel stopping its attacks. The Israeli military said the strikes targeted militant operatives.

Hospitals in Gaza said at least 17 people were killed, including children. A strike on one residential apartment killed three family members including a 4-year-old child, according to Nasser hospital, where the bodies arrived.

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Why immigration remains strong for Trump among Republicans, according to a new AP-NORC poll

Immigration remains a stronger issue for Trump than the economy or Iran, according to a new AP-NORC poll, even after three people were killed in encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in July.

Trump is not getting a glowing endorsement on his immigration approach from Americans overall, the new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found: Only 39% of U.S. adults approve of his performance on immigration, a decline from 49% at the beginning of his second term.

Despite that, about 8 in 10 Republicans continue to approve of how Trump is handling immigration. That’s a slight decline from the beginning of Trump’s second term, when about 9 in 10 Republicans approved, but his support within his base has been mostly stable despite a chaotic year of immigration enforcement actions.

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The court filing is tied to a lawsuit filed against Capital One by one of Trump’s financial holding companies shortly after he was sworn into office a second time. Trump alleges that Capital One illegally closed his accounts for political reasons, following the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol.

Capital One wants the lawsuit dismissed.

“The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance,” the bank said in the court filing. The term “AML” is an abbreviation for anti-money laundering.

Trump has sued Capital One, as well as JPMorgan Chase, for allegedly debanking him after he left office in 2021. Debanking occurs when banks shut down customer accounts because they believe they pose financial, legal or reputational risks to the banks.

Both banks have denied they severed their relationships with the president, his sons, and other related businesses for political reasons. The lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase is seeking damages of $5 billion. JPMorgan has said it does not close accounts for political reasons, but closes accounts “with or without cause” and also accounts that create “legal or regulatory risk.”

In July, after the original lawsuit had laid dormant for months, lawyers for the president filed an amended lawsuit that alleged the bank debanked him for political reasons. The bank says the new allegations are without merit, saying the complaint rests on “new theories are based on cherry-picked quotations."

President Trump's legal team dismissed that claim Monday, but did not address the internal findings by the bank.

“Capital One, along with other major banks, de-banked President Trump, his family, and his businesses for blatantly political reasons," a spokesperson for Trump's legal team said. "President Trump’s powerful lawsuit holds Capital One accountable for its disgraceful conduct, and we look forward to seeing this matter through to a just and proper conclusion.”

Conservatives have long alleged that banks debank them and their political allies. The allegations became louder after Operation Choke Point, an initiative during the Obama Administration when regulators pressed banks to cut off financial services to the firearm industry, tobacco, and payday lenders, among others. The cryptocurrency industry alleged it was also a victim of debanking during the Biden Administration.

Trump signed an executive order in August 2025 titled “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans” directing federal bank regulators to terminate examinations of banks over who they were doing business with. The Trump administration has also subpoenaed records of the biggest banks as part of an investigation into alleged debanking.

Trump had more than 300 bank accounts with Capital One before they were closed. The bank accounts were for a variety of Trump-branded businesses, ranging from a golf course to a winery. Trump had banked with Capital One for more than a decade before the accounts were closed.

In the court filing, Capital One said it had no reason to make a political statement with the closure of Trump’s accounts in 2021 and the move had everything to do with activity in the accounts being flagged by anti-money laundering experts with the bank.

“Capital One never publicized the termination decision nor its confidential internal process giving rise to the closure, and it permitted Plaintiffs several months (and granted several extensions) to find new banking services, which they did,” the bank said.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.5% and is just 0.1% below its record set earlier this summer. It was coming off a frenetic July, where it swung up and down as oil prices shot higher because of the war with Iran, before ultimately ending the month just about where it started.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which measures a narrower slice of the U.S. stock market, climbed 693 points, or 1.3%, to an all-time high, while the Nasdaq composite leaped 2.1%.

Stocks got a lift as the price for a barrel of Brent crude sank 4.7% to $83.77. It dropped after President Donald Trump said over the weekend that he decided to hold off on new strikes against Iran at the urging of allies in the region.

Brent’s price careened between $72 and $102 last month as worries rose and fell about when the war with Iran would allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf again to deliver crude to customers worldwide. The latest acquiescence by Trump helped to ease worries about the global flow of crude, and Treasury yields correspondingly fell in the bond market.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.68% from 4.75% late Friday. It, though, remains well above its 3.97% level from before the war with Iran.

Higher yields threaten to undercut prices for stocks and other investments, while slowing the economy by making borrowing more expensive for U.S. households and businesses. The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate has already leaped to its highest level in a year.

Monday’s ease in oil prices helped airlines and other companies with big fuel bills lead the market. United Airlines flew 5.8% higher, while American Airlines climbed 5%. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings steamed 6.6% higher.

Boeing jumped 8% after U.S. regulators certified its 737 MAX-7 planes, clearing them for commercial service.

Tyson Foods rose 2.8% after the meat company reported a slightly stronger profit for the spring than analysts expected. CEO Donnie King said strength is continuing in the company’s chicken business and its prepared foods, which include brands like Jimmy Dean and Hillshire Farm.

It joined a lengthening list of big U.S. companies to deliver a bigger profit for the spring than analysts expected. That’s imperative for Wall Street because stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate earnings over the long term, and worries were rising that U.S. stock prices may have broadly already shot too high.

Companies in the S&P 500 are on track to deliver earnings per share for the spring that are 47% higher than a year before, according to FactSet, with more than half of the companies in the index having already reported. If that ends up being the case, it would be the strongest growth since the spring of 2021, when the economy was roaring out of the COVID pandemic.

Also offering encouragement for profits was a report on Monday showing that growth for U.S. manufacturing accelerated to its strongest level since 2022.

Keeping Wall Street unsettled, though, were swings for stocks of companies that make computer chips. They’ve been veering up and down for weeks on worries about whether their surging revenues because of the artificial-intelligence boom are sustainable.

If AI ends up producing less profit and productivity than hoped, Big Tech companies could curtail their spending sprees on data centers that have helped chip stocks soar to tremendous heights.

Micron Technology went from a drop of 6.4% to a gain of 1.7% through the day before ending with a gain of 0.8%, for example. It’s up roughly 190% for the year so far.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 110.78 points to 7,600.50 and finished just shy of its all-time closing high of 7,609.78. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 693.38 to 53,178.41, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 540.04 to 25,913.90.

The manic swings for AI stocks have been most dramatic in South Korea, where the Kospi index is dominated by just two tech titans, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

Seoul’s Kospi fell 5.1% Monday, coming off Friday’s 17.9% surge that was its best day in history.

In neighboring Japan, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.9% after the United States and Japan confirmed they had moved together to prop up the value of the Japanese yen against the dollar. A stronger yen would help to limit inflation in Japan, but it could also potentially hurt Japan’s exporters.

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AP Writers Matt Ott, Elaine Kurtenbach, Mayuko Ono and Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report.

The pair of aggressive moves was part of more than a dozen swaps that have happened before Monday's 6 p.m. EDT deadline. Most of the biggest names are off the board, but some enticing options still remain, including Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Daulton Varsho.

The Los Angeles Dodgers woke up already looking like the deadline’s biggest winners after adding two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal to a loaded roster Sunday. The Dodgers are chasing a third straight World Series title.

Over in the American League, Tampa Bay was busy, beefing up its rotation Sunday by adding right-hander Freddy Peralta while the New York Yankees acquired young slugger Luis García Jr. to give their Aaron Judge-less lineup a little more pop. Also on Sunday, the Chicago Cubs added Kevin Gausman to their rotation in a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Rutschman gives Red Sox young catching star

Rutschman was the No. 1 overall pick in 2019 out of Oregon State and has largely lived up to the high expectations with five quality seasons with the Baltimore Orioles.

Now he moves to the Red Sox, a person with knowledge of the deal told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the trade hadn't been announced.

Boston started slow this season but revitalized its playoff hopes with a franchise record-tying 15-game winning streak in July. The 28-year-old Rutschman — who is under team control for one more season in 2027 — has had a bounce-back season at the plate with a .762 OPS, which helped him earn his third All-Star nod.

Rutschman is currently on the injured list with left wrist inflammation. He’s also dealt with an ankle injury and a concussion this year.

Arraez an elite contact hitter

Arraez comes from the San Francisco Giants, and he'll be expected to create RBI opportunities for Phillies sluggers Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber.

Arraez is hitting an NL-best .324 in a resurgent season after signing a $12 million, one-year deal with San Francisco early in spring training. The 29-year-old has his highest batting average since 2023, and he's played better defense at second base after questions about his glove hindered his market in free agency.

Schwarber is second in the majors with 33 home runs entering Monday yet ranks 31st with 63 RBIs, while Harper has driven in 66. The team's .304 on-base percentage is the second lowest in the majors.

Philly also got reliever Caleb Kilian back from the Giants in the trade for two minor leaguers, and it swung a separate deal for left-handed reliever Brooks Raley with the New York Mets.

Former Cy Young winner Robbie Ray goes to Padres

The San Diego Padres acquired veteran left-hander Robbie Ray from the San Francisco Giants on Monday in a trade for two prospects.

The Padres have won eight of nine to move one game back of the final wild-card playoff position, and this latest surge in their up-and-down season apparently prompted general manager A.J. Preller to trade yet another chunk of his severely depleted farm system for another chance to win now.

San Diego gave up right-hander Miguel Mendez and 17-year-old shortstop Joniel Hernandez for the 34-year-old Ray, a former Cy Young Award winner who will be an unrestricted free agent this winter. The Padres also got cash in the deal.

Ray is 10-6 with a 3.08 ERA and 107 strikeouts in 122 2/3 innings this season, his third with San Francisco.

Dodgers keep adding

The Dodgers added 2025 All-Star left-hander Kris Bubic from the Royals for minor league right-hander Carlos Duran, a person familiar with the deal told the AP. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the trade hadn't been announced.

Bubic is on the 60-day injured list with shoulder and elbow issues, but the Royals had expected him to return in late-August, which would put him in line to pitch out of the bullpen for Los Angeles during the playoffs. He was an All-Star last season and is 3-2 with a 4.11 ERA in nine starts this season. Duran is 3-2 with a 3.38 ERA for the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate in Oklahoma City.

Los Angeles also traded for backup catcher Ben Rortvedt for the second year in a row. This time, the Dodgers got Rortvedt from the New York Mets for right-hander Chayce McDermott. The 28-year-old Rortvedt hasn’t played in the big leagues this season and wasn’t on the Mets’ 40-man roster.

Other trades of note

— The Pittsburgh Pirates added veteran right-hander Luke Weaver from the New York Mets, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deal who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because it hadn't been announced. Weaver is in the first season of a two-year, $22-million deal. He had been one of the few bright spots this season for the last-place Mets, going 2-1 with a 1.84 ERA with one save in 42 appearances.

— The Seattle Mariners acquired outfielder Taylor Ward from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for minor league right-handers Alex Hoppe, Brock Moore and Harrison Kreiling. Ward, 32, is hitting .246 with seven home runs and 30 RBIs in 111 games. He adds to Seattle’s outfield depth and could make impending free agent and All-Star outfielder Randy Arozarena expendable.

— The Blue Jays bolstered their rotation with an eye on 2027 by acquiring right-hander José Soriano from the Los Angeles Angels for three prospects. The 27-year-old is 9-6 with a 3.29 ERA and has a 3.72 ERA over four big league seasons. He's under team control through 2028. Infielder Arjun Nimmala, a 2023 first-round pick, headlined the minor leaguers going to Los Angeles, along with outfielder Eddie Micheletti Jr. and right-hander Angel Rivero.

— The Cleveland Guardians picked up a power bat and some outfield versatility by adding Jo Adell from the Los Angeles Angels, who received minor league catcher Jacob Cozart. The 27-year-old Adell has 16 homers and 62 RBIs this season, one year after hitting a career-best 37 homers with 98 RBIs. Adell has spent his entire career with the Angels after being the 10th overall pick in the 2017 amateur draft.

— The Tampa Bay Rays added catcher Liam Hicks in a trade with the Miami Marlins, a person familiar with the deal told the AP. The Marlins received prospects RHP Jacob Kisting, SS Adrian Santana and INF Brayden Taylor. Hicks, 27, is in his second big league season and batting .282 with 14 homers and 62 RBIs. He's under team control for the next four seasons.

— The Chicago White Sox acquired outfielder Brenton Doyle from the Colorado Rockies for a pair of prospects. Doyle, who recently came off the injured list due to a bruised oblique, is hitting .214 with a homer and nine stolen bases. He’s won two Gold Glove awards for his work in center field. The Rockies received right-hander Mason Adams and infielder Carlos Vielma.

— Toronto got utility player Josh Smith and minor league right-hander Josh Stephan from Texas for rookie left-hander Adam Macko. Smith, who in 2024 won a Silver Slugger as a utility player, was at Triple-A Round Rock. He went into this season with the chance to be the Rangers’ everyday second baseman, but he hit .213 in 45 games and missed 37 games because of injuries and a bout with viral meningitis.

— The Atlanta Braves acquired veteran left-handed reliever Brent Suter from the Angels for minor league infielder Nacho Alvarez Jr. The 36-year-old Suter provides some bullpen depth for the NL East leaders. He was 1-2 with a 4.12 ERA over 63 1/3 innings in 41 appearances for Los Angeles, and threw at least two innings in 18 of those games.

— The Chicago White Sox added righty reliever Huascar Brazobán from the Mets for minor league right-handers Gabe Davis and Zach Franklin. The 36-year-old Brazobán is 5-2 with a 2.56 ERA over 46 games this season.

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AP Baseball Writer Noah Trister and AP Sports Writers Alanis Thames and Dave Skretta contributed to this story.

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

Today on Texas Eats NOW:

PICNIKINS

6901 Blanco Rd, San Antonio, TX 78216

Picnikins is a San Antonio institution that has been serving scratch-made sandwiches, soups, and salads since 1988. Located just outside of Park North, the patio café has built a loyal following over more than three decades by keeping its menu fresh, approachable, and consistently made from scratch. Owner Haley Sims acquired the restaurant from the original owners roughly two years ago and committed from day one to preserving everything that made the place a neighborhood staple.

The star of the menu is the signature roasted poblano soup, made by slow-roasting fresh poblano peppers, sweating them, and blending them into a thick, velvety, cream-based bowl that carries a steady heat and a bright, clean finish. Also drawing crowds is The Ultimate, the restaurant’s top-selling sandwich built with turkey, bacon, and avocado on a base of cream cheese and mayo. The menu rounds out with the Southwest Burger — topped with house-made tostada aioli, roasted poblanos, caramelized onions, tomatoes, and pepper jack cheese.

For the entire month of August in 2026, mention Texas Eats at checkout to get 20% off your order.

BEST QUALITY DAUGHTER

602 Avenue A, San Antonio, TX 78215

Best Quality Daughter is an Asian-American restaurant at the Historic Pearl, opened in November 2020 by Chef Jennifer Dobbertin. A second-generation Chinese-American, Dobbertin built the concept around the comfort food of her upbringing and her extensive travels, weaving together Chinese, Southeast Asian, and South Texas influences into a menu that she describes as pioneering New Asian-American cuisine.

The kitchen is led by Chef de Cuisine, Alan Nelson, whose team turns out wok-fired dishes with precision and layered flavor. The Drunken Noodle Red Curry Mole is a centerpiece of the menu — wagyu beef flank, wide noodles, and farm-to-table vegetables are brought together with a sauce that merges a Thai curry paste with the earthy depth of mole. The Pork Belly is a favorite as well with 10-hour-braised pork belly in bibb lettuce alongside pickled red onion and red chili. The Impossible Potstickers offer a delicious vegan option stuffed with impossible meat, shiitake mushrooms, ginger, and garlic.

DEAN’S STEAK & SEAFOOD

431 S Alamo St, San Antonio, TX 78205

Dean’s Steak and Seafood is a fine dining steakhouse located inside the Kimpton Santo Hotel in downtown San Antonio, housed within a restored 19th-century schoolhouse. The space retains many of its original architectural details, including a vaulted exposed-wood ceiling, and features a curved oyster bar alongside a wine room and private dining space.

Executive Sous Chef, Andrew Satterwhite, anchors the kitchen around premium Texas beef, including a 14-ounce New York strip sourced from Rosewood Ranch and an eight-ounce filet mignon seasoned with the house signature blend — a proprietary mix of four salts, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion, and additional spices. The Dean’s Signature Steak crowns the filet with lobster claws, Cotija cream, and a red wine jus, while the New York strip arrives alongside a Madagascar shrimp and a Pipian sauce. For dessert, the kitchen sends out a heavenly chocolate cake topped with edible gold flakes and a delectable bread pudding with bourbon caramel, pecans, and vanilla gelato.

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

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Talks between the U.S. and Iran are critical to ending the monthslong conflict and reviving stalled cargo traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway through which about a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed before the war.

Trump, who has made a habit of threatening strikes on Iran only to dangle the prospect of a last-minute diplomatic reprieve, said the negotiations would be the “last chance ” for Iran to forge a deal to reopen the strait and address his concerns about its nuclear program.

But Iran’s foreign ministry said it's negotiating with Oman, not the U.S., prompting Trump to criticize the country’s leadership, which has grown increasingly divided over the war’s endgame.

Whether “Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking," Trump maintained.

Elsewhere, Israel bombed the Gaza Strip and the Syrian president met in Damascus with the Iraqi Kurdish regional leader over security concerns. In Iran, the government executed two men it claimed were Israeli spies.

Here is a look at the most important developments Monday in the Middle East.

Trump announces renewed talks

Trump said Sunday that he decided against carrying out major strikes against Iran at the urging of Gulf allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

He said a plan was in place for U.S. forces to carry out “the biggest attack since World War II,” but he decided to give diplomacy more time after hearing from key Gulf leaders and fielding requests from unnamed Iranian officials. He did not provide further details or say who would be involved in the talks.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry maintained that the country was not currently holding negotiations with the United States.

Esmail Baghaei, an agency spokesperson, said Monday that ongoing talks were with Oman, the country on the other side of the strait, and were focused only on establishing a temporary route for safe navigation through the channel.

Nine vessels transited through the strait Sunday, most of them using an Iranian-controlled route, according to trade data and analytics platform Kpler.

Trump voiced frustration at Iran's public posturing, suggesting the country's leaders begged for the discussions, despite their claims of only wanting to deal with Oman.

“Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous!” the U.S. president vented on Truth Social, his social media platform.

Iran's top delegates head to Iraq and Pakistan

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived Monday in Iraq’s holy city of Najaf to participate in the Arbaeen commemorations, an annual pilgrimage for Shiite Muslims, his office said on social media.

Araghchi’s trip comes as Iraq has been walking a tightrope between Iran and the U.S., an act that has only grown more fraught since the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran in February.

Meanwhile Iran's Minister of Industry, Mines and Trade, Mohammad Atabak, headed Monday to Pakistan for a two-day visit expected to focus in part on ways to ease transit bottlenecks and move more Iranian containers through Pakistani ports during the U.S. naval blockade.

Syrian and Iraqi leaders discuss security concerns

Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Iraq’s Kurdish regional president met Monday in Damascus to discuss ways of improving mutual cooperation and contributing to regional security.

The meeting between al-Sharaa and Nechirvan Barzani came amid regional tensions as Iranian-backed Iraqi militia groups carried out multiple drone strikes targeting American interests across Iraq, including the country’s Kurdish region.

Syrian state media reported last month that authorities at the country’s border with Iraq thwarted an attempt in June to smuggle weapons believed to have been headed to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. Hezbollah denied the charges.

Iran executes 2 men it says spied for Israel

Iran’s judiciary said it executed two men Monday after convicting them of spying for Israel during both last year’s 12-day war and the ongoing conflict.

The judiciary’s Mizan news agency identified the two as Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat, who were accused of providing military coordinates, images and other intelligence used in attacks on Iranian targets. The agency did not specify where the executions took place.

Last week, Iran publicly hanged two men convicted of killing four police officers during nationwide anti-government protests in January.

Gaza official urges Israel to halt attacks

A top official overseeing Gaza’s postwar transition met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, in part to press him to halt military attacks on the territory.

Nikolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza on the Board of Peace, also discussed with Netanyahu the need to decommission all weapons in the enclave, the international body established by the U.S. said in a statement.

An Israeli strike Monday evening hit a car in Gaza City, killing two men, according to Shifa Hospital, where the casualties were taken. Over the weekend, Israeli attacks left at least 17 people dead, including children, according to hospitals in Gaza.

The Israeli military said the weekend strikes targeted militants. It confirmed Monday's strike and said it would release more information later.

Days earlier, the U.S. and Hamas reached a deal to disarm the militant group, a potential step toward ending the war in Gaza.

Gaza residents swelter in tents

Soaring temperatures in Gaza this summer have turned the makeshift tents sheltering hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians into suffocating ovens. Made of plastic sheets, the shelters trap heat during the day and offer little ventilation, forcing many families to spend hours outside.

The extreme weather compounds an already dire humanitarian crisis. With limited access to clean water, electricity and sanitation, residents of the overcrowded camps are at high risk of dehydration, heat-related illnesses and the spread of skin infections, diarrheal diseases and other communicable illnesses, humanitarian agencies warn.

“There is no breeze, nothing,” said Aida Abu Hadeesha, a woman displaced from the town of Rafah, near the border with Egypt. “Our kids are suffering."

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Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece and Boak from Washington. Associated Press reporters Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Philip Marcelo in New York also contributed to this report.

The schools announced Monday they have agreed to a four-game home-and-home series. Notre Dame will play in Los Angeles on Aug. 31, 2030, and the Trojans will visit South Bend, Indiana, on Aug. 30, 2031. The meetings in 2032 and 2033 will be played in the first three weeks of the season.

The teams met each non-pandemic season from 1946-2025, typically in October or November, in what became known as “the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football." The exception was the 2020 season when most schools played a conference-only schedule.

The 2030 date opened up when defending national champion Indiana canceled a home-and-home series with the Irish that was scheduled for 2030 and 2031, a person with knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because no official announcement had been made.

Negotiations between Notre Dame and USC to continue the annual series became challenging after the Trojans joined the Big Ten in 2024. The Trojans expressed that they did not want to play nonconference games after September. Notre Dame beat the Trojans 34-24 in South Bend last Oct. 18, and the series officially went on hiatus in December when the Irish announced they had filled the last open spot on their 2026 schedule with a game at BYU.

Notre Dame and USC first played in 1926 and the Irish lead the series 53-38-5. The series also was put on hold from 1943-45, during World War II.

The two schools have combined to win 22 national championships and produce 15 Heisman Trophy winners, and the discontinuation prompted consternation on both sides. Navy is the only team Notre Dame has played more than USC, at 98 meetings.

Notre Dame and USC play for the Jeweled Shillelagh Trophy, a tradition which began in 1952. The Jeweled Shillelagh Trophy is presented by the Notre Dame Club of Los Angeles. Notre Dame victories are marked by green-jeweled shamrocks while USC victories are marked by ruby-jeweled Trojan heads.

“USC’s historic rivalry with Notre Dame holds a special place in the history of college football, and we are happy to resume a series that means so much to the entire Trojan Family,” USC athletic director Jen Cohen said. “It remains important for us to play this game early in the season, as it allows us to schedule competitively with our Big Ten peers and takes into account the health and best interests of our student-athletes and program. We are excited for our fans, and we look forward to more memorable matchups and unforgettable games between the Trojans and the Irish.”

The Hoosiers and Irish last met in the first CFP playoff to be held at a campus site in December 2024. Notre Dame won 27-17 in South Bend and reached the national championship game before losing to Ohio State 34-23.

In 2021, Indiana and Notre Dame agreed to what was supposed to be the first regular-season game between the two in-state schools since 1991. The Irish have won seven straight in the series with Indiana's last victory coming in 1950.

But since the arrival of coach Curt Cignetti in 2024, Indiana has not played any Power Four schools, or Notre Dame, outside the conference schedule or the playoffs. The Hoosiers drew some criticism last summer when they also canceled a scheduled home-and-home series with Virginia. Indiana responded by winning its first Big Ten title since 1967, the first national championship in school history and by becoming the first 16-0 team in major college football since the 1890s.

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AP Sports Writer Michael Marot in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

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

The fires in and around Spokane, the state’s second-largest city, had burned about 12.5 square miles (about 32 square kilometers) by Monday and filled the sky with smoke and haze. Light winds and lower temperatures arrived to help firefighters, but about 700 buildings had been destroyed and some 67,000 people were under evacuation orders.

In one Spokane neighborhood, blackened vehicles, a boat twisted by the heat and melted plastic recycling bins remained. Across the street, lawns were still green and houses were spared, as residents continued to run hoses or sprinklers to water their properties.

Among those who returned were Miriam and Daniel Sim, both 76. Miriam held her hand over her mouth as she surveyed the ruins of the home where they had lived since 2005.

"It’s like a war zone,” Miriam said. “There’s nothing to save.”

“At our age, do we want to rebuild?” her husband asked.

No deaths or major injuries have been reported so far

Cpl. Mark Gregory, a spokesperson for the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, said the county initially received nearly 300 reports of missing people, but by Monday they had cleared all but 14.

Those outstanding reports more likely represented people who had not been in contact since evacuating than people who were truly missing or in danger, authorities said.

The Spokane-area wildfires were completely uncontained, said Courtney James, a spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

They were among dozens across the Western U.S. stretching the ability of federal, state and local agencies to fight them. At least 390 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) has burned across Washington.

Authorities warned people not to fly drones near the burned areas, saying it could force them to delay aerial firefighting operations.

Homes, cars, possessions lost in flames

Angela and Wayde Deatherage, both 49, evacuated shortly after 3 p.m. Saturday with a son, grabbing a few bins of family photos and heirloom rings but not much else. Roughly 30 minutes later, their security camera was sending fire notifications to Angela’s phone.

Wayde Deatherage took some back roads and returned by early evening. He stopped at the end of the street and called his wife: “Our house is done.”

Deatherage, however, wasn't done with his neighborhood. He propped a hose at another house so it sprayed the property. He called it simple prevention — and it worked. That home survived.

The couple returned to their property Sunday.

“It’s just ash,” Angela Deatherage said of the home where they had lived for nearly 22 years. ”It’s like our house sunk down in the basement. ... There’s just so much loss for so many people.”

Friends and relatives of fire victims posted online appeals for money, clothes and basic necessities. Kory and MacKensie Aspaas were away with their children when the disaster hit.

“They are coming back from being out of town to a life that’s been completely wiped out,” friend Kali Butler said.

Officials said Sunday that the evacuees in Spokane included patients at its U.S. Veterans Affairs hospital. Investigators had yet to determine how the blazes started.

Grassland burns in Idaho, Oregon and Utah

Spokane was hardly the only place struggling to contain fires.

Crews using bulldozers and helicopters continued for a 10th day to fight a fire that has burned nearly 525 square miles (about 1,360 square kilometers) of grassland in western Idaho and eastern Oregon. The area is home to cattle ranches, and authorities said the fire is threatening more than 600 homes and 800 other structures.

The weather in the area was expected to remain sunny and dry well into the week, with temperatures rising to more than 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) on Wednesday. Officials say the fire was caused by lightning.

In central Utah, a massive blaze more than doubled in size over the weekend and was nearly 57 square miles (147 square kilometers) by Monday morning. More than 100 cattle have been killed, according to law enforcement.

Heavy winds helped flames jump containment lines.

The fire was moving north toward Fillmore, a town of about 2,600 people and the seat of Millard County. Mandatory evacuations were ordered Sunday evening for the town's southern portion.

The National Weather Service issued warnings about the air quality across the northwest. It issued red flag fire warnings for parts of Utah and Montana and western Nebraska, and extreme heat warnings for the southern parts of Arizona, California and Nevada and northern Montana.

Spokane sets up shelter for impacted residents

In Spokane, about 400 people were staying at city's main convention center, which was turned into a shelter, officials said.

Spokane Public Schools opened a free emergency drop-in camp for children on Monday. Trials at the county court were pushed to Aug. 10.

Several larger fires continued to burn in less populated areas northwest of Spokane.

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Johnson reported from Seattle. Associated Press writers John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Kathy McCormack in Concord, N.H.; Martha Bellisle in Seattle; and Ed White in Detroit contributed.

Monday's witnesses included doctors who tried to save two of the children and treated Clancy after she jumped from her home's second-floor window following the killings. She remains paralyzed from the waist down.

Two days later, when a forensic psychologist asked how she felt, Clancy responded: “horrified.” She also asked if she had a lawyer and whether her body and legs were broken. She was intubated and could only communicate through written messages on a whiteboard, the psychologist testified.

“She then asked, can she have visitors, and where her family is,” Dr. Jhilam Biswas of Brigham and Women’s Hospital recalled.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

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Witnesses in ensuing days could shed more light on the mental health issues at the heart of the case. Clancy's defense says she was a loving mother who was overmastered by postpartum psychosis, a dangerous psychiatric condition that afflicts a small proportion of women after childbirth and affects their hold on reality.

Prosecutors contend that she acted intentionally and should be held criminally responsible for the deaths of Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy, who ranged in age from 8 months to five years.

Father returns home to a shocking scene

Clancy, 35, wept at the defense table last week as ex-husband Patrick Clancy and other witnesses testified.

He told jurors about returning to a horrible scene at their house: a bloodied bedroom, an open window, his wife on the ground below it, the children in the basement, throttled with exercise bands.

“She killed the kids!” he told a 911 dispatcher on a call played in court.

Dr. Michael Snyder recalled Monday how Cora had no heartbeat and was declared dead soon after arriving at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center-Plymouth. Eight-month-old Callan was “cold on arrival,” “quite limp” and showed signs of brain swelling.

“When he arrived at Plymouth, he was in cardiac arrest,” said Dr. Andrew Capraro of Boston Children’s Hospital, where Callan was transferred. The baby needed a ventilator to help him breathe but did have a heartbeat. He died three days later.

Lindsay Clancy sought help for postpartum depression

Clancy’s lawyers don’t dispute that she killed the children. But in the criminal trial and a medical malpractice lawsuit, her attorneys have said she had bipolar disorder that wasn’t fully diagnosed until after the killings and that her condition seemed to worsen on an ever-shifting lineup of psychiatric prescriptions, some of them problematic for bipolar patients.

In the three months before the killings, various clinicians prescribed Clancy a range of antidepressants, sleep aids, an antipsychotic and other medications while she reported increasingly profound insomnia, anxiety, despair and confusion about what was real, according to her lawsuit.

When she sought care at a postpartum depression program in late December 2022, providers noted that her symptoms might be due to medication, according to her lawsuit. It says those clinicians told her to taper off the antipsychotic drug and then discharged her after a day.

Clancy checked herself into a psychiatric hospital that New Year’s Eve and spent several days there. Once home, she resumed appointments with her psychiatrist, who last saw her for 17 minutes on Jan. 23, 2023, according to her lawsuit.

The next day, she believed a commanding voice was telling her to “kill the children so you can kill yourself,” according to her lawyers.

That evening, she asked her husband to run some errands, a request that prosecutors cast as a ploy to get him out of the house. In a rare site visit this past Friday, jurors passed the businesses to which he went, and then they were escorted through the Cape Cod-style home where the Clancys lived.

Prosecutors will try to keep the spotlight on Clancy

In separate lawsuits, Lindsay and Patrick Clancy allege that various providers failed her and should have recognized she was a risk to herself and the children. The providers, at least those who have responded to date, deny the allegations and dispute that she clearly told them she intended to harm the children.

Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham sought in an opening statement last week to keep jurors' focus on the defendant, not her doctors.

“This is not a public debate about women’s mental health and how the medical system treats women,” Buckingham said.

If convicted of murder, Lindsay Clancy faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state mental health facility.

The president on Monday said that new talks between Washington and Tehran are the “last chance” for Iran to forge a deal and avoid an escalation of U.S. strikes on the country.

Trump, speaking at the Oval Office, said he expects negotiations will focus on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and create a pathway for Iran to address the United States’ concerns about its nuclear program. He told reporters they would likely learn about the status of the negotiations “today or tomorrow.”

“The first phase is the opening of the straits. The second phase will be the denuclearization," the Republican president said. “And that will take a little while.”

While Trump has reveled in the U.S. military decimating layers of Tehran’s leadership and devastating its air force and navy, Iran is betting it can outlast Trump as he faces diminished stockpiles of munitions and the difficulty of executing a war that's unpopular with the American electorate ahead of November’s midterm election.

Trump said he decided to hold off on ordering American forces to carry out new massive strikes against Iran at the urging of Gulf allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

He said a plan was in place for U.S. forces to carry out “the biggest attack since World War II” on Sunday. But he decided to scrap the plan and give diplomacy more time to play out after hearing from key Gulf leaders — including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — as well as at the request of unnamed Iranian officials.

But Trump reiterated that he’s running out of patience with Iran.

“This the last chance for them to sign a good document,” Trump said.

Earlier Monday, Trump had criticized Iran on social media as being “unbelievably duplicitous.”

His ire was raised by Iran claiming that its meetings with Oman on Monday were focused solely on establishing a temporary route for safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for the global oil trade.

“They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg,’ talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with Oman,” Trump grumbled.

Trump said whether “Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking” about preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Trump has threatened to escalate attacks on Iran only to edge away from his threats several times since the start of U.S. and Israel strikes on Feb. 28.

Asked by a reporter how Americans view him repeatedly making grim threats on Tehran before backing away, Trump responded that he’s showing patience out of a consideration for Iranian life.

“I want to give them every last chance before decapitation,” Trump said. He added, “Hopefully, they’ll come to their senses.”

Critics see Trump reaching for a reset button as a pattern

Trump may still come to the conclusion that a massive escalation in the conflict with Iran is necessary.

But critics say his hesitation also might reflect an unspoken understanding inside the administration that U.S. military might alone may not be enough to compel Iran to back down and bring an end to a now monthslong war that Trump had earlier downplayed as a weekslong excursion.

“I think what we’re seeing here is a president who has an approach that’s just rather erratic,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, on CBS News' “Face the Nation.” “At this point, he's trying to get us back to February. And I think if he could — if he had a big reset button he could hit — he would certainly take that option.”

There have been several moments over the course of the conflict when Trump has demonstrated his proclivity for the bellicose only to back off at the last minute, while declaring his threats spurred progress:

— In early April, the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire in an announcement that came less than two hours before a deadline Trump had set for Tehran to capitulate or face attacks on bridges and power plants — strikes he said would mean “a whole civilization will die.”

— After days of dire threats against Iran, Trump announced on May 18 he was holding off on a major planned military strike because “serious negotiations” were underway, crediting Gulf allies for persuading him to show restraint.

— Then in June, Trump threatened on social media to hit Iran “VERY HARD” and seize Iran’s energy base on Kharg Island to "assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets,” only to call off the strikes in another post after claiming that peace negotiations had progressed with high-level Iranian leaders.

Call with Saudi crown prince affected Trump's decision

With this latest episode, Trump suggested that the Saudi crown prince played a particularly important role in him turning away from escalating the fight.

The U.S. president spoke by phone with the de facto leader of the kingdom on Saturday before announcing he was halting planned strikes.

The crown prince conveyed that an escalation in fighting could have a severe impact on the global economy if Tehran responded to a new U.S. bombardment by targeting some of the United States’ Gulf allies, according to a person briefed on the call who was not authorized to comment publicly and insisted on anonymity.

Saudi officials, the person added, have underscored in their engagements with the Trump administration that the kingdom is in a good position to defend itself against further potential Iranian strikes — as are fellow energy titans Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — but that Kuwait could be more vulnerable to attacks by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.

As Trump threatens escalation, Republicans face tough polling

Trump has insisted that November’s midterm elections aren't shaping his approach to the conflict, which has spurred unease across the global economy.

But it's certainly on the minds of his fellow Republicans.

About two-thirds of U.S. adults say the war with Iran has not been worthwhile, according to polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research published last week. That includes the vast majority of Democrats and independents, as well as about 37% of Republicans.

One of Trump's most outspoken allies on Capitol Hill suggested on Sunday the administration needs to modulate its approach on Iran.

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said on NBC's “Meet the Press” that the debate in Washington has lost perspective on the devastation the U.S. military has inflicted on Iran since the start of the war.

Still, the Republican lawmaker acknowledged that further escalating the conflict could lead to another surge in already elevated energy prices and “a lot of inflation for the American people.”

Kennedy made the case that tightening sanctions and targeting Iran's nuclear program — rather than escalating the conflict — might be the best bet for the moment.

“They’re all hellish choices,” Kennedy said. “But for the moment I’d maintain the status quo.”

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AP writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Josh Boak in Washington contributed reporting.

The endorsement from GOP Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis paves the way for the Senate Judiciary Committee to advance Blanche's nomination on Tuesday after the Justice Department and lawmakers reached a deal to formally rescind the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund" proposed to settle Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.

Cornyn and Tillis had refused to back Blanche's bid for the permanent post without official confirmation killing the fund meant to compensate people who believe they were unfairly prosecuted by the Justice Department. Blanche's written order, issued late Sunday, came after the days of negotiations between the Justice Department and the Republican senators who are leaving Capitol Hill when their terms end in January.

“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon," Cornyn, of Texas, and Tillis, of North Carolina, said in a statement.

DOJ order says ‘beyond any doubt’ that fund is dead

Blanche has repeatedly said that the Justice Department was scrapping plans for the fund, which sparked bipartisan outcry over the possibility that violent rioters who attacked police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, could be considered for payments. But skeptical lawmakers said they were concerned that could be revived without a commitment in writing, especially because Trump has continued to defend the idea.

In his order posted on social media late Sunday, Blanche wrote that the department was confirming "beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund.”

Since the settlement of the president's lawsuit against the IRS was announced, “No Members were appointed; no funds were transferred; no process for receiving claims was established; no claims were paid,” the order said. “This order establishes, beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund.”

Cornyn and Tillis had also pressed the Justice Department to limit the scope of a separate piece of the settlement that provided broad immunity for Trump and members of his family from tax audits.

Under the deal, the Justice Department clarified in writing that the tax audit immunity agreement “applies by its terms only retroactively” to claims open at the time of the settlement and does not protect the president from examination of future tax filings. It also makes clear that only the parties that brought the lawsuit — Trump, two of his sons, and the Trump Organization — are covered by the tax agreement.

Cornyn and Tillis said in their statement that they were “pleased” with the concessions made by Blanche.

“From the outset, we were clear that we needed a written document addressing our concerns on the IRS audit agreement and the anti-weaponization fund that included constraining the scope of audit protection by limiting it to the parties of the Settlement Agreement and legally ending the anti-weaponization fund," they wrote.

Democrats, however, noted that the order rescinding the fund doesn't stop the Trump administration from compensating Jan. 6 rioters through a previously established process that allows people to file claims for damages if they believed they were wronged by the government.

“This supposed ‘deal’ doesn’t prevent payouts to violent insurrectionists in the future,” Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said in a social media post. Schiff added that it also “leaves in place a tax-immunity deal that could help Trump skip taxes on the $2.3 billion he made last year, and still leaves it vague who and what is covered.”

Cornyn, Tillis echo GOP colleagues' concerns as they b

locked Blanche nomination

Blanche’s nomination was thrown into doubt last week after the Judiciary Committee postponed a vote that had been scheduled for Thursday morning as Tillis and Cornyn said they needed more from the administration before they could provide the necessary votes.

After the Thursday vote was delayed, Trump said in a social media post that he might pull Blanche’s nomination and resubmit it after Cornyn and Tillis leave office next year. And on Saturday the president threatened to push forward with the fund if the two Republicans blocked Blanche's nomination.

On Sunday evening, Trump said that people who had faced charges from the Jan. 6, attack on the Capitol and could have benefited from the fund had “their lives destroyed.”

“This would be a reimbursement for the pain that they suffered,” Trump said. “A lot of people like it.”

Blanche, who served as Trump’s defense lawyer in his criminal cases, entered the Justice Department last year as deputy attorney general. He was elevated to the top post after Pam Bondi was fired in April by Trump, who was frustrated by her failure to successfully prosecute his political enemies.

Though Blanche insisted he wasn’t auditioning for the permanent job, he has moved quickly since taking the reins of the department to promote the Trump administration’s agenda and accelerate investigations into the president’s perceived foes.

Eligibility. The Sweepstakes is open only to legal U.S. residents residing in Sponsor’s Designated Market Area, as defined by Nielsen Media Research, Inc. (“DMA”). Interested entrants must appear at Co-Sponsor site within designated time to be eligible. Giveaway is open to adults age 18 and older, and to children age 5 and older. Children must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. Limit four (4) backpacks per family/household. While supplies last; no substitutions. Employees of Sponsor and Co-Sponsor and each of their respective parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, advertising agencies, promotion agencies, prize suppliers, and any other vendors providing services in connection with this Sweepstakes and members of these employees’ immediate families (spouses, parents, children, grandparents, grandchildren, and siblings and their spouses) and those living in the same household with these employees, are not eligible to enter or win.

How To Enter. The Sweepstakes begins at 12:00 p.m. on Friday, August 7, 2026 and runs through the duration of availability on the same day. (the “Sweepstakes Period”). Sponsor’s time clock will be the official time clock of the Sweepstakes. To enter, you must appear at the designated Co-Sponsor site and be among the first one hundred entrants. Limit one entry per person during the Sweepstakes Period and limit four (4) backpacks per family/household . Any attempt by any entrant to obtain more than the stated number of entries using multiple identities, or any other methods will void such entries and that entrant may be disqualified if discovered by Sponsor.

Selection of Winners. The first one hundred potential winners will be selected by a KSAT representative according to time of arrival at Co-Sponsor site on Friday, August 7, 2026.

Odds. The odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries.

Winner Notification and Verification. Potential winners will be awarded the backpack on Friday, August 7, 2026, beginning at 12:00 p.m. subject to verification of eligibility and compliance with these Official Rules. A POTENTIAL PRIZE WINNER IS NOT A WINNER UNTIL HIS OR HER ELIGIBILITY AND COMPLIANCE WITH THESE OFFICIAL RULES HAS BEEN VERIFIED BY THE SPONSOR. If a printing, programming, or other error leads to more prize claims than there are prizes provided for in the Official Rules, prize(s) will be awarded in a random drawing from among all eligible prize claims received at each prize tier.

Prize(s) One backpack to the first one hundred entrants at Co-Sponsor site. Approximate Retail Value (“ARV”) of prize: $10.00. ARV of all prizes: $1000.00 Unless otherwise stated, subject to winner verification and compliance with these Official Rules, all prizes will be awarded on site directly to winning entrant. Sponsor and Co-Sponsor are not responsible for loss, delay, or damage. There will be no substitution, transfer, or cash equivalent for prizes, except at the sole discretion of Sponsor, which may substitute prizes of comparable value. Limit one prize per person and per household. Payments of all federal, state, and local taxes related to the award of the prize are solely the responsibility of the winner. Prizes may not be sold, bartered, or auctioned. Prize is awarded “as is” with no warranty or guarantee, either express or implied. All properly claimed prizes will be awarded provided a sufficient number of eligible entries are received, but in no event will Sponsor award more prizes than are provided for in the Official Rules. Unclaimed prizes will not be awarded.

Disclaimer and Representations. Each winner assumes all liability for any injuries or damages caused or claimed to be caused by winner’s participation in the Sweepstakes and/or the acceptance and/or use of any prize, and releases the Sponsor and Co-Sponsor and their respective parent companies, subsidiaries, and affiliates, and all of their officers, directors, agents, and employees (collectively, “Releasees”), from any such liability. Releasees are not responsible for: the failure of any entry to be received by the Sponsor because of electronic device errors or failures of any kind, internet disruption, telecommunications, network, electronic, telephone or mobile service outages, delays, busy signals, or any equipment malfunctions or other technical difficulties that may prevent the Sponsor from receiving any entry submission; entries that are illegible, unintelligible, incomplete, stolen, misdirected, garbled, delayed by computer transmissions, lost, late or damaged; any injury or damage to the entrant’s or any other person’s electronic device related to or resulting from participation or accessing or downloading any materials related to the Sweepstakes; or any human errors, any inaccurate transcription of entry information, errors in any promotional or marketing materials or errors in these Official Rules. If you choose to enter using your mobile phone, standard message and data rates may apply.

Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any individual from participation in the Sweepstakes if Sponsor concludes, in its sole discretion, that such person: (a) has attempted to tamper with the entry process or other operation of the Sweepstakes; (b) has failed to comply with or has attempted to circumvent these Official Rules; (c) has committed fraud or attempted to undermine the legitimate operation of the Sweepstakes; or (d) has acted toward Sponsor, any other entity affiliated with the Sweepstakes, or any other entrant in an unfair, inequitable, threatening, disrupting, or harassing manner. If a dispute arises regarding compliance with these Official Rules, Sponsor may consider, in its sole discretion, data reasonably available to Sponsor through information technology systems in Sponsor’s control, but Sponsor will not be obligated to consider any data or other information collected from any other source. Any failure by Sponsor to enforce any of these Official Rules will not constitute a waiver of such Official Rules. If there is a conflict between any term of these Official Rules and any marketing or entry materials used in connection with the Sweepstakes, the terms of these Official Rules will govern.

Sponsor also reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to modify these Official Rules for clarification purposes without materially affecting the terms and conditions of the Sweepstakes. Sponsor reserves the right to cancel, terminate or modify the Sweepstakes if an insufficient number of entries are received or if the Sweepstakes is not capable of running as planned, including, without limitation, as a result of infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, or technical failures of any sort, or for any reason beyond Sponsor’s control. If due to circumstances beyond the control of the Sponsor, any event related to the Sweepstakes or prize is delayed, rescheduled, postponed, cancelled or has a change of venue, the Sponsor reserves the right, but is not obligated, to cancel or modify the Sweepstakes. Notice of cancellation or modification of the Sweepstakes will be published on Sponsor’s website. If cancellation occurs prior to Sponsor’s receipt of any entries, Sponsor will not be obligated to award prize(s). If cancellation occurs after Sponsor’s receipt of entries, winner(s) will be selected by random drawing from among all eligible, non-suspect entries received prior to cancellation, provided Sponsor is able to do so.

Entry constitutes permission (except where prohibited by law) to use winner’s name, home city and state, likeness and/or voice for commercial purposes including advertising, promotion and publicity without additional compensation. The winner’s name and city of residence may be posted online and disclosed to those who make a timely request for a winners list.

By accessing these Official Rules or entering the Sweepstakes on ksat.com , you are deemed to agree to be bound by ksat.com’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

In Case of Dispute. EXCEPT WHERE PROHIBITED, ENTRANTS AGREE THAT ALL DISPUTES, CLAIMS AND CAUSES OF ACTION ARISING OUT OF OR CONNECTED WITH THIS PROMOTION, OR PRIZE AWARDED, WILL BE RESOLVED INDIVIDUALLY WITHOUT RESORT TO ANY FORM OF CLASS ACTION, AND ALL CLAIMS, JUDGMENTS, AND AWARDS WILL BE LIMITED TO ACTUAL OUT-OF-POCKET COSTS INCURRED BY ENTRANT WITH REGARD TO THIS PROMOTION, BUT IN NO EVENT SHALL DAMAGES INCLUDE ATTORNEYS’ FEES, PUNITIVE, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR OTHER DAMAGES. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation, and enforceability of these Official Rules, or the rights and obligations of entrants and Sponsor(s) in connection with the Sweepstakes will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of state where the Sponsor is located as set forth below (“State”), without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules or provisions that would cause the application of the laws of any other jurisdiction. The state and federal courts located in the State will be the exclusive forum for any dispute relating to these Official Rules and/or this Sweepstakes. All entrants and winner(s) agree, by their participation in the Sweepstakes, to submit to the personal jurisdiction of the state and federal courts in the State and waive the right to sweepstakes jurisdiction.

Severability: If any provision(s) of these Official Rules are held to be invalid or unenforceable, all remaining provisions hereof will remain in full force and effect.

Sponsor/Administrator: Graham Media Group, Michigan, Inc. d/b/a KSAT-TV 1408 N. St. Mary’s Street, San Antonio, TX 78215

Co-Sponsor: J. Perez Law, PLLC, 1712 Buena Vista Street, San Antonio, TX 78207

Aryana Trevino Martinez was pronounced dead just after 12:10 a.m. Monday, according to the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Officers responded to a report of a missing child around 8 p.m. Sunday in the 4700 block of Allegheny Drive, which is located not far from Babcock Road.

According to an SAPD preliminary report, Martinez’s relatives told SAPD that she wandered away from home.

A search quadrant was subsequently implemented and “multiple resources” were deployed.

At around 12:01 a.m. Monday, officers said Martinez was found unresponsive in a brush area near the 4700 block of Allegheny Drive, where she was last seen.

An SAPD investigator on the scene told KSAT that Martinez was located in an overgrown, water-filled creek area behind Belle Ellen.

Martinez was later pronounced dead, the report said. Her cause and manner of death remain under investigation.

Though it’s unclear how Martinez ended up in the water, the investigator said she was captured on video walking alone in an alley before her death.

The AMBER Alert issued for Martinez was canceled around 3 a.m. Monday, according to SAPD and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Authorities are seeking additional video to rule out whether Martinez was with anyone else. SAPD said its investigation is ongoing.

Read also:

• 16-year-old La Vernia HS student killed in rollover crash, police say

Nikolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza, held “constructive and detailed” talks with the prime minister and his team, the Board of Peace said in a statement.

“The goal is clear and is not in question: the complete decommissioning of weapons in the Strip and the transition away from rule by the gun to civilian governance,” it said.

According to two people familiar with the meeting, Mladenov also pressed Netanyahu to halt Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip. Mladenov and his team, including senior adviser Aryeh Lightstone, are pressuring Israel to stop striking Gaza as they push ahead with the agreement to decommission the weapons held by Hamas.

President Donald Trump announced the agreement, which is part of a broader ceasefire deal reached last year, late Thursday. It called for Israel to cease its military operations and for Hamas and its allies in Gaza to halt all militant activity. The agreement also laid out in general terms what the decommission process would look like.

After the text of the agreement was released, Israel said it had “serious security concerns” and that it shared those with the United States.

It also ramped up its strikes in Gaza, killing 17 people overnight Saturday and into Sunday, according to local health officials. There were no recorded airstrikes in Gaza on Monday.

Israeli attacks have killed 1,250 people since the ceasefire deal was reached in October, an agreement that ended major fighting in a war that had raged for two years.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.

Israel's military offensive in Gaza has since killed 73,375 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Its figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants but they are considered generally reliable by the United Nations and other international organizations.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.

Arraez is batting a National League-best .324 with four homers and 47 RBIs with an .801 OPS. He’s a four-time All-Star and, of importance in the free-swinging Phillies lineup, is a contact hitter who rarely strikes out.

He has struck out just 236 times over his eight-year career.

Arraez has 25 walks to 21 strikeouts this season. The Phillies .304 on-base is second worst in the majors, only ahead of the New York Mets.

The Phillies also acquired right-hander reliever Caleb Kilian in the trade in exchange for minor league right-handed pitchers Ramon Marquez and Marty Gair.

The Giants are 47-65 and have been of baseball’s bigger disappointments.

The Phillies also struck a separate deal for Mets left-hander Brooks Raley in exchange for minor league right-handed pitcher Luke Gabrysh and minor league outfielder John Spikerman.

Raley has a 5-5 record with a 1.96 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 45 games. His 1.96 ERA is tied for the fourth-lowest mark in the majors among left-handed relievers and 35 appearances this season have been scoreless.

Arraez's arrival means a major shift in the defensive core lineup

Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said Arraez will play second base, triggering a defensive shuffle that will move Bryce Harper back to right field.

Bryson Stott will move from second base to third, and third baseman Alec Bohm will shift to first, where Harper has played since returning from Tommy John surgery on his right elbow in 2023.

Arraez is eligible for free agency at the end of the season, so Harper's move to right could be a temporary change and one that allows for the Phillies to put out their best offensive lineup.

Philly has a big gap to catch the Braves in the NL East

The Phillies entered Monday’s game against Washington at 59-53 and hold one of the final NL wild-card spots. They are eight games back of Atlanta in the NL East.

Arreaz led the National League in hits the past two seasons and had signed a $12 million, one-year contract this season with the Giants. He spent his first five major league seasons with the Minnesota Twins before they traded him to the Miami Marlins in January 2023. San Diego acquired him in May 2024.

Harper challenged team president Dave Dombrowski to upgrade the roster, and he came out swinging with deals that — while not at the level of the Dodgers trading for Tarik Skubal — showed the Phillies are serious about staying in the playoff hunt and making a World Series push in October.

___

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

That’s why GMSA is teaming up with J. Perez Law, PLLC to help local families kick off the school year strong with a Back to School Backpack Giveaway — and you’re invited!

🎒What’s happening:

We’re giving away 100 backpacks to help make sure the kiddos have what they need to head back to class feeling confident and ready.

And trust us — GMSA Anchor Japhanie Gray will be bringing the energy. She’ll have the crowd hyped better than any school pep squad.📣

🕛When:

• Friday, August 7, 2026
• Line starts: 11:00 a.m.
• Giveaway begins: 12:00 p.m.

👥Who is eligible:

• Giveaway is open to adults age 18 and older, and to children age 5 and older. Children must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. Limit four (4) backpacks per family/household. While supplies last; no substitutions.

📍Where:

J. Perez Law, PLLC - 1712 Buena Vista Street, San Antonio, TX 78207

👏🏻Big thanks:

Special thanks to J. Perez Law, PLLC for stepping up to help families in our community be Back-to-School Ready. School starts soon, and every backpack (and every little boost) makes a big difference.

View official rules of the giveaway here.

We’ll see you there — bring your best pep-rally vibes, and let’s send these students into the new school year prepared and proud.

Two photographs published with the announcement showed Suu Kyi shaking hands with Arnaud de Baecque, the ICRC’s representative to Myanmar, and meeting with him in a wood-paneled room.

The Presidential Press and Information Bureau, which released the photographs, said the meeting was held Monday morning but did not disclose the location or provide details about what was discussed.

The ICRC confirmed in a statement on Monday that one of its delegates visited Suu Kyi under its standards and procedures for visiting people deprived of liberty, and spoke with her in private, but it did not disclose details of the discussion.

The organization said it continues to engage with all relevant actors to maintain and expand its access to places of detention in Myanmar.

Two other photographs showed Suu Kyi cutting a pink birthday cake bearing the inscription, “Happy Birthday Aunty Suu,” suggesting they may have been taken during a celebration for her 81st birthday in June.

In the photos, Suu Kyi appeared relaxed and was smiling. She did not show any obvious signs of ill health, although her physical condition could not be independently assessed from the images.

The release came as calls are growing from other countries, including Myanmar's fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, for access to or engagement with Suu Kyi as part of efforts to resolve the country's political crisis.

Kim Aris, her younger son living in London, and Myanmar democracy activists have been waging an online campaign to demand evidence that his mother is alive and well.

In a statement sent to the AP, Aris welcomed the reported ICRC visit, saying it could mark the first positive development concerning his mother in more than five years.

“This may be a first step, but it must not be the last,” Aris said.

He thanked governments, the international community and supporters for standing with his family and backing his campaign to seek proof of his mother’s well-being, while stressing that he had not yet received independent confirmation of her condition.

He said he hoped the visit would lead to direct family contact and her eventual release together with all political prisoners.

Suu Kyi was detained Feb. 1, 2021, when the army seized power from her elected government. She has not been seen publicly since then, and the last official photo of her released was in April, when she was moved from prison to house arrest and her sentence was reduced as part of a prisoner amnesty for a Buddhist holiday.

The country's military leaders, who have faced sanctions and widespread international isolation since seizing power in 2021, have sought to project a return to normalcy by holding a 2025 election and increased engagement with regional neighbors.

However, critics say the transition to a nominally elected government largely composed of former generals and holdovers from the previous military-led government has done little to change the military’s grip on power.

Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for the opposition National Unity Government, said the ICRC’s meeting with Suu Kyi shouldn’t be taken as a real move to address human rights or democracy issues.

“Since, from the outset, a country’s leader was wrongfully arrested and imprisoned by finding faults where there were none, she must be released without any conditions,” he said.

The United Nations welcomed the ICRC visit and reiterated its call “for the swift and unconditional release of all those arbitrarily detained as a fundamental step toward conditions conducive to a credible and transparent political process."

U.N. deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said Secretary-General António Guterres stresses the importance of a dialogue between all Myanmar parties and his special envoy Julie Bishop on how the U.N., the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and other key players can help peacefully resolve the current conflict.

Police who responded to the shooting found the body of the suspected gunman in an area near the restaurant, Twin Falls city public information officer Josh Palmer said. He did not know if the suspect was included in the fatality count.

Officials were still working on notifying the family members of victims and so were not yet releasing the names, ages or other details about the people hurt in the shooting, Palmer said. Some of the people injured are in critical condition, Palmer said.

Police were still trying to determine the shooter's identity and motive, Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said in a news conference earlier Saturday.

“We believe the threat to the community is over,” Hicks said. “It was a very chaotic scene.”

Palmer said investigators were still interviewing witnesses to the shooting. The restaurant is in a busy shopping plaza, and hundreds of people were in the area when it happened around 2 p.m.

Lane Koehn, 34, said he was at a stoplight near the In-N-Out when he saw a person with an AR-style rifle emerge from the drive-thru. A man with a pistol started firing at the shooter.

He then saw someone in an In-N-Out uniform drag a person, also uniformed, bleeding from a gunshot wound in her chest across the parking lot. The employee, Koehn and the man with the pistol stayed until paramedics arrived for her.

“She was pretty bad off, but I don’t know. I hope she made it,” Koehn said.

Koehn said he was told by police to evacuate because the shooting was still active.

He also said the shooter fired at least three or four rounds and it was not clear whether or not anyone in particular was targeted.

Video taken by a driver from across the street captured a shooter, who appeared to be dressed in black, walking up to a white car carrying a long rifle, opening the driver-side door and popping the trunk. The person then walked to the trunk and reached inside. At that point the driver who shot the video left quickly, fearing that the man might be getting more weapons.

Twin Falls resident Haley Dodaro, 43, and her mother went to In-N-Out for lunch Saturday afternoon. While waiting in the drive-thru line, they saw people running across the road and workers bolting out of the restaurant. At first Dodaro thought there might have been a fire, but then a man directing traffic in a reflective vest said there was a shooter.

“So that’s when we knew there was a shooting. People were running out crying and screaming. It was very scary,” Dodaro said in a text message to The Associated Press.

Nayeli Rodriguez, 40, of Burley, was inside waiting for food with her daughters when she heard shots from the kitchen. An employee said it was a shooting and told people to get down. Rodriguez said an older man tried to protect her and her daughters, and they were among the last to run outside.

“We were trying to get as far as we could and some angels let us in their car,” Rodriguez said, also via text message. “I left my car there in the parking lot.”

The In-N-Out opened just about a week earlier, on July 24, as part of the company’s recent expansion to Idaho.

Police said multiple people were taken to St. Luke's Magic Valley Medical Center. Hospital spokesperson Taylor Marschner said in a statement that it was “working closely with law enforcement and emergency responders as they manage the situation.”

Twin Falls, a city of about 56,000 people, is about 130 miles (205 kilometers) southeast of Boise and about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of the Nevada border.

___

Bellisle reported from Seattle and Raza from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

___

This story was first published on Aug. 1. It was updated on Aug. 3 to correct that Twin Falls is about 40 miles, not 75 miles, north of the Nevada border.

Investigators are confident that the gunman, identified as 24-year-old Chad Williams, acted alone during the shooting Saturday at an In-N-Out location in Twin Falls, Police Chief Matthew Hicks said at a news conference.

In all, four people died, including Williams, and seven others were injured at the recently opened restaurant in the southern Idaho city of about 56,000 people. Authorities said Sunday that two of the injured were treated at a hospital and released, three were listed as stable, and two were in critical condition.

Hicks said an off-duty state trooper and an armed citizen — whose identities weren't immediately disclosed — both fired back and diverted the gunman from the restaurant.

“We believe their actions helped drive the suspect away from the scene, preventing further casualties,” the chief said. “We want to take a moment and commend the actions of the off-duty officer and the citizen, and their heroic action to stop this incident.”

Hicks said detectives are working to determine Williams' motives, and said the suspect's family was cooperating fully with law enforcement. Officials asked potential witnesses or anyone with information to contact police.

The chief also warned of misinformation spreading online identifying a different man as the shooter, saying that person had “no involvement in this incident whatsoever.”

In-N-Out worker among the victims

One of those killed was an employee, the fast-food chain’s owner said.

“My heart is broken, my chest is heavy, my eyes burn from the tears I've shed. We lost one of our beautiful Associates tonight,” In-N-Out owner Lynsi Snyder said in a statement released early Sunday on social media. “In-N-Out will be mourning with the families and praying for them as they tread through a very painful season.”

The FBI on Sunday encouraged the public to submit images and videos related to the shooting Saturday in Twin Falls that left seven other people wounded, some critically.

The In-N-Out had opened just about a week earlier, on July 24, as part of the California-based company’s recent expansion to Idaho.

Snyder did not identify the worker. Officials were still trying to notify relatives of victims and so were not yet releasing the names, ages or other details about the people hurt in the shooting, Twin Falls spokesperson Josh Palmer said Saturday.

Police who responded to the shooting found the body of the suspected gunman in an area near the restaurant, Palmer said.

Palmer said investigators were interviewing witnesses to the shooting. The restaurant is in a busy shopping plaza, and hundreds of people were in the area when it happened around 2 p.m.

Witnesses describe chaotic scene

Lane Koehn, 34, said he was at a stoplight near the In-N-Out when he saw a person with an AR-style rifle emerge from the drive-thru. A man with a pistol started firing at the shooter.

He then saw someone in an In-N-Out uniform drag a person, also wearing a uniform, bleeding from a gunshot wound to her chest across the parking lot. The employee, Koehn and the man with the pistol stayed until paramedics arrived for her.

“She was pretty bad off, but I don’t know. I hope she made it,” Koehn said.

He said the shooter fired at least three or four rounds and it was not clear whether or not anyone in particular was targeted.

Video taken by a driver from across the street captured a shooter, who appeared to be dressed in black, walking up to a white car carrying a long rifle, opening the driver-side door and popping the trunk. The person then walked to the trunk and reached inside. At that point the driver who shot the video left quickly, fearing that the man might be getting more weapons.

Twin Falls resident Haley Dodaro, 43, and her mother went to In-N-Out for lunch Saturday afternoon. While waiting in the drive-thru line, they saw people running across the road and workers bolting out of the restaurant. At first, Dodaro thought there might have been a fire, but then a man directing traffic in a reflective vest said there was a shooter.

“So that’s when we knew there was a shooting. People were running out crying and screaming. It was very scary,” Dodaro said in a text message to The Associated Press.

Employee told people to get down

Nayeli Rodriguez, 40, of Burley, was inside waiting for food with her daughters when she heard shots from the kitchen. An employee said it was a shooting and told people to get down. Rodriguez said an older man tried to protect her and her daughters, and they were among the last to run outside.

“We were trying to get as far as we could and some angels let us in their car,” Rodriguez said, also via text message. “I left my car there in the parking lot.”

Twin Falls is about 130 miles (205 kilometers) southeast of Boise and about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of the Nevada border.

___

This story was first published on Aug. 2. It was updated on Aug. 3 to correct that Twin Falls is about 40 miles, not 75 miles, north of the Nevada border.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said both people had underlying health conditions that may have been impacted by the intestinal illness and dehydration. The department said it would not provide additional information about the deaths.

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

The CDC says the illness, called cyclosporiasis, is rarely deadly.

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

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

Previously, 2019 saw the most reported U.S. cyclosporiasis cases, with about 4,700.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it is aware of more than 18,000 confirmed or suspected cases in the current surge. But CDC numbers can lag state reports, which suggest the number is more than 20,000 nationwide

Federal health officials have identified lettuce from Mexico served at Taco Bell locations in nine states as a source of the widespread outbreak. As of late July, the number of cases linked to the lettuce was 1,947, including at least 98 people who had to be hospitalized, according to the CDC.

The agency has said other “brands, restaurants, retailers, or distribution channels” could be tied to the outbreak as the investigation continues.

___

Associated Press reporter Mike Stobbe in New York City contributed.

White families make up most of the participants so far, as do those considered low-income, the comptroller’s office noted in the report released Monday. The report did not say how many students previously attended private school or received home schooling, although earlier data showed that 57% of families invited to the program fell into that category.

While it appears unlikely that the majority of first-year voucher recipients will come from public schools, the largest numbers of participating families live within the boundaries of some of the state’s most populous districts — with Houston, Dallas and Northside in the San Antonio area leading the way.

“No Texas child should be trapped in a failing school or forced to attend a school that is unable to provide the services they need to address disabilities such as dyslexia, dysgraphia or auditory processing disorders,” newly appointed Comptroller Don Huffines said in a statement. “I am committed to improving and growing this program so every Texas child can have the opportunity to reach their dreams.”

Texas invested $1 billion in the program, making it one of the largest in the country. Republican state leaders made several key promises when it became law: that it would primarily benefit students with disabilities, those from low-income families and those longing to escape their neighborhood public schools.

However, state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, an Austin Democrat running against Huffines in November, said the first voucher report  “proves this program is a billion-dollar handout to exclusive private schools concentrated in big cities, while public schools across the state are underfunded and closing at an alarming rate.”

As the program rolls out for the upcoming school year, children with disabilities make up roughly 24% of students, while pre-K families comprise 11% of participants, the most of any grade level.

And of the more than 122,000 families invited to participate, 85,344 accepted as of July 29. More than 121,000 students are on a waitlist.

Final numbers could change because some families have yet to accept or decline their invitations, according to the comptroller’s office. They had a July 15 deadline to do so. Participating private schools had until July 31 to confirm their enrollment.

Senate Bill 2 — the Texas law creating the education savings accounts, or ESAs — required that the comptroller’s office submit an annual report to legislators summarizing demographic information of participating students by Aug. 1. Huffines, a former Republican state senator, was sworn in as the state’s new finance chief the same day.

Most participating Texans with children in private schools will receive about $10,500 annually. Home-schoolers can receive up to $2,000 per year. Children with disabilities qualify for up to $30,000 — an amount based on what it would cost to educate that child in a public school.

When lawmakers debated the program last year, Republicans argued that vouchers would benefit all Texans — not just white and wealthy families. Democrats worried that ESAs would drain resources from public schools as state funding is tied to attendance.

The state considered roughly 274,000 applicants in order of priority:

• Students with disabilities and their siblings in families with an annual income at or below 500% of the federal poverty level, which includes a four-person household earning less than roughly $165,000 a year (12% of applicants).
• Families at or below 200% of the poverty level, which includes a four-person household earning less than roughly $66,000 (32% of applicants).
• Families between 200% and 500% of the poverty level (29% of applicants).
• Families at or above 500% of the poverty level (22% of applicants). These families collectively can receive up to $200 million of the program’s total budget. Children who attended public school for at least 90% of the prior school year will receive priority within this group (5% of applicants).

Monday’s report does not include finalized numbers, though the early returns show that families in the first two tiers received the majority of the funding so far. About 68,000 students come from low-income households, 17,300 come from low-to-middle income families, and fewer than 30 come from the wealthiest group.

Roughly 41% of participating students are white; 28% are Hispanic; and 14% are Black. By comparison, 24% of Texas public school students are white; 53% are Hispanic; and 13% are Black.

About 60% of public school students are considered low-income, defined as a family of four earning $61,050 or less annually.

Officers responded to the crash at approximately 11 a.m. in the 22800 block of Hardy Oak Boulevard, which is located near Sable Canyon.

The woman attempted to exit a neighborhood and travel southbound on Hardy Oak Boulevard. However, SAPD said a teenage driver traveling northbound crashed into her.

After the collision, officers said the woman was trapped in her vehicle. Authorities were able to pull her out of the vehicle to perform life-saving measures. Police said the woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the woman’s cause and manner of death.

The teenager is expected to be OK. Police said she was taken to a local hospital for further treatment.

Officers estimated that Hardy Oak Boulevard could be closed for the next two hours.

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• 2-year-old girl who was subject of AMBER Alert found dead on Northwest Side

In a news release, the constable’s office said Ryan McKnight died while on a “personal outing” in Uvalde County.

The drowning happened near the Cooksey Dam, Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco said in a Facebook post.

McKnight’s work with the constable’s office involved investigating illegal dumping, environmental violations and other quality of life offenses.

“Ryan was much more than our Environmental Crimes Investigator — he was a valued member of our Constable’s Office family. He approached every assignment with dedication, integrity, and a servant’s heart,” Constable Paul Easterling said in the release.

McKnight also supported school districts in Caldwell County.

“Whether he was working alongside our deputies, assisting another law enforcement agency, supporting a volunteer fire department, or participating in programs with Prairie Lea ISD or Lockhart ISD, Ryan was always willing to help,” Easterling said. “His passing is a tremendous loss to our office, our public safety partners, the school communities we served, and the citizens of Caldwell County. We are grateful for Ryan’s service, his friendship, and the lasting impact he made on our office and this community.”

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and Uvalde County sheriff’s deputies assisted in locating McKnight.

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• 16-year-old La Vernia HS student killed in rollover crash, police say

The 30-year-old construction worker ended up curling up with other Cubans on the city's sea wall, the Malecón, in a desperate attempt to escape the suffocating summer heat during yet another islandwide blackout.

Sunday night marked the sixth islandwide blackout since Trump administration effectively cut Cuba off from oil — its main energy source — in January. The move plunged the endemically crisis-stricken country into free-fall. While authorities on Monday said they were working to get the power back on, much of the island still had no electricity.

The energy grid collapses have left people like Ríos García with fewer options to get by as the U.S. maintains its pressure campaign against the communist-led government.

"Things are only getting worse. Tomorrow it’ll collapse again ... and we’ll be back to sleeping on the Malecón,” said Ríos García, who used a piece of yellow foam as a pillow to cushion his head from the tough concrete.

The recurring power outages combined with the stifling heat have created collective insomnia on the island as residents struggle to get through the night. While some like Ríos García have slept on the boulevard, others struggle to get some rest on balconies and front porches.

The day of the latest blackout on Sunday, the temperature hit 93 degrees Fahrenheit (34 Celsius), but ended up feeling like 106 F when combined with the Caribbean's 80% humidity levels.

It marks just one of a growing number of struggles on the Caribbean island where day-to-day life has grown increasingly difficult since the U.S. threatened to impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide it with oil. That was a debilitating blow after decades of U.S. economic sanctions, with the island's infrastructure crumbling and a surge in migration.

Multiple outages since March

Sunday's latest total blackout confirmed by the state-run energy company came after sweeping outages across western Cuba, including the cities of Pinar del Río, Matanzas and Havana the day before.

Energy authorities reported two nationwide grid collapses in March and three in July, along with several partial outages.

Rolling blackouts now last more than 20 hours a day. Obtaining gas and basic goods have become daylong endeavors. Cubans worry about precious food like frozen chicken rotting in their fridges without power. The island’s once bustling tourism industry has bottomed out, leaving even fewer with a source of income allowing them to get by. With little fuel, public transportation in Havana has effectively collapsed. Hospitals have been left reeling and have sought to install solar panels to keep the lights on.

Cubans have long displayed a characteristic resilience to hardship, adapting to twists and turns and unexpected shortages after decades of living under a U.S. trade embargo. But in recent months and years, a sense of hopelessness has increasingly gripped those still remaining on the island.

Among them was 30-year-old physical education teacher Elaine Delis Ramos, who curled up next to loved ones on the boardwalk on top of a thick blanket in search of a breeze.

“Just when we start hoping (the energy grid) wouldn't collapse again, there it goes again," she said. “We don’t have any solution.”

• 100° TODAY?: If we do, it’ll only be the second time this year
• HAZY SKY: Smoke has traveled all the way from Washington, no significant impact to air quality
• RIVER FLOWS REMAIN HIGH: Area rivers still moving fast
• ANY MORE RAIN? Spotty sea breeze showers possible late this week

FORECAST

TRIPLE DIGITS

99 or 100? Does it matter? Only when it comes to stat keeping. Should we hit the triple-digit mark today, it would only be the second time this year. Year-to-date, we are faring much better than in previous years.

SMOKE FROM WHERE?!

Skies will be mostly sunny, but a bit hazy. That’s because wildfire smoke, which has traveled ALL the way from Oregon and Washington, will be suspended over Texas. It’s generally a light concentration and suspended far up in the atmosphere. Air quality should not be a problem.

FAST-MOVING RIVERS

Rainfall Saturday once again prompted issues along the Frio and Nueces. While the rainfall totals weren’t huge, they added to already fast flowing rivers. Here’s a look at the flows of area rivers. These are some of the highest numbers we’ve seen in a long time.

SEA BREEZE SHOWERS

The heat high is slightly west of Texas. This means that yes, it will be hot, but not as scorching as it would be if that heat high was directly overhead.

The high will mostly keep rain at bay, but there is a chance that a few sea breeze showers may move in from the Gulf Friday through Sunday.

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.

It is unclear how long the audit will take, but Abbott is asking the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to ensure data center developers provide information on tax breaks they will receive; power use and generation; water use and cooling operations; efforts to reduce impacts on local communities; and ownership of the facility. Any projects that fail Abbott’s ordered “comprehensive verification and audit” should be denied connection to the grid, the governor said.

Abbott’s letter to the PUCT and ERCOT directs them to conduct the audit on all data centers advancing through ERCOT’s interconnection queue, or the line for energy intensive projects seeking connection to the electric grid. ERCOT is currently tracking more than 1,800 projects in the queue, representing over 474 gigawatts of electricity, or more than five times the grid’s record for peak demand, according to ERCOT.

ERCOT and the PUCT are already conducting a review of some of the projects in the queue through a process known as “batch zero.” It is unclear if Abbott wants agencies to audit’s order refers only to those projects or if he wants all of the nearly 2,000 requests currently in the queue.

Approximately 90% of the new power requests are data centers, Abbott said. 

“Our top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life,” Abbott wrote in a statement. “Any project that fails to comply with the requirements set forth by the PUCT and ERCOT, and by state law, must be denied connection to the Texas grid. Simply put, Texans must come first.”

Abbott cited the failure of some data centers to comply with a recent PUCT’s survey measuring water and power usage as the reason the audit was needed because it hinders the agencies’ ability to make informed decisions.

The Texas Tribune has identified 335 data centers operating in Texas. The state is currently the second largest market for the facilities in the country, behind Virginia, and is poised to take the top spot. The Tribune has identified at least 248 planned data centers coming to the state, although hundreds more in lesser development phases line up in the power queue.

Monday’s letter is the latest effort by Abbott to demonstrate tighter regulation of an industry quickly coming under political scrutiny in Texas. 

In June, Abbott directed the PUCT and ERCOT to require that data centers fully fund the costs of electric infrastructure needed to serve them and take other measures to reduce electricity costs to residents. 

On July 17, PUCT Chair Thomas Gleeson responded to Abbott with his own letter outlining efforts the agencies have already taken and calling on the Legislature to grant them more authority to regulate the industry.

Abbott’s proposal may disrupt ERCOT’s ongoing rework of its approval process for projects in the interconnection queue, requiring large-load projects to provide more detailed information before they can advance. The new rules for the first set of projects under consideration, known as “batch zero,” were approved by the PUCT in June. The agencies are currently working to develop a more permanent set of rules for projects still in the queue. 

An ERCOT spokesperson said the grid manager is reviewing Abbott’s order and will postpone the Batch Zero transmission planning study that is currently underway. 

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 

Sony on Sunday projected that “Spider-Man” would net an estimated $355 million in its first weekend playing in 4,487 theaters, just barely missing the 2019 “Avengers: Endgame” record of $357 million. But the fourth Spider-Man movie starring Tom Holland had a stronger than expected Sunday and ultimately came in ahead.

Tom Rothman, the chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group said in a statement, “records are made to be broken, but we will take great pride in this one, for as long as we hold it.”

Before “Avengers: Endgame,” no movie had opened over $300 million domestically. The previous record holders were “Avengers: Infinity War,” which launched with $257 million in 2018, and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($247 million in 2015). In December 2021, during the pandemic, the third Holland Spider-Man movie “No Way Home,” earned a place on the list with a $260 million debut on its way to $1.9 billion globally.

The high-earning combination of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “The Odyssey,” which share actors Holland, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal, also propelled a record weekend overall for movie theaters in the U.S. and Canada.

According to Rentrak, the domestic box office overall is up over 15% from last year with over $6.2 billion in ticket sales to date.

The Saturday night event drew heavy interest from families and dinosaur fans, with crowds turning out in large numbers. However, the strong demand also led to complaints from some visitors, who took to social media to share concerns about the size of the crowds and the overall experience.

“Spent over a hour trying to find parking just to be told by someone walking in that you can’t even see anything when you get inside...” Vanessa Black posted on the zoo’s Facebook page.

“We love the zoo but tonight was so stressful with the amount of people in there and only certain walkways open. We got stuck by the jaguars trying to leave and the patience of the crowd was growing so thin, hopefully it stays safe,” Brittany Deaver commented.

In response, the zoo said on Facebook that the excitement surrounding the event has been “amazing.”

“We appreciate your feedback and are working on more dates and extended hours to help improve the experience for everyone,” the zoo posted.

As of noon Monday, the zoo has not announced the exact dates or times for the additional Dinos After Dark events.

More details are expected to be released by the zoo once the expanded schedule is finalized.

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The tragic story of a 17-year-old from Tangier is representative of the plight of many of the more than 800 minors who four days after the collective push by migrants into Ceuta face a scary present and an uncertain future.

She told an Associated Press photojournalist how she and her family joined the massive crowd that tried to swim around a border fence to reach the Spanish territory on Thursday. Like many, she said they did so seeking better opportunities. The AP is withholding her identity because she is a minor in a vulnerable situation.

She described how she saw Spanish police pull the body of her 8-year-old brother from the water.

She made it to the shore but became separated from her mother, and has spent the last four days on her own. She said some locals gave her food and some clothing, with one woman taking her into her home so she could bathe. She then went to a center for youths run by the government for some help, but found it was full.

“I saw people stepping on the dead,” she said through a translator since she doesn't speak Spanish. “Now we are children begging on the street.”

She is one of some 860 minors who remained in Ceuta on Monday after crossing over, according to local officials. AP journalists saw other minors asking for food.

Those minors now make up a large part of the 3,000-5,000 migrants who have avoided expulsion from Ceuta of the original 60,000 who came across. Spanish authorities confirmed 72 people died, mostly in the water, during the crossing. Morocco reported 11 deaths which are not included in the Spanish total, the Spanish interior ministry said.

Minors must be cared for under Spanish law

Spanish law says that adult migrants can apply for asylum. If rejected, they will face expulsion procedures. The bar is normally very high for Moroccans to be granted humanitarian protection.

Migrant minors who are unaccompanied by adults, however, are supposed to be granted protection and taken care of by Spanish authorities.

An AP journalist witnessed Spanish soldiers escorting an unaccompanied Moroccan boy who was crying and begging not to be sent back to Morocco. A few meters before reaching the border, and due to pressure from local residents who insisted he was a minor, as well as the presence of the media, a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish Army stopped the repatriation and transferred the boy to the Spanish Civil Guard.

Most of the Moroccan adults have either voluntarily gone home or were pushed back by Spanish police. Among those who remain in Ceuta are significant numbers of people from other countries, including Sudanese fleeing their war-torn country, Palestinians from Gaza and Afghans, as well as people from several African nations.

The city’s migrant center with a capacity for 600 people is completely full. Food is scarce among the migrants, according to reporting by AP journalists.

“The strategy is that hunger, thirst and exhaustion forces these people to finally decide to voluntarily return to Morocco,” said local migration activist Ramsés Mohamed Azumik of Asociación Elín.

Many migrants sleep or rest on the beach or hills surrounding the speck of Spain. In the hazy distance, mainland Europe, their ultimate goal, lies across the sea.

___

Associated Press writer Joseph Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain.

In a news release, the company said the acquisition went into effect Aug. 1 and brought name changes to every acquired Texas MedClinic.

The newly acquired facilities will be rebranded as “CareNow Urgent Care,” the release stated.

There are no changes to accepted insurance or billing at this time, Methodist Healthcare said.

“Texas MedClinic has been an important part of the San Antonio community for decades, and we’re proud to build on that legacy,” said Dan Miller, president and CEO of Methodist Healthcare.

Texas MedClinic was established in 1982 with a focus on “affordable occupational healthcare on a walk-in basis to the community of San Antonio.”

Patients will still be able to use online reservations and walk-in care, the release states.

Additionally, Methodist Healthcare said hours will also remain the same. Most locations are open from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., while the Forum, Wurzbach and Eisenhauer locations will continue to operate 24 hours a day.

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It can play a part in helping America break the chokehold China has on processing critical minerals, but it will take up to a year and a half to build a new factory as the Trump administration pushes to expand domestic production. The company, Phoenix Tailings, recently got a $500 million loan from the Pentagon to ramp up its work, after starting out eight years ago as a backyard lab seeking a cleaner metal-refining method. It's just the latest critical minerals company the government has backed.

The task that workers carry out in heat-resistant suits and sealed face masks has become more urgent as the Iran conflict draws down key munitions such as Tomahawk cruise missiles and THAAD interceptors. While the White House is demanding military contractors speed up production, it’s also imposing stricter rules banning them from sourcing critical minerals from China.

“It will be a tall order and a challenge to replenish these stocks and scale up in the timeframe needed to meet defense demand and regulations,” said Anthony Balladon, chief commercial officer and a co-founder of Phoenix Tailings. He said the company is working hard to boost capacity.

Although the U.S. is quickening its pace to build domestic supplies of critical minerals free of control from its most formidable rival, it will likely take years for companies across the industry to build new mines and boost production of the high-powered magnets essential in many high-tech applications. Extracting some of the hard-to-pronounce elements from existing mine waste can help satisfy the growing demand in the meantime, but it will likely take several companies to do that.

Critical minerals industry has big plans, but it will take time to ramp up

Phoenix Tailings taps waste from traditional mining as well as recycled magnets and disk drives as raw materials, working to counter China in processing where it has the strongest hold on the supply chain.

The company based in the Boston-area city of Woburn, Massachusetts, plans to build a bigger facility to extract and produce critical metals needed in not only defense but also the aerospace and automotive industries.

“We call it the freedom facility because, ultimately, the purpose of this is to ensure that the entire Western Hemisphere, the United States and its allies are free of Chinese influence within the rare-earth space,” Balladon said.

On a recent afternoon, two technicians in heat-resistant hazmat suits were operating an apparatus of cylinders, tubes, funnels and control panels set up on a platform with bright yellow railings. A chemical process involving electricity removes oxygen and turns the material into a grayish metal that can be used to make the extremely strong permanent magnets used in fighter jets, missiles, radar systems and drones.

The metals that Phoenix Tailings refines and other critical minerals play “an outsized role” in defense systems, Balladon said. A $150 million weapons system won’t work if it's missing critical minerals that may be worth only $20,000 to $30,000, he said.

The defense sector is particularly reliant on the metal samarium and needs 50 to 100 tons each year, but U.S. capacity is very limited, he said.

Phoenix Tailings is among the few companies capable of producing the final metal, according to Balladon, but its capacity is only about 200 kilograms (440 pounds) a year. He said the company will scale up to about 5 tons in the next three months but that it will be next year or 2028 before it reaches its goal of 120-ton capacity.

Another US magnet maker looks to France for raw materials

Arnold Magnetic Technologies for years relied on China for samarium to produce the extremely strong, stable-in-high-temperatures magnet that goes into precision-guided missiles such as Tomahawks.

That doesn’t work anymore. For Arnold, the solution to getting the critical minerals it needs has come from a relic of Europe’s past rare-earth industry — abandoned mining dirt in the French city of La Rochelle.

Solvay, a Belgium-headquartered chemical company, stopped separating and processing rare earths from the mined dirt in the 2000s. That was when China was building up most of the world’s processing capacity with a determination to dominate the industry.

China weaponized that near-monopoly last year by choking off its flow of processed critical materials and forcing the U.S. government to back off during a trade war. Solvay then restarted work and has added other rare earths this year, including samarium.

“This ramp‑up is driven by several factors: rapidly growing demand for permanent magnets, increased geopolitical focus on supply chain security, and strong customer demand in Europe and the United States for more diversified, resilient and traceable sources of supply,” a Solvay spokesperson said.

For Arnold Magnetic Technologies, paying more to get its supply from Solvay instead of China has not been a deal-breaker, because the samarium-cobalt magnets it makes account for only a small cost in a weapon system, said Matt Blake, Arnold's CEO.

“They are not the absolute cost drivers,” he said.

Plus, the company says the surge in demand for magnets has worked in its favor.

Some concerns remain. The U.S. is dependent on imports of the critical mineral tungsten, with China controlling roughly 80% of the global mine supply and an even larger share of processing, according to Brodie Sutherland, CEO of Patriot Critical Minerals Corp.

Sutherland, whose company seeks to explore and mine tungsten in the U.S., is concerned that America will not be able to get by without China-sourced tungsten after a Pentagon-imposed deadline of Jan. 1, 2027.

Efforts to ramp up U.S. production will take years, he said, and in the meantime, the Pentagon and its defense contractors will need to rely on existing inventories, expanded recycling and limited non-China sources.

The Iran war and Trump's China order create pressure and opportunity

The need to increase production has become more urgent as renewed fighting with Iran digs into the U.S. military’s already diminished stockpiles of advanced missile interceptors, including Patriots and THAADs, according to a recent analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

It also has raised concerns that the military would have diminished firepower in any potential future conflict with China. CSIS warned in May that it could take at least three years to replenish stockpiles of Tomahawks, Patriots and THAADs, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors.

At the same time, President Donald Trump has announced stricter controls on defense contractors sourcing critical materials from China.

“It is the policy of the United States that not only the finished equipment deployed by our military, but also the critical materials and components necessary to manufacture, maintain, sustain, and repair that equipment, are sourced domestically or from allied nations,” the July 20 executive order says.

Lockheed Martin, which makes THAADs and many other weapons systems, said “we continuously assess the global rare earth supply chain to ensure access to critical materials that support our customers’ missions.” Several other major U.S. defense contractors, including Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Balladon, of Phoenix Tailings, was confident in U.S. companies.

“Ultimately, with the right support and partners across the industry, we think we can make it happen,” he said.

___

Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.

As one of the veterans of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, Marissa Phillips has kept a deeper perspective that has helped guide the younger cheerleaders through it.

Phillips, a former Texas A&M dancer from Round Rock who is now in her fifth season with the squad, has experienced the rise in attention following the Netflix series firsthand.

“We know we have a super special brand that we have to uphold. It puts a great pressure on us of always showing up and wanting to do our best,” Phillips said. “I think the other thing is, with just the fame and attention that the Netflix show has brought the cheerleaders, it’s super fun getting to go out there. And we have girls that are being called by name, like Charlie and Abby and, like, it’s so fun just knowing that we have people that really care about us as individuals.”

That new level of recognition has brought something else, too — opportunities she never imagined.

“It’s truly been so amazing to see all of the love, the support, but also just like the opportunities that have come our way, we’re so thankful for the amazing things we get to do,” Phillips said.

Phillips has already danced on Texas’ biggest football stages. She recently performed on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

This fall, the squad will head to Brazil for the Cowboys’ Sept. 27 game against the Baltimore Ravens. Through it all, Phillips’ joy of performing never changes.

“I love to perform,” Phillips said. “Performing is like one of my favorite things in the world. I feel like when you get out there, all of your worries and troubles just melt away. It’s truly the best feeling.”

Phillips is living a dream that started years ago on a football field in Central Texas.

“I was out on the football field at a drill team performance thinking, ‘Oh, one day, maybe — I could be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader,’" Phillips said. “A few months ago, I got to go home and actually teach my high school drill team, which was super special.”

From her high school field in Round Rock to Texas A&M to the Dallas Cowboys, Phillips continues living her dream.

More recent Campin’ With KSAT coverage:

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• Dallas Cowboys kick off 2026 training camp with Opening Ceremony in Oxnard

Persistent drought and successive extreme heat waves have deprived one of Europe's largest rivers of water, pushing the Danube's levels in Hungary's capital Budapest to around 10 centimeters (4 inches) on Monday, well below the previous all-time low of 33 centimeters (13 inches) set in 2018.

Water levels are not expected to rise on the Danube in the coming days or even weeks as no significant rainfall is forecast, and as a renewed extreme heat wave bears down on the region with daytime highs topping 38 Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), electricity and water use are on the rise.

Hungary's Paks nuclear plant on brink of shutdown

The Danube's record low levels have pushed Hungary's only nuclear power plant, the Soviet-built, four-reactor plant at Paks, to the brink of powering down entirely for the first time in its 44 years in service.

The Paks plant, which uses water from the Danube to cool its reactors, on Monday was producing only 240 megawatts of power rather than the usual 2,000. In video posted to Facebook on Monday, Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar said engineers had managed to keep the plant’s final operating turbine temporarily running, averting an expected shutdown on the weekend.

“This is very good news, because the complete shutdown of the Paks power plant can still be avoided, at least temporarily, on one of the biggest consumption days,” he said, adding that a full power-down was likely on Tuesday or Wednesday.

The Paks plant, located around 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Budapest, accounts for nearly half of Hungary’s electricity production and around a third of its consumption. Hungary has relied on regional electricity imports as well as renewable sources to try to make up for the deficit from the Paks plant.

Hungary’s government last week asked major industrial users to curb their electricity consumption and sought voluntary savings from households in order to conserve supply, particularly in peak demand hours between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m.

It also announced that electric-powered freight trains would not be permitted to run during peak hours beginning on Monday in order to conserve an estimated 70 to 90 megawatt-hours of electricity per day.

While conservation measures were initially voluntary, Magyar’s government on Saturday issued a decree allowing for them to be made mandatory for large industrial or commercial consumers.

He said Monday that the conservation push had resulted in 700 fewer megawatts of electricity being used the previous day, and thanked Hungarians for their efforts.

Serbia and Romania grapple with low Danube levels

Meanwhile, plants in neighboring countries have also seen dramatic drops in power generation, as well as disruptions to shipping and agriculture.

Romania’s military on Monday used 180 kilograms (397 pounds) of explosives to blast rock near the Danube’s Bala Canal in order to redirect water into the river’s main channel and toward the state-owned Cernavoda nuclear power plant.

The Danube's water flow has fallen to 1,500 cubic meters per second in Romania, less than a third of its July average. Authorities have already shut down one reactor unit at the Cernavoda plant, which is operating at about half its normal capacity.

Acting Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan announced a nationwide state of alert in the energy sector on Friday, and warned that the Danube’s low water levels threatened the shutdown of Cernavoda’s second reactor. He appealed to citizens to voluntarily limit electricity usage in peak evening hours.

After meeting with major industrial consumers on Monday, Bolojan said carmakers Dacia and Ford had gone into maintenance and halted auto production until Aug. 19, while other companies agreed to reduce their energy usage during peak hours.

In Serbia, record-low Danube levels have pushed the country’s key hydroelectric plant to operate with only 20% of its capacity, prompting Prime Minister Djuro Macut to preside over an emergency meeting on Monday focusing on energy problems.

Macut appealed to residents to “minimize the use of big consumers of electricity in their homes, such as air conditioners.” He described the situation in a statement late on Sunday as “serious and demanding.”

___

Associated Press writers Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, and Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England, contributed to this report.

Police Chief Matthew Hicks said Sunday detectives are confident that the gunman, identified as Chad Williams, acted alone in the shooting Saturday at an In-N-Out Burger in Twin Falls, a southern Idaho city of about 56,000 people.

He said Williams’ family is cooperating fully with the investigation.

An off-duty state trooper and a civilian fired on the attacker and diverted him from the restaurant, the chief said. Police haven't disclosed their names or those of the victims. Twin Falls spokesperson Josh Palmer said Monday that police are still trying to identify next of kin.

Two of the wounded were treated at a hospital and released, three were listed as stable, and two others were in critical condition, police said Sunday.

An In-N-Out employee was among those killed, the fast-food chain’s owner, Lynsi Snyder, said in a statement. She didn't identify the worker.

The restaurant, which opened July 24 as part of the California chain's Idaho expansion, is in a busy shopping plaza, and hundreds of people were in the area when the shooting happened.

Lane Koehn, 34, said he was at a nearby stoplight when he saw someone with an AR-style rifle emerge from the drive-thru. A man with a pistol started firing at the shooter.

He then saw someone in an In-N-Out uniform drag a person, also wearing a uniform, bleeding from a gunshot wound to her chest across the parking lot. The employee, Koehn and the man with the pistol stayed until paramedics arrived for her.

“She was pretty bad off, but I don’t know. I hope she made it,” Koehn said.

He said the man holding the rifle fired at least three or four rounds, though it wasn't clear if anyone in particular was targeted.

Video taken by a driver from across the street captured a shooter, who appeared to be dressed in black, walking up to a white car carrying a long rifle, opening the driver-side door and popping the trunk. The person then walked to the trunk and reached inside. At that point, the driver who shot the video left quickly, fearing that the man might be getting more weapons.

Nayeli Rodriguez, 40, of Burley, was inside waiting for food with her daughters when she heard shots from the kitchen. An employee said it was a shooting and told people to get down. Rodriguez said an older man tried to protect her and her daughters, and they were among the last to run outside.

“We were trying to get as far as we could and some angels let us in their car,” Rodriguez said via text message. “I left my car there in the parking lot.”

Head Start, established in the 1960s to help fight poverty, has long been considered by experts to be a gold standard early learning program. Its regulations, which stretch more than 100 pages, outline requirements on everything from child-to-teacher ratios and child health screenings to family engagement.

Trump's Republican administration would replace those regulations with around a dozen pages of rules, leaving most of the specifics up to state and local law, said the people familiar with the deliberations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that was not yet public and because they feared reprisal.

In a post on X on Saturday night, the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start, said to expect a rule to be published this week. The administration “remains committed to strengthening Head Start by preserving federal investment in the program while advancing reforms that expand access, increase local flexibility, reduce unnecessary administrative burden, and ensure services are delivered effectively to children and families in need," department spokesperson Emily Hilliard said Monday in an email.

The draft rules would require more documentation from parents who are homeless or unemployed, the people familiar with the deliberations told The Associated Press. An early version of the proposal also would have barred parents who are in the United States illegally from enrolling their children, even if the children are U.S. citizens. It's unclear whether those provisions will make the final draft.

Head Start, which operates in all 50 states, has long enjoyed robust bipartisan support. But some prominent conservatives in recent years have called for its elimination, saying the federal government should get out of the education business at every level. Deregulating the program would deliver a win for them and aligns with the Trump administration's goals of scrapping rules it views as onerous or unnecessary.

Head Start is designed to target poverty, experts say

Head Start serves more than half a million low-income babies, toddlers and preschoolers nationwide. For families that qualify, it offers free preschool and screenings to identify developmental delays. It also offers supports for families.

If the changes take effect, they could make Head Start unrecognizable, said Khari Garvin, who ran the Office of Head Start under President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

“We'd have the carcass of Head Start,” Garvin said. “You might have a program that's called Head Start, but in substance it will not be.”

The proposed rules were originally reported in The Bulwark.

Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the National Head Start Association, said the organization has yet to see the proposed rules. But he said the potential for a massive overhaul has left the organization on edge.

“We're very anxious,” Sheridan said. “When it does come out ... we’ll be ready to fight back where we need to fight back.”

Still, he emphasized that Head Start centers might not be impacted for months, if the rules get on the books at all. Once the proposal is made public, federal law requires the administration to give at least a month for the public to weigh in on it. Then, once finalized, it may take more time for the rules to take effect. There's also the potential for a lawsuit to halt implementation.

Current rules cover dental screenings and staff-to-student ratios

Head Start was created as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty and targets the myriad challenges that low-income households face. It serves children and adults alike, coaching parents on reaching their goals, connecting them with services and even employing them.

Head Start operators, which include school districts and nonprofit organizations, are required to provide medical, dental and vision screenings for children and to monitor them for developmental delays. There's also a curriculum framework and prohibitions on physical and emotional abuse of children.

Many of the features that make Head Start distinct from mainstream preschools are spelled out in 122 pages of performance standards. The Trump administration's proposal would toss most of that rule book and replace it with a much shorter version that eliminates or loosens many requirements, the people familiar with the proposal said. But the proposal also calls for some new regulations, such as requiring all instruction in English.

Requirements around staff-to-student ratios and safety standards would be erased. Operators instead would be instructed to follow local and state laws, which are often far more permissive. And the new proposal also says nothing about suspensions and expulsions, the people said, making it easier for programs to kick out kids with disabilities who are difficult to educate.

Head Start is under threat

Head Start, which has enjoyed robust bipartisan support for decades, has faced several threats since Trump took office last year. Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint authored by the official who is now Trump's budget chief, called for the federal government to get rid of the program altogether. Last year, in a draft budget, the administration proposed exactly that, saying: “The federal government should not be in the business of mandating curriculum, locations, and performance standards for any form of education.” After public outcry, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose department oversees Head Start, told Congress the program's funding was safe.

Funding for the program was disrupted not long after Trump took office, leading some programs to have to shutter temporarily. It was once again halted after a government shutdown in October that led some centers briefly to close their doors.

Earlier this year, Trump officials also erased a Biden-era rule that mandated raises and greater benefits for Head Start employees. When the rule went in to effect in 2024, Head Start teachers, the majority of whom have bachelor's degrees, earned less than $40,000 a year on average.

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Associated Press writer Ali Swenson contributed reporting.

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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.

Kuwaki closed with a 1-under 70 and looked like a winner as she waited nearly 30 minutes in the scoring room. Henseleit, in the final group, holed a 40-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole at Royal Lytham & St. Annes for a 70 to join Kuwaki at 5-under 279.

Henseleit then had the advantage in the playoff when the 23-year-old from Japan was in deep grass short of a bunker and had to lay up short of the green. Kuwaki hit wedge to 3 feet to save par and got another chance when Henseleit missed a 15-foot birdie putt for the win.

The tables turned on the second extra hole. Henseleit's tee shot on the 18th drifted far enough to the right that it was beneath a gorse bush. She did well to get that back to the fairway, and hit wedge to about 12 feet. But her par putt stayed left of the cup, and that left Kuwaki to tap in for par.

“Very happy with how I gave myself the opportunity to win today and how I handled myself. Just got a bit unlucky on the second playoff hole there,” Henseleit said. “I tried really hard and I guess it just wasn’t meant to be today.”

This is the second straight AIG Women's Open title for Japan, following Miyu Yamashita's victory last year at Royal Porthcawl. Kuwaki, often known for her fashion, becomes the fifth player from Japan to have won an LPGA major over the last three years.

“I can’t believe it,” Kuwaki said through a translator and the trophy presentation.

She had planned on going to the LPGA qualifying tournament this fall, but her victory gives her a five-year exemption.

“So I don't have to worry about that anymore,” Kuwaki said.

She had until midnight local time to accept LPGA membership. Because there are only four months left in the season, the LPGA said Kuwaki chose to defer her membership until 2027.

Tough round for Noh

The disappointment belonged to third-placed Yealimi Noh (74), the 25-year-old Californian who began the final round with a three-shot lead until it slowly went away with bogeys. She fell out of a share of the lead with a bogey on the 14th hole. Noh was one shot behind and had two reasonable looks at birdie — with Kuwaki already in the clubhouse at 279 — but failed to convert.

“It stings being one short,” said Noh, who had missed three straight cuts before this week. “I told myself this morning, no matter what happens I'm happy to be in this position again. A couple of weeks ago, I was losing a lot of motivation. This week has helped me feel so much better about my game.”

Haeran Ryu fell short in her bid to become the first player since Inbee Park to win three straight majors in one year. Ryu, who won the KPMG Women's PGA and Evian Championship, was still in the mix on the back nine. She needed birdies and instead closed with two straight bogeys for a 74 to tie for sixth.

Nelly Korda, the No. 1 player in women's golf and winner of the year's first two majors, started eight shots behind and closed with a 68. She was the leader in the clubhouse for the longest time at 2 under until Kuwaki finished.

Korda tied for fourth along with Jeeno Thitikul (73).

Eyes covered

Kuwaki, at No. 46 in the women's world ranking, played bogey-free over the last 13 holes as everyone around her made mistakes. She was in the scoring room after signing and stayed there, even as Henseleit and Noh had birdie chances on the final two holes to force a playoff.

Henseleit delivered with a most unlikely putt, 40 feet across the 18th green. The 27-year-old German raised her right arm as the golf ball still had a few feet to go and punched the air when it dropped for birdie.

It was only the second playoff since the Women’s British Open became a major in 2001.

Kuwaki covered her eyes when she watched the putt go in on TV, then broke into a smile. And moments later, she was in a cart and off to the 18th tee for a playoff and immediately in trouble. Her tee shot stayed short of a bunker but in the slope of thick grass. She smartly tried to get it back in play, and her wedge to 3 feet was as important a shot as any.

It gave her another chance, and the final mistake belonged to Henseleit with the tee shot on the 18th for the second playoff hole.

Kuwaki already has won twice this year and is fourth on the money list on the Japan LPGA, the tour that has produced five recent major champions, including Yamashita, Mao Saigo, Yuka Saso and Ayaka Furue. Kuwaki is now on that list.

“Just to be on a stage like this is just an honor, and every hole I was just focused shot-by-shot and just tried to enjoy it out there as much as I could,” she said.

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

U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney responded to an NCAA request for clarity about her Friday ruling that granted a fifth year to athletes who graduated high school in 2022 and were not included in the new NCAA rule that allows five seasons of eligibility for Division I players.

She said the decision still stands. But the clarification said her ruling had no impact on other NCAA rules, which would include its prohibition on players signing pro contracts, then coming back to college.

The NCAA filed its intention to appeal the case later Sunday night.

The ruling, as first written, had the potential to upend the upcoming college football season, where teams are starting camp planning on the “five for five” rule to take effect beginning next fall.

Extending it to players this fall granted hundreds a chance to return to school. In the direct aftermath of the decision, some media reports were listing players on NFL and CFL rosters who were signaling they’d be open to returning to school.

But that appears to be off the table after Sweeney's clarification that said it was strictly about the players whose eligibility ended last school year. It did not extend beyond that — neither to rules regarding when athletes can enter the transfer portal nor to elements of the landmark House lawsuit settlement, which dictates how many players teams can put on rosters and how much schools can pay them.

The rulings out of U.S. District Court in Denver figures to impact sports differently. Football teams, for instance, have already started practice for this season, while baseball doesn't start for a while.

In making decisions, teams figure to factor the NCAA's appeal of Sweeney's order and whether to risk bringing back players who could then be declared ineligible if her decision is overturned.

NCAA President Charlie Baker issued a statement after Sweeney's initial ruling came out Friday, saying the ruling was potentially chaos-inducing and a reason Congress needs to pass the Protect College Sports Act. That bill, being considered in the Senate, includes lawsuit protection for the NCAA over eligibility rules, the likes of which they are defending in several courts around the country.

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

Cornyn had held up Blanche’s nomination for days in an effort to secure written modifications to a controversial settlement between the DOJ and President Donald Trump that created the $1.8 billion fund, resolving a lawsuit Trump filed over the leak of his tax returns. The deal also extended immunity from tax audits to Trump, his family and his business associates.

The senator confirmed Monday that the deal addressed his concerns with those provisions, and he will vote to advance Blanche’s nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Texas’ senior senator had negotiated with the DOJ last week to secure written assurances that the fund was dead, as Blanche had previously declared in verbal testimony, and that the audit deal was limited in scope. Amid the talks, Trump expressed his frustration with Cornyn, speculating that his endorsement of Attorney General Ken Paxton in the May primary runoff, and Cornyn’s loss, were motivating the standoff.

Trump defended the fund and promoted its revival via legislation, demonstrating the rationale behind Cornyn’s desire to see it voided in writing and seemingly hardening the impasse.

But Cornyn insisted that he was withholding his vote to advance Blanche’s nomination through the Senate Judiciary Committee over sincere concerns about the settlement, and that his opinion was shared more broadly among fellow GOP senators. Another Republican on the panel, retiring North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, also vowed to prevent Blanche’s nomination from advancing over similar concerns. Their joint stand forced the Judiciary Committee to delay a planned vote to advance Blanche’s nomination last week.

Blanche, the acting attorney general and Trump’s former personal lawyer, posted a written order late Sunday night rescinding the “anti-weaponization fund” and clarifying the parameters of the audit shield. A Cornyn spokesperson confirmed that the two sides had a deal.

“Sen. Cornyn has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice, which will be issuing a formal order permanently terminating the anti-weaponization fund and making clear in a binding written document that the scope of the audit settlement is limited to only the plaintiffs, including the President, and the IRS,” Cornyn spokesperson Natalie Yezbick said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee had previously rescheduled the Blanche vote for Tuesday morning. With the Cornyn deal now in place, Blanche’s nomination — which cannot afford any Republican defections — appears poised to advance.

In a joint statement, Cornyn and Tillis said the deal met their demands.

“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund,” the pair wrote Monday. “Additionally, the Department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share.

“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” they continued.

Blanche’s nomination first appeared at risk in his hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee, when Cornyn pressed him on the gap between his testimony avowing the fund was dead, and the language of the settlement, which states that it may only be modified by written agreement of the parties to the lawsuit. As a vote on Blanche’s nomination approached, Cornyn made clear his vote was contingent on the DOJ putting what Blanche had testified to in writing.

But during negotiations last week, Trump’s fondness for the anti-weaponization fund became clear, threatening to derail Blanche’s nomination.

The president took the unusual step of suing his own government in January over the leak of his 2019 and 2020 tax returns. The Justice Department, representing the Internal Revenue Service, settled the case in May by establishing a nearly $1.8 billion fund for alleged victims of DOJ weaponization, a group that could include rioters who attacked police officers at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. And in an addendum to the lawsuit, Blanche signed an order giving Trump and his family immunity from having their tax returns audited.

Blanche eventually backed off the fund in the wake of bipartisan outcry. But Cornyn, a lawyer and former judge, wanted it killed in writing so that a plaintiff, such as Trump, could not revive the fund by filing a breach of contract lawsuit. And he sought written assurance that the audit shield would apply only to named parties to the lawsuit and would not protect them from IRS audits of future tax returns nor from audits by other agencies — all of which Blanche had testified to.

In announcing the new DOJ order Sunday, Blanche said it came as the result of “good faith discussions” with senators over several weeks. It states that the audit immunity deal applies “only retroactively” and that the acting attorney general stood by his testimony, “including answers to questions asked by Senator Cornyn related to the scope and applicability” of the audit shield.

The episode demonstrated the extent of Cornyn’s leverage and his willingness to use it — even when it puts him at odds with Trump — in his final months in office. Trump lashed out at Cornyn and Tillis numerous times, including in a Saturday morning social media post in which he lamented that the pair were “upset because I wouldn’t Endorse them” and threatened that the fund would “immediately be back on the table” via an “Anti-Weaponization Bill” if Blanche were not approved.

He also said he would keep Blanche in his acting capacity until Cornyn and Tillis leave office if they would not vote to approve his nominee — only for the DOJ to eventually meet the senators’ demands with Sunday’s deal.

Any legislative effort to revive the fund would likely be dead in the Senate, where it is opposed by a number of Republicans and reviled by Democrats.

Infantino’s secretive proposal to raise $4.2 billion from investors including the New York investment firm of Joshua Kushner was dropped early Saturday, days after the revelation in media reports provoked a global furor.

UEFA led the backlash and on Thursday its 55 member federations met to agree boycotting all FIFA events and competitions while the proposal was active.

Now lawyers for UEFA have informed FIFA that the European body is “actively considering legal action, arbitration, and/or regulatory complaints ... arising out of and in connection with the FFE (FIFA Forward Enterprise) plan proposed by FIFA and all related matters.”

The letter dated Friday from the legal firm Dechert in New York was seen Monday by The Associated Press.

The letter named 18 FIFA executives who it said should retain data, documents and electronic messages as potential evidence. They include Infantino, Zurich-based chief finance officer Thomas Peyer and Arsène Wenger, the coaching great who is FIFA's head of global soccer development.

“UEFA puts you on formal notice that any destruction, deletion, alteration, concealment, or loss of relevant materials following receipt of this notice — or following any earlier date on which you were, or reasonably should have been, aware that proceedings were anticipated — may constitute spoliation of evidence,” the letter said.

Europe seeks rival candidate to lead FIFA

The Swedish soccer federation confirmed Monday that UEFA is actively looking "to come up with an alternative candidate” as FIFA president. The next election is scheduled in March.

On Saturday, UEFA signaled it wants to end Infantino’s decade-long presidency, saying he had lost the confidence of world soccer and that “no option should be off the table.”

Hours earlier, Infantino had withdrawn the divisive proposal that offered FIFA’s 211 member federations one-off payments of $20 million each with a mid-September deadline to accept.

The FFE spin-off valued by FIFA at $20 billion would have taken control of the soccer body’s money-making commercial and tournament operations through at least 2038. It promised to more than double development money over that time for the 211 members who already effectively own the Zurich-based not-for-profit governing body.

It was the project of just one man, FIFA’s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour said in a stinging statement Friday to the AP which said staff felt deceived by their boss Infantino.

Legal proceedings are “reasonably anticipated,” UEFA’s lawyer Andrew J. Levander wrote, citing the belief of soccer stakeholders that the plan was “fundamentally incompatible with the proper governance of football.”

Opposition to Infantino

UEFA has been most outspoken against its former employee Infantino while the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF, the North and Central American and Caribbean soccer body, also have made strong statements to oppose Infantino’s plan.

Infantino has most support from his traditional base in Africa, while South America’s CONMEBOL is relying on him to expand the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams from 48. That would give more hosting games to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, the home country of CONMEBOL president Alejandro Dominguez.

Infantino's path to stabilizing the presidency he has held for 10 1/2 years was unclear Monday which began in New York with a report he was seeking support from the administration of his close ally U.S. President Donald Trump, possibly in a call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“There are no plans for @SecRubio to speak with Infantino and there is no call this morning,” Dylan Johnson, assistant secretary of state for global public affairs, posted on social media.

A week is a long time in politics

The private equity plan has provoked a stunning turnaround in fortunes for Infantino since it was revealed last Tuesday by The Times of London.

The 56-year-old FIFA leader left New York after the World Cup final two weeks ago seemingly a lock to be re-elected unopposed next March for a fourth and final term in office through 2031.

The spin-off operation could have created a commissioner-like role for him beyond 2031 paying much more than his current $6 million annual salary and bonus deal as president.

FIFA briefed at the World Cup that Infantino had got pledged letters of support from about 200 of the 211 member federations.

Those letters are now likely being withdrawn across Europe with the Wales federation the first to announce its reversal.

The candidate deadline is Nov. 18 for an election exactly four months later in Morocco, one of Infantino's strongest allies and a co-host of the 2030 tournament with Spain and Portugal.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and AP World Cup coverage

The attraction — kept at 9 degrees Fahrenheit — will feature a “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” theme with immersive scenes and life-sized ice sculptures.

Guests can also enjoy tubing, snowball throwing, gingerbread decorating and holiday shopping.

“Ice!” runs from from Nov. 23, 2026, through Jan. 3, 2027.

Tickets are on sale now. For more information, click here.

Read also:

• Dinosaurs come to life at The DoSeum with new interactive summer exhibit

The General Assembly was set to begin debate on a proposed constitutional amendment intended to give Democrats greater latitude to draw congressional maps favoring their party, which currently represents seven of the state's eight House districts. The proposal would have to be approved by voters before lawmakers could begin considering new district lines.

Deep blue Maryland’s move, which the state's minority Republicans have called a blatant power grab, is the latest turn in the national battle over redistricting, which kicked off a year ago and has reshaped the U.S. House map ahead of this year’s midterms.

Democratic state Senate President Bill Ferguson blocked a different redistricting initiative earlier this year that could have put new maps in place before the fall elections, worried the move could backfire upon judicial review. But he has said his views shifted after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in late April. That decision offered new grounds for Republicans to swiftly reconfigure districts in Southern states with large minority populations that have elected Democrats, moves that Ferguson called “painful” to watch.

“It felt like the unwinding of any type of democratic norms in the blink of an eye,” Ferguson said in an interview.

Deep blue Maryland could gain one seat

Maryland's lone Republican representative in Congress is Rep. Andy Harris, chairperson of the House Freedom Caucus. Harris' 1st District is centered on the mostly rural Eastern Shore, part of a scenic peninsula separated from the rest of the state by the Chesapeake Bay.

In 2021, lawmakers tried to remake the maps in a way that made Harris' district more competitive for a Democrat to win, drawing in communities across the bay. But a judge struck down those districts in 2022, calling them a “product of extreme partisan gerrymandering.”

In light of that decision and in hopes of avoiding future adverse legal rulings, lawmakers will consider legislation to amend the state constitution to make clear that the parameters the judge cited — including that districts be compact in form and have regard given to “natural boundaries” — apply only to General Assembly districts, not congressional ones.

If approved by a three-fifths vote of both chambers, the amendment would go before voters in the Nov. 3 general election. If approved there, lawmakers could revisit the congressional maps for the 2028 election cycle under the constitution’s new guidance.

Ferguson told reporters Monday that future changes to the maps could depend on the outcome of the November midterms.

Republicans say the move sets up a gerrymander

In advance of the special session, Republicans criticized the move by Democrats and raised concerns about limits set on testimony for the special session.

“We are very concerned with the significant limitations on witnesses, and the reality that any bill hearing is obviously intended to be a brief and meaningless formality,” House Minority Leader Jason Buckel said in a statement.

Harris, in an interview, said the “gerrymandering that this constitutional amendment sets up” would break up areas of common interest into districts predominated by urban and suburban areas, disenfranchising rural voters. Such a move would “of course” face a court challenge, he said.

Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat who has expressed frustration over lawmakers' refusal to redistrict earlier this year, cast the move as an urgent necessity in light of Republican moves elsewhere. The proposal currently before lawmakers will ultimately give voters, not “party bosses,” the final say, he said.

“And if the people determine that there’s nothing to do, then there’s nothing to do. But if the people determine that we move, we move,” he said in an interview as he became chair of the National Governors Association.

Redistricting reverberates around the country

Maryland’s special session is part of a new phase in a national redistricting battle that began a year ago, when President Donald Trump urged Republican-led states to redraw congressional districts to help the party hold on to its slim House majority in the midterm elections. Republicans think they could win as many as 16 additional seats from new House maps enacted in eight states — Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama. Democrats, whose counterattack faced several setbacks, think they could win up to six additional seats from new districts in California and Utah.

Now some states, such as Maryland and New York, are taking steps to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2028 elections. New York’s Democratic-led Legislature has approved a proposed constitutional amendment to authorize mid-decade redistricting, repeal prohibitions on partisan gerrymandering and make it easier for lawmakers to bypass an independent redistricting commission in the future. The measure needs another round of legislative approval next year before it can appear on a statewide ballot.

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Associated Press reporters David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri, and Steven Sloan in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

Augustin Meyer, 53, was arrested in connection with the death of Juan Alejandro Sanchez, 59, the affidavit states.

According to an SAPD preliminary report, officers were dispatched just after 1:30 p.m. at a warehouse and office building in the 300 block of North Frank Luke Drive.

Investigators said they arrived on scene after a 911 caller reported hearing a male in distress and what sounded like a gunshot. Upon arrival, officers said Meyer was seen leaving the location before they caught up with him and initially detained him for questioning.

Sanchez was found in the office portion of the building sitting in a chair with a gunshot wound to his chest, the arrest warrant states. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to court documents, surveillance video showed only Sanchez and Meyer at the location at the time of the shooting.

A revolver was recovered under a blue bandanna in the warehouse, and the affidavit states Meyer was seen wearing it in surveillance footage.

The gun was not found near the victim, according to the affidavit.

Detectives also said Sanchez’s smartwatch was found in Meyer’s pants pocket, and the victim’s wallet was found scattered around the warehouse.

Meyer told detectives he did not know Sanchez, but that Sanchez had picked him up to help load tools into a truck, according to the affidavit.

Meyer also claimed Sanchez told him to shoot him because he had a large insurance policy, the affidavit states. Detectives said they spoke with Sanchez’s family, who said Sanchez only had an insurance policy through his employer.

Read more:

• 2 detained after man killed in shooting on Southwest Side, SAPD says

A small fly has the potential to impart a big impact on Texas’ beef and agricultural industry.

On June 3, the New World screwworm was detected in a three-week-old calf in Zavala County by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Since then, the agency reported more screwworm infestations in Texas.

The fly poses a multibillion-dollar crisis for the state’s cattle industry, which generates $41 billion a year. It could also increase already record-high beef prices nationwide.

It’s unclear how many cases could hit Texas. Nearly 28,000 cases have been detected in Mexico since November 2024, according to Mexican officials.

State and federal officials are working together to stop the northern migration, which they have tracked since 2023. In response to the cases, USDA and the Texas Animal Health Commission have ramped up animal surveillance of animals near the confirmed detections by setting up zones around each infestation. Animals are not allowed to leave infested areas without being properly inspected.

Officials are also increasing fly traps, surveillance of wildlife and releasing sterile flies, which are used to break the reproduction cycle of the parasitic screwworm fly.

What is New World Screwworm?

New World Screwworm is a parasitic fly that is attracted to living tissue, burrowing their larvae into open wounds. After they hatch, the maggots then feed off that living flesh, causing damage to the animal. If untreated, the damage can even cause the animal to die.

Screwworm can also burrow through openings in the skin, such as the corner of an eye or through the nose.

From a biological standpoint, all mammals are vulnerable to screwworm, including pets and humans. However, livestock and wildlife tend to be the most susceptible because they spend their entire lives outdoors.

Dogs and cats are vulnerable through small wounds or scratches that break the skin. Health officials recommend pets be medicated for fleas and ticks year-round, said Casey Locklear, veterinarian and parasiticides lead for Elanco Animal Health.

“As a pet owner, if you were to notice that your dog or cat had a wound, especially if it’s foul smelling, it’s enlarging, you may actually see the maggots,” Locklear said. “If you see a wound, get treatment early. Whether that’s for yourself or your pet, early treatment is key.”

Read more about the screwworm here.

The decision late Sunday marks a victory for the Trump administration as it races ahead with efforts to build a $46 billion wall along the U.S.-Mexico border from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.

The town of Presidio, with a population of about 3,200 people, argued the wall could cause flooding and that the administration isn’t following the law as it rushes forward with its plans. The town’s development district sued earlier this year to stop the department from going forward with construction.

But the judge said in his ruling Sunday that they were unlikely to succeed on the merits of the case.

“For the foregoing reasons, despite the understandable concerns expressed by the plaintiff regarding the harms it and the plaintiff’s residents might sustain by the potential construction of the Smart Wall, the Court is compelled to deny the plaintiff’s motion for a stay,” wrote Judge Reggie B. Walton.

DHS has been charging forward with its wall-building plan with senior administration officials saying a first layer of the structure will be done by next year. In its push, the Secretary of Homeland Security has waived numerous regulations designed to protect the environment, wildlife, archaeological and Native American sites.

But the department has been running into opposition by landowners, environmental groups, Native American tribes and others who argue that the government’s rapid construction endangers environmental and religious sites and a way of life along the border. Opponents also question the urgency to finish the wall when migrant crossings from Mexico are already at extreme lows.

Lawyers for Presidio's development district argued in a court hearing that the government’s plans could compromise the levee system protecting the town from flash flooding and that the government flouted a key act that requires it to seek permission from the Army Corps of Engineers before building on or near the levees.

“We are very disappointed that the court will allow this potentially disastrous construction to continue, but we remain committed to protecting the Big Bend area and those who rely on the threatened levees," said the town's development district in a statement Monday.

Presidio is protected by a series of berms and levees built in the 1970s and 1980s along the Rio Grande and tributaries to combat flooding.

In court documents, Presidio’s development district said Customs and Border Protection plans to “replace the earthen slope of the existing levee with a concrete wall, with 30-foot steel bollard panels installed on top.” The district said it asked the agency for more details but was told they can’t be shared due to “national security.”

The government has argued that there is no final plan for where the border wall will go or how it will be built. And the administration has maintained that it has the authority given to it by Congress to waive a vast swath of regulations to build the wall as it seeks to get the number of people crossing the border every day to zero.

In his ruling, the judge bolstered that argument, saying that it was clear "that Congress did not intend to limit the Secretary of DHS’s waiver authority."

The government is also facing another lawsuit in Texas where an environmental group and a church preservation group have teamed up to oppose DHS’s plans.

The 54-year-old Pochettino, who took over the national team in October 2024, led the U.S. to the round of 16 at this year's World Cup, where the tournament co-hosts were eliminated in a 4-1 loss to Belgium.

Still, he helped the seeded U.S. team to a pair of firsts in the expanded 48-nation tournament, clinching advancement from the group stage with a game to spare and winning three games in a single World Cup. The team captivated American fans with excited audiences in stadiums and record television viewers.

“The magic thing that happened during the World Cup, the connection with the people, of course with the whole organization and everything was a key point,” Pochettino said during a Zoom news conference from his home in Barcelona, Spain.

Since reaching the quarterfinals at the 2002 World Cup, the U.S. has lost four round-of-16 games.

“What we learn(ed) is that we can compete, that we have the quality and we have the talent,” Pochettino said. “We were so close. That gap with the best teams in the world is not too big.”

Pochettino said there is potential to make soccer in the U.S. “grow and grow and grow and be one of the important sport(s) in America, like it is in the rest of the world.”

“We have players and organization that can compete with the best organization in the world in that sport,” he said. “We learned that the fans are amazing and when they were so excited to discover a sport that made our fans become crazy, no? The connection was amazing.”

Pochettino views the next cycle as a new start for a program lacking quality depth at goalkeeper and central defender.

“It is going to be important to provide the young kids that we really believe (in) that they have the potential to arrive in 2030, in four years,” he said.

Before taking the U.S. job, Pochettino coached Espanyol (2009-12), Southampton (2013-14), Tottenham (2014-19), Paris Saint-Germain (2021-22) and Chelsea (2023-24).

When Pochettino replaced Gregg Berhalter two years ago, he signed an initial contract through the 2026 World Cup. Pochettino said ahead of the tournament that he had discussed a possible new deal with the USSF. He also said in May that his agent had spoken with AC Milan, a club that then hired Rúben Amorim.

Pochettino, who has homes in Spain and London, said he may move to the U.S. He intends to stay with the American team until 2030 but left himself an out.

“Four years time is a really long period. You never know what can happen in soccer,” he said. “Today people really love you. In eight weeks time, maybe that change(s), that feeling."

He has led the U.S. to 17 wins (including a penalty-kick victory), 13 losses and one draw. Twenty-three of 62 players to appear under Pochettino have accounted for the team’s 57 goals.

“We know we have a lot of work to do to achieve our clear ambitions, including competing to win Men’s World Cups and having soccer become the most played sport in every community,” USSF CEO JT Batson said in a statement.

Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin is again the lead philanthropic funder supporting Pochettino’s contract with additional support by Scott Goodwin, Adam Freede and commercial partners. Pochettino earned just over $5 million in his first seven months as coach, according to the U.S. Soccer Federation tax return.

U.S. coaches have not been successful when they remained for a second World Cup cycle.

After leading the Americans to the 2002 quarterfinals, Bruce Arena was unable to get his team past the group stage in 2006.

Bob Bradley helped the U.S. reach the round of 16 in 2010, then was fired a year later after the team lost the CONCACAF Gold Cup final.

Jurgen Klinsmann took over and in December 2013 was given an extension through the 2018 World Cup. The Americans reached the round of 16 in 2014 but Klinsmann was fired in late 2016 after the U.S. lost its first two games in the final round of qualifying. Arena returned but the U.S. failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

Berhalter was hired in late 2018 and led the Americans to the round of 16 in 2022. Given a new contract in 2023, he was fired a year later after the U.S. failed to advance past the group stage at Copa America.

“We are going to demand more from them," he said of the players. “We are not going to be in some situation(s) not flexible like we were because before it was (for) the benefit of players, benefit of structures that were already built. But now it’s about to start the house from zero.”

___

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

Wildfires west of Athens jumped containment lines, a day after a midair collision between two helicopters killed two crew members.

A Greek and a Danish national died and two others were hospitalized in the helicopter collision. All four were private operators chartered by the Greek firefighting service.

In France, firefighters in the region around Bordeaux guarded against potential flare-ups inside a still-burning scar four times the size of Paris.

A prolonged heat wave and lack of rainfall led to the driest July in England and Wales in nearly 200 years of recordkeeping, according to provisional statistics, the U.K.’s weather service said Monday.

All of Wales and more than half of England are officially in drought, the Met Office said. The dry spell was accompanied by sweltering temperatures across much of the U.K., following heat waves in May and June.

Wales tied its record for its warmest mean temperature for July while England and the U.K. recorded their second-warmest July.

Athens area remains at high risk with hundreds evacuated

Strong winds returned to southern Greece late Monday, pushing flames into mountain home clusters, destroying farms and property, and closing a highway.

Areas surrounding Athens remain at high risk through the week with temperatures set to rise further. More than 1,000 people have been evacuated from around the seaside resort of Porto Germeno and other areas west of the capital – including more than 250 rescued by boats from beaches in the area.

“This is a difficult fire that has troubled us,” Fire Service spokesman Yiannis Artopios said, adding that 12 water-dropping planes and 11 helicopters were operating in the area Monday.

The blaze was blamed on a faulty power line from a wind farm and led to the arrests of two contractors on charges of negligent arson.

Despite improved detection methods and expanded cooperation among European Union members, Greece and other countries along Europe's Mediterranean coast suffer devastating wildfires every summer as spells of heat wave temperatures grow longer.

Europe is Earth’s fastest-warming continent, heating at more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate service. Rising temperatures and prolonged drought leave vegetation drier and more combustible, allowing fires to spread faster and burn more intensely.

Massive blaze in France contained as evacuees return home

In France, thousands of evacuees were allowed to return home or to holiday accommodation Monday after a massive wildfire remained contained. More than 224,000 people had fled in what officials said was the country’s largest civilian evacuation outside wartime.

The wildfire burned about 420 square kilometers (162 square miles), making it France’s largest wildfire on record. Monday's return includes Cap Ferret peninsula, a tourist hot spot along the Atlantic coast, and Le Porge, the municipality hardest hit by the fire, where 183 homes were destroyed. Campsites remain closed.

A second wildfire in Provence did not flare up overnight, but was still not contained Monday as stronger winds were expected, firefighters and authorities said. About 1,500 firefighters, supported by water-dropping helicopters, continued reinforcing fire lines along the blaze that tore through about 18 square kilometers (7 square miles).

The European Forest Fire Information System said the risk of wildfire remains high across parts of the continent through Aug. 5, including in traditionally cooler northern countries.

Firefighters in the Netherlands were battling a large blaze Monday in a forest in the southern province of Limburg, authorities said, as the country sweltered through another day of hot, dry summer weather. The national railway operator halted trains between two towns in the area due to the fire.

The Dutch air force sent two Chinook helicopters equipped with large water containers to help firefighters tackle the blaze in the Netherlands. Media reported that a campsite in the area was evacuated due to poor air quality caused by a large plume of smoke.

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Corbet reported from Paris. Elena Becatoros in Athens, Thomas Adamson in Paris, Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands and Brian Melley in London contributed.

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Meanwhile, six people were killed by Ukrainian drone debris in Arkhipo-Osipovka, a small town on Russia’s Black Sea coast in the Krasnodar region, regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said, adding that 40 others were wounded.

Three other people were killed and two were wounded in Ukraine's overnight attack on the illegally annexed Crimea, said the peninsula’s Russian-installed head, Sergei Aksyonov. He gave no details.

Neither side’s claims could be independently verified.

Zelenskyy outlines Ukraine's war strategy

Ukraine’s innovative long-range drone technology developed during the war has enabled Kyiv to sign military cooperation agreements with nine countries, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday.

Under the deals, Ukraine receives long-term funding for its defense industry while partner countries get new defense capabilities, he said, adding that agreements with 15 other countries are being negotiated.

Ukraine is using its long-range strike drones to hit targets deep inside Russia in an effort to push Russian President Vladimir Putin into seeking a peace settlement, Zelenskyy said in a speech to Ukrainian diplomats.

“We will work very hard to make that happen this fall,” he said.

Ukraine wants countries to adopt heavier international sanctions on Moscow, but existing sanctions also need tightening to prevent Russian companies from exploiting loopholes, he said.

Zelenskyy also announced he is appointing Rustem Umerov, who has been involved in U.S. diplomatic efforts to stop the war, as head of the Foreign Intelligence Service.

Russia's glide bombs are big and hard to stop

Russia has used glide bombs against Ukrainian towns and cities since it invaded its neighbor more than four years ago. The Soviet-era bombs are retrofitted with guidance systems and can carry up to 3,000 kilograms (6,600 pounds) of explosives, leaving huge craters. Ukraine has no effective countermeasures.

The Sunday evening onslaught on Zaporizhzhia killed a 71-year-old woman and wounded 31 people, including a 16-year-old girl, as the glide bombs damaged 22 apartment buildings in four districts of the city, Fedorov said.

While Moscow’s forces have captured the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and hold other parts of the region, its capital city of the same name remains in Ukrainian hands. It is one of the four regions, along with Donetsk, Kherson and Luhansk, that Russia illegally annexed in September 2022 even though its forces do not completely control them.

Other large-scale damage of civilian areas has resulted from Russian ballistic missiles, and late Sunday Zelenskyy made another urgent plea for countries to send Ukraine more U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems.

Only Patriot interceptors can reliably stop ballistic missiles, but they are in short supply due to the Iran war.

“The United States knows what we need. Europe knows what we need. Anti-ballistic missiles must protect people — not sit in stockpiles," Zelenskyy said on social media.

U.S. President Donald Trump last week appeared to back off from his earlier commitment to give Ukraine a license to make Patriots itself. He said Friday that he hasn’t made a final decision.

Zelenskyy has suggested an alternative to Trump whereby Elon Musk allows Ukraine to use Starlink satellites to target ballistic missile launch sites inside Russia. Officials haven't publicly said whether that is being considered.

Russia attacked Ukraine with 181 long-range strike drones overnight from Sunday to Monday, according to the Ukrainian air force. It said air defenses jammed and intercepted 163 drones, but 14 caused damage at 13 locations.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces struck four bulk carriers carrying cargo for the Ukrainian armed forces, including three in waters of the Black Sea and one in the port of Mykolaiv, but provided no further information.

Ukraine's long-range drone strikes cause more damage

Ukrainian drones also struck another major warehouse belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online shopping company. The strike was part of a campaign that has hit more than a dozen of the retailer’s distribution hubs and severely disrupted its business.

A Wildberries warehouse in the Vladimir region east of Moscow caught fire in the latest attack, the company said Monday. Three people were injured, Vladimir Gov. Alexander Avdeyev said.

Ukrainian drones also struck the Saratov oil refinery in southwestern Russia, Zelenskyy said. Kyiv has repeatedly targeted that refinery, and many others, since last year as it tries to choke fuel supplies to the Russian army and deny Moscow income from oil exports.

Zelenskyy said the Engels military air base near Saratov, the main base for Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers, and other places inside Russia, including fuel storage tanks at the Lyudinovskaya oil depot in Russia’s Kaluga region, were targeted.

The Russian Defense Ministry on Monday reported that its air defenses overnight intercepted 131 Ukrainian drones over a number of Russian regions, as well as Crimea and the Black Sea.

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

The embassy said “Kyiv terrorists” wanted to “scare the Italians working in Russia and to show them that they too are in the crosshairs and could become the scoundrels' next victims.”

It said the Saturday night attack on the Balzi Rossi restaurant killed five and injured 19, adding that its Italian chef and his staff were unhurt only thanks to a Russian security guard's “vigilance and selfless dedication to his professional duty.”

There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian authorities.

The National Anti-Terrorism Committee, which coordinates various security agencies, initially reported a lower death toll in a statement issued shortly after the attack. It said the bomb killed three people, including a woman who carried the explosive device into the restaurant, a guard who stopped her, and a guest inside. It said 21 others were injured when the bomb detonated near the restaurant's entrance.

The committee didn’t say who was the target or name the mastermind.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin on Sunday described the bombing as a “brutal terrorist act,” but did not say who was responsible for the blast at the upscale restaurant, which is located on the ground floor of a high-rise apartment building that is one of seven skyscrapers in the city that date to the era of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

The Russian Foreign Ministry reposted the embassy statement without comment. It did not respond to a request for comment or explain the higher death toll.

Several Russian media outlets claimed the bombing targeted a Russian general who was celebrating his birthday at the restaurant. Some claimed that the general was Col.-Gen. Alexander Chaiko, who led the troops that made a botched attempt to storm the Ukrainian capital in 2022 and recently was appointed the chief of Russia's aerospace forces. The claims could not be independently verified.

The business daily Kommersant reported that the bomb, hidden in a gift box, was probably detonated remotely and the woman carrying it could have been unaware of the content. Kommersant said the bomb contained about 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of explosives and contained metal balls for lethality.

Russia blamed Ukraine for past attacks on military officials

Russian authorities have blamed Kyiv for a series of bombings and other attacks against senior military officials after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Earlier this year, Russia’s Federal Security Service said authorities would tighten security around senior military and government officials following the attacks.

In February, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alexeyev, ​the deputy head of the GRU ‌military ⁠intelligence service, was shot three times at a Moscow apartment building, but survived. Ukraine denied its involvement.

In December, a car bomb killed Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, in southern Moscow. Ukraine refrained from comment.

In April 2025, another car bomb that Moscow blamed on Kyiv killed Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in Russia’s General Staff. Ukraine didn't claim the attack but hinted at its involvement.

And in December 2024, a bomb hidden in a scooter killed Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, who headed the Russian military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, one of the few attacks Ukraine openly acknowledged.

Among other prominent victims of bombing attacks in Russia were Daria Dugina, the daughter of influential nationalist thinker Aleksandr Dugin, and Vladlen Tatarsky, a well-known pro-Kremlin military blogger. Kyiv denied involvement in the attack on Dugina, and remained coy about the attack on Tatarsky.

Grande had been due to star alongside her “Wicked” co-star Jonathan Bailey in a production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George” at the Barbican theater in 2027.

Empire Street Productions said Sunday that Grande will no longer be part of the London production. A representative for Grande told People magazine that the 33-year-old singer “will be taking a step back from visibility after she completes the Eternal Sunshine Tour.”

“She looks forward to finishing the tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily, and then taking a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which has led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny,” the statement said. A representative for Grande did not offer further comment to The Associated Press.

With Grande’s recent breakup from “Wicked” co-star Ethan Slater, the ongoing tour and last week’s release of the album “Petal,” attention has swelled, fueling rampant speculation online about her health and appearance. Grande has previously expressed discomfort with public discourse around her weight.

“I think we should be gentler and less comfortable commenting on people’s bodies, no matter what,” she said in a 2023 TikTok video.

Late last year, while promoting “Wicked: For Good,” she reshared a 2024 interview in which she said it was uncomfortable having being picked apart for her appearance since she was a teenager. In the December social media post, she called the clip a “loving reminder to all.”

Grande found fame as a child performer on Nickelodeon before releasing her debut album, “Yours Truly,” in 2013. She has won three Grammy Awards and was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for her role as Glinda in “Wicked.”

Grande's next concert is Monday in Chicago. Her tour is due to wrap up in London on Sept. 1.

“We know this cannot have been an easy decision, and she makes it with our complete understanding and support,” Empire Street Productions said. The company said “Sunday in the Park With George” will open next summer as planned, and that casting would be announced “in due course.”

The law banned synthetic THC products, including Delta-8, Delta-10, THCP and THCA flower. Low-dose Delta-9 — the most commonly sold THC product in the state — remains legal as long as products contain less than 0.3% THC by dry weight.

For San Antonio coffee shop LazyDaze, the change has little impact because the manager said everything it sells is made from natural THC.

“We have had no slowdown in sales whatsoever,” said Alex Cabello, LazyDaze manager. “The space is being filled and utilized for what it was here for, you know, just a safe space, third space for everybody.”

Cabello said the law is a positive step towards better regulation of natural THC products sold in Texas.

“This is just gonna help kind of verify products,” Cabello said. “I think that’s what Texas really needs, more of like a database to have verified, trustworthy products that all stores can carry.”

What remains legal — for now

Many Delta-9 edibles and drinks can still be sold under the new law. Smokeable Delta-9 hemp flower also remains available for now, after a court paused a separate ban on those products.

The Department of State Health Services argued hemp-derived THC products should be treated as controlled substances because they are psychoactive drugs.

Cannabis experts said the new law could remove 60% to 90% of THC products from circulation statewide.

Despite the sweeping changes to the industry, Cabello said his business is built to last.

“We’re the right direction,” Cabello said. “I think it’s been an uphill battle the entire time since we’ve been open. We’ll be hitting our two-year mark coming up in November. And we’re not going anywhere.”

Cabello urged consumers to do their homework before purchasing any THC products.

“I think overall everybody should just do their own important research if you are going to be consuming to that degree,” he said.

Penalties, law enforcement responses

Possession of illegal THC products will be treated as a state jail felony, which carries a punishment of 180 days to two years in prison and fines of up to $10,000, cannabis experts said.

KSAT 12 reached out to local authorities, including the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office, to ask how they plan to enforce the new ban.

Statements from the district attorney’s office and the San Antonio Police Department can be read below:

Pursuant to our oath to enforce the laws of the State of Texas, we will continue to prosecute any possession, sale, or delivery of any controlled substance that our legislature has identified as illegal.

As always, we will conduct thorough reviews of each case, guided by the established legal framework and the results provided by crime laboratories certified by the Texas State Forensic Science Commission. Our commitment to enforcing the law remains steadfast, and we will continue to approach our responsibilities with diligence and integrity.

Bexar County District Attorney's Office

The San Antonio Police Department will follow Texas law and will enforce the reclassification of Delta-8, Delta-10 and other hemp derived cannabinoids as Scheduled 1 controlled substances.

SAPD

The Texas Tribune contributed to this article.

Read more:

• Texas is banning several THC products. Find out what will still be legal on July 31.

Then, Jen and Jada visit the newly opened FACE FOUNDRIÉ, a modern, inclusive facial bar offering efficient, results-driven skincare. They explore its focused facials, customizable enhancements and beauty services designed to make expert skincare more accessible.

Plus, locally owned Pría Handmade Jewelry shows us stylish accessories perfect for completing any summer look, and Stoneridge Dental shares how they’re helping patients achieve healthy, confident new smiles.

Bexar County court records show Juan Gabriel Medina, 41, was originally charged with murder following a deadly March 31, 2022, shooting.

An SAPD incident report obtained by KSAT revealed Medina as the person who allegedly shot and killed a victim identified as Davian Corey Mendoza.

Court records indicate Medina’s murder charge was waived before he was sentenced to 10 years deferred adjudication for unlawfully carrying a weapon as a previously convicted felon — which means he will not face any time behind bars. The charge is considered a second-degree felony.

Visiting Judge Kevin M. O’Connell presided over the case in Bexar County’s 290th Criminal District Court.

The shooting

According to the incident report, three San Antonio police officers responded to a shooting call at approximately 7:15 p.m. to an apartment complex. The complex’s location was redacted in the report.

Upon arrival, the first officer said they saw Medina walk down a flight of stairs and admitted he was “the one” who fired a weapon. Moments later, the second responding officer placed Medina in handcuffs, the report states. The first and third officers then entered the unit where the shooting took place.

Shortly after entering the unit, the first officer said they saw Mendoza “laying on the living room floor” with a gunshot wound to his face. San Antonio fire crews were called to the scene.

The first officer later saw a “firearm” outside the unit “laying next to the doorway” and elected to leave it there until crime scene investigators arrived, the report states.

Medina told police he was there to help a woman move out of the apartment. According to Medina, the woman wanted to move out “due to family violence” involving Mendoza.

At some point, police said Medina and Mendoza got into an argument about the woman’s birth certificate. The argument escalated when Medina said Mendoza appeared to reach into his pocket for something.

Medina, according to the report, demanded to know what Mendoza was reaching for. Mendoza pulled out a knife. Police said Medina asked Mendoza to put the knife down.

According to Medina, he reached for and grabbed a pistol from the woman’s sister. Medina pointed the weapon at Mendoza before he shot him in the face.

The gunowner — as well as another witness who lives at the apartment — corroborated Medina’s account about why he was there, the argument with Mendoza, Mendoza’s knife and his shooting of Mendoza in separate interviews with SAPD, the report states.

In the report, the first officer wrote that they transported Medina to SAPD headquarters for questioning. After he spoke to detectives at headquarters, detectives told the first officer to “release” Medina while their “investigation continues.”

The officer then dropped Medina off at his mother’s home, according to the report.

“No further action taken,” the SAPD report concludes.

Medina’s indictment

On March 25, 2024 — nearly two full years after the deadly shooting — a Bexar County grand jury indicted Medina in connection with the 2022 murder of Mendoza. KSAT obtained a copy of the indictment Friday.

Following the second paragraph of the indictment, the document labeled Medina as a “habitual offender” after he was convicted of separate felonies in 2005 and 2011, respectively.

An SAPD spokesperson told KSAT that an officer conducted an April 11, 2024, traffic stop on Medina. Police then learned of his active warrant and took him into custody.

At the time, Medina was facing more than a murder charge. Jail and court records show he was also booked into the Bexar County Adult Detention Center on the following charges:

• unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon (third-degree felony)
• possessing between four ounces and five pounds of marijuana (state jail felony)

According to court records, the third-degree felony and state jail felony charges were dismissed Friday morning.

DA’s office recusal

After obtaining the SAPD incident report and March 2024 indictment, KSAT reached out to the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office for comment Friday.

In its original Friday statement to KSAT, the DA’s office said it “filed a motion for recusal” in Medina’s case before Thursday’s sentencing.

“As a result, our office had no involvement or oversight in the outcome of this case,” a Bexar County DA’s Office spokesperson said. “If you have any additional questions, please contact the (290th Criminal District) court directly for more information, as well as the appointed attorney pro tem, who handled the case.”

Court records show the motion was filed Aug. 28, 2024 — just four months after police arrested Medina during the traffic stop. The DA’s office spokesperson said the court granted the request on Oct. 3, 2024.

In a follow-up statement sent to KSAT late Friday night, the DA spokesperson clarified that Medina’s defense team filed “the motion for recusal” — not the DA’s office, as originally stated.

KSAT also emailed the court coordinator inside the 290th Criminal District Court for comment Friday on Medina’s sentencing. This story will be updated with response from the court.

More recent courts coverage on KSAT:

• Ex-Stockdale ISD teacher accused of improper relationship with student gets 13-year prison sentence
• Woman charged in connection with North Side murder takes plea deal, sentencing on lesser charge
• Man accused in connection with North Side murder takes plea deal, sentenced to 25 years in prison

Less than 10 miles away, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens was making her own appeal at another Black church, where one of the city’s most prominent pastors made the case for her.

There were fewer than 48 hours left in Michigan’s fiercely contested Democratic Senate primary. And after more than a year spent preaching starkly different visions for their party — with tens of millions of dollars poured into the race and national attention focused on it — both candidates had come to some of the same places looking for the votes to win it.

First, Black churches. Later, union halls. Then rallies surrounded by their core supporters.

Stevens, who has been through several competitive Democratic primaries, has a name for the frenzy of the closing days: “the last word phenomenon.”

“Everyone’s trying to get in their last points,” Stevens said.

Where the candidates chose to make those final points reflected the simple contest underneath all the money and ideological warfare: which one can assemble enough of Michigan’s Democratic coalition to win Tuesday.

The primary has become one of the clearest tests yet of where Democratic voters want their party to go. El-Sayed, a progressive backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and other leaders on the party’s left, has run against much of the Democratic establishment. Stevens, a four-term congresswoman backed by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and many of Michigan’s top Democrats, has made electability and experience central to her case.

The stakes extend well beyond the primary. The nominee will need to bring a fractured Democratic coalition back together to defeat Republican Mike Rogers in November and hold an open seat that is critical to the party’s hopes of taking control of the Senate next year.

Both hopefuls focused on the Detroit area, where Democratic primaries are often decided

Democratic primaries in Michigan have long run through Detroit, where support from the city’s Black voters is often crucial.

El-Sayed’s pitch to those voters Sunday — during stops at three churches — centered on a vision of economic opportunity and equal treatment.

“I believe in the kind of America where no matter where you grow up, the color of your skin, how you pray, you deserve equal rights in this country,” El-Sayed told the congregation at Kingdom Covenant Church.

“You deserve to go to a good school, you deserve to get healthcare, you deserve to graduate and get a good job,” he added.

El-Sayed was joined by Democratic Reps. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, as well as Yusef Jackson, the son of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson who is president of Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

Pastor David A. Johnson II said welcoming a political candidate was not something he typically did, but “this particular season, it’s time for us to do something different.”

For Robin Robertson, a 59-year-old Detroit resident, El-Sayed’s visit came just in time. Robertson said she had gone back and forth over whom to support, waiting until the campaign’s final days to decide.

She ultimately settled on El-Sayed, saying Stevens “had a good run.”

“His agenda seems to match more for me the things that we need right now,” Robertson said. “And then, he’s here in my little church. That was confirmation that I’m going to vote for him.”

Stevens, meanwhile, emphasized her longstanding connections to Detroit-area churches.

At a church in Pontiac on Sunday afternoon, Stevens stayed after the service to speak individually with congregants, greeting many like familiar faces.

“I come here year-round. This isn’t just a campaign thing,” Stevens said. “Our churches are places of community refuge, community connection.”

Stevens and her allies have also made a direct appeal to Black voters through advertisements highlighting her ties to former President Barack Obama and her work as chief of staff for his administration’s auto rescue effort from 2009 to 2011.

Her campaign acknowledges that a strong showing among Detroit voters will likely be necessary for her to win Tuesday.

Reggie Williams, a longtime constituent who was supporting Stevens at an Oakland County event Sunday evening, said he continues to back her because she “has always been there for the people.”

“She is out and about in the community, always has boots on the ground,” Williams said.

Stevens, El-Sayed will focus on different parts of Michigan on final day of campaigning

After spending much of Sunday pursuing some of the same Democratic constituencies, El-Sayed and Stevens will take different paths across Michigan for the final full day of the primary.

El-Sayed plans to remain in Detroit, joining canvass launches and trying to turn enthusiasm in the state’s largest city into votes.

“This has been the heart of my public service," El-Sayed said about his decision to end the campaign in Detroit. “We wanted to come back here and demonstrate what this movement is and what it could mean."

Stevens will head west, making stops across West Michigan as she tries to maximize support in a region with Democratic strongholds in cities such as Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.

The divergent schedules reflect the final calculation facing both campaigns after more than a year of campaigning: There are few voters left to persuade, and increasingly the task is making sure the ones already won over actually cast a ballot.

For El-Sayed, that means leaning into a volunteer operation his campaign says has grown to 12,000 people statewide and trying to drive turnout in places such as Detroit. Stevens is relying on the broader institutional support she has accumulated across the state, including endorsements from many of Michigan’s most prominent Democratic officials, such as Sen. Gary Peters and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

By Monday night, there will be no more churches to visit, union halls to address or rallies to hold. The television ads that have blanketed Michigan will have run their course, too.

Then comes what Stevens described as the inevitable other side of the “last word phenomenon.”

“The votes will be counted,” she said. “The election will be had.”

In a memo posted on social media to the San Antonio City Council, Jones welcomed a discussion about having Bexar County residents vote on the city’s $489 million contribution toward the entertainment district on the November ballot.

Jones said the economic environment in San Antonio has shifted since voters approved Project Marvel funding in last November’s election.

“Our city is facing an affordability crisis which is made more difficult by the persistent poverty in our community,” she said in the memo. “This requires we demonstrate a ruthless level of fiscal responsibility and allow our community greater agency to decide how their money is spent.”

The mayor cited a $158 million budget deficit, downtown infrastructure bond issues, property taxes and the Spurs’ choice to not entertain a revenue-sharing agreement as reasons for the proposed re-vote on the city’s contribution.

The $489 million allocated for the Spurs arena cannot be used for the general fund or to address the city’s budget deficit.

Jones also stated that Bexar County voters should have the opportunity to vote on Project Marvel twice, as they contribute to both the city and county’s portion to the downtown entertainment district.

“City voters will pay twice towards the proposed arena, as they will contribute to the County’s $311 million contribution and the City’s $489 million contribution, for a total of $800 million plus the to-be-determined infrastructure bond costs. Since they pay twice, City voters deserve to vote twice,” Jones said.

The deadline to add a new proposition to the November ballot is Aug. 17.

More Project Marvel stories on KSAT:

• San Antonio closes on $30M land deal to advance Project Marvel
• Why hasn’t San Antonio started arena negotiations with the Spurs yet?
• Project Marvel hotel plans change as SAWS says downtown plant too expensive to relocate

The Slovenian rider’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG team announced its lineup for the three-week race on Monday, confirming Pogačar will take part after claiming a record-equaling fifth Tour de France crown last month.

“It was my first ever Grand Tour back in 2019 and an amazing experience,” Pogačar said. “Spain is a country I love to visit and race in and I think the time is right to go back.”

Exclusive clubs

Pogačar joined Belgian Eddy Merckx, Spaniard Miguel Indurain, and Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault as the only riders with five Tour de France titles to their names.

Unlike male riders including Hinault, Anquetil, Merckx and Jonas Vingegaard, however, Pogacar has not won the Spanish Vuelta for a hat trick of Grand Tours wins.

Pogačar, who won the Giro d’Italia in 2024 by a big margin, is also bidding to become just the fourth male rider to win the Vuelta and Tour de France in the same year after Anquetil, Hinault and Chris Froome.

Spanish Vuelta

The 81st Vuelta starts on Aug. 22 with an individual time trial in Monaco – where Pogačar lives – before making its way through France and Andorra to Spain. It concludes in Granada on Sept. 13 after nearly 3,300 kilometers of racing.

The 27-year-old Pogačar won three stages when he finished third on his last and only appearance so far at the Vuelta.

“Joining Pogačar are João Almeida, Jay Vine, Pavel Sivakov, Pablo Torres, Kevin Vermaerke, Domen Novak and Ivo Oliveira,” UAE Team Emirates-XRG said.

___

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

The Mutiara Sentosa 2 ferry was traveling from Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya in East Java to the city of Makassar in South Sulawesi. Initial reports said it was carrying 271 people, including 39 crew members, based on the ship’s manifest, when the fire broke out between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.

However, by Monday officials said many more people were aboard than listed, and the number of people missing was unclear. Officials were relying on reports from families of victims and survivors in an attempt to determine the number of the missing.

It is common in Indonesia for the number of passengers on a boat or ferry to differ from the manifest. Such discrepancies can complicate search and rescue efforts, said Nanang Sigit, the search mission coordinator who also heads the Surabaya Search and Rescue Office.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation. Indonesian navy ships assisted, along with a number of passing vessels, at the scene about 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Sapudi island in the Sumenep regency.

The vessel was also loaded with 180 vehicles, mostly trucks.

Ahmad Abdul Karim, a survivor, said the fire appeared to have started in a truck on the lower vehicle deck.

“Fanned by the wind, the flames spread extremely quickly,” Karim said, “In less than 30 minutes, everyone had been instructed to move to the bow of the ferry.”

Another passenger, Azhari, said many passengers had just woken up when the fire erupted, apparently from the rear of the ferry.

“The fire spread quickly to the middle of the vessel,” Azhari, who goes by a single name, said in a television interview. “There was no other option for us but to jump into the sea.”

He said passengers were in the sea for about four hours before passing vessels began pulling them to safety.

Television news showed exhausted survivors disembarking from a rescue vessel at a harbor in Surabaya, while rescuers transported bodies to ambulances and grieving relatives waited for information.

Transportation Minister Dudy Purwagandhi said the government would review the performance of the ferry’s operator, Atosim Lampung Pelayaran, after the National Transportation Safety Committee, or KNKT, completes its investigation.

“First we need to determine the cause based on KNKT’s findings,” Purwagandhi said.

The ferry was built in Japan in 1992 and was sold to Indonesia in 2015. With a length of 160 meters (525 feet), it can accommodate 689 passengers and 49 crew, along with up to 181 vehicles.

The Mutiara Sentosa 2 serves the Surabaya-Makassar route, a voyage that typically takes around 40 hours and is primarily used by domestic travelers and cargo transport between the islands of Java and Sulawesi.

Indonesia is an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands where ferries are a common method of travel. Disasters occur regularly, with weak safety enforcement often blamed.

___

Associated Press journalists Niniek Karmini and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

Before late last week, the dollar was trading above 163 yen, touching 40-year highs. After regulators were suspected of stepping in, it fell below 160 yen.

Early Monday, after the official announcement of the intervention, the dollar fell to nearly 155.20 yen. That’s a big drop for the exchange rate. The dollar was trading at 156.70 yen early Monday Eastern time.

Even though it has attracted millions of bargain-hunting tourists, the yen's prolonged weakness against the dollar has been a source of frustration for Tokyo. Since Japan imports so much of what it consumes, a weak currency pushes prices higher. High oil prices have amplified that problem and that's putting pressure on the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to do more to address the rising cost of living.

Joint intervention was needed to stem the yen's decline

Efforts earlier this year to raise the value of the yen against the dollar did little to budge the exchange rate.

Normally foreign exchange markets determine the relative values of currencies, but there are many factors that shape what happens in the markets.

A big gap between interest rates in the U.S. and Japan has led investors to sell yen and buy dollars to take advantage of the higher yields from dollar-denominated assets. Both the Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve kept their interest rates unchanged at meetings last week, maintaining that gap.

So, last week, when the dollar slipped below 160 yen and stayed there, the U.S. side was suspected of lending a hand.

Officials usually stay mum on such actions. But on Sunday, Trump confirmed that the U.S. side had helped, and Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama likewise issued a statement saying the finance ministry had purchased yen in coordination with the U.S. Treasury Department.

“We will not hesitate to conduct further joint intervention,” she said.

Such overt acknowledgment of market intervention is rare, said Neil Newman, managing director and head of strategy at Astris Advisory Japan. He said the last big example was when governments intervened following a massive earthquake and tsunami disaster in northeastern Japan in 2011.

Why the US is helping support the yen

When asked why Washington was helping, Trump said Sunday that “We have a good relationship with Japan. We’re very strong —- very, very strong financially — and they are, you know, they have a weakening yen, and they wanted a little bit of help, and we’re always there for Japan. Japan’s been very good to us, with the exception, of course, of Pearl Harbor.”

Trump said the U.S. got “financial benefit” out of the intervention, calling it a “signal of friendship.”

“It’s also good for the world economy,” he said.

A weaker dollar makes U.S.-made goods more competitive, reducing their costs in yen terms, and might help increase American exports to Japan, Newman said.

“It’s very rare that the Americans will work with the Japanese on this, but there is an alignment of interests here basically between Japan and America,” Newman said.

It was a “low-cost” way for Washington to pay a favor to a key U.S. ally, while also protecting the stability of foreign exchange and bond markets, Shigeto Nagai, head of Japan economics for Oxford Economics, said in a report.

Analysts question if the intervention worked

The latest intervention appears to be having a more durable impact than earlier cases this year, and the yen may have a slightly stronger path for the rest of the year, Nagai said.

But the factors that have contributed to the yen's long-term weakness remain.

Takaichi has pushed to cut Japan's sales tax on food to 1% from 8% and to dramatically increase government spending. Such moves would tend to weaken the yen since it would increase inflation and add to Japan's already massive government debt.

The Bank of Japan has moved slowly to raise its benchmark rate from near zero to the current 1%, its highest level in 31 years but still well below the Federal Reserve' s rate of 3.5%-3.75%.

It likely will continue to slow-walk any changes as it evaluates the impact of the Iran war and other factors on the economy, Nagai said.

Meanwhile, a surge in oil prices because of the war and resulting higher inflation has kept the Fed from cutting rates.

“The yield differential remains wide, Japan’s energy-import burden remains significant, and the Bank of Japan is still moving more slowly than the market would normally require to generate a sustained currency reversal,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

___

Kurtenbach reported from Bangkok. AP journalist Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

SAISD is expected to discuss launching the new curriculum at select schools in a board meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday, according to the district’s board meeting agenda.

KSAT will provide a livestream of the meeting in this article. Delays are possible. If there is not a livestream available, please check back at a later time.

Districts that choose the curriculum receive $60 per student each year from the state to purchase the instructional materials. The Texas Legislature passed the system in 2023.

According to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), Bluebonnet Learning consists of “state-developed instructional materials that provide teachers with the tools to foster student success.”

Critics, including First Amendment advocates, argue that the curriculum blurs the line between teaching about religious literature and promoting a religion.

The TEA, however, maintains there is no religious instruction in the curriculum.

SAISD shared a transition plan in the board meeting agenda’s documents indicating that the district will launch the new curriculum this school year on Aug. 12 at select schools. The board still must approve this change.

Read also:

• Family speaks out after San Antonio woman, 9 others found dead following avalanche in Pakistan

The KSAT sports team was there as both teams took the field for midnight workouts, marking the start of a new season and the first official step toward fall football.

For UIL programs, 12:01 a.m. is the earliest teams can begin practice under state rules. Some coaches use the early start to get players on the field before the heat becomes a factor later in the day.

Lytle enters the season looking to rebound after finishing 4-6 last year and missing the playoffs.

Holy Cross, a TAPPS program, is coming off a season that ended in the second round of the playoffs.

The midnight practices are the first of many preseason stops for the KSAT sports team, which will feature high school football previews throughout the month as teams across the area prepare for the 2026 season.

Read also:

• Peanut Butter Bowl enters second decade as outreach expands

The film also made $572 million from over 73,500 screens internationally, with China contributing $121 million alone, adding up to a $927 million worldwide debut that is second only to “Endgame” ($1.2 billion).

Tom Holland’s run as the comic book webslinger has been a mighty one. “No Way Home,” his third standalone Spider-Man movie, made over $1.9 billion worldwide to become the eighth-highest earning movie of all time, not accounting for inflation. It was also the first movie since the beginning of the pandemic to cross the $1 billion mark.

But the triumph of “Brand New Day” also comes on the heels of another major movie featuring Holland and Zendaya: Christopher Nolan’s“The Odyssey,” which slid to second place in its third weekend in theaters with $51 million. Their combined might helped propel the biggest weekend of all time for North American movie theaters, with an estimated $430 million in total ticket sales, according to Rentrak.

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” started strong, with a record $168 million opening day from 4,487 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, besting “Avenger: Endgame’s” $157 million Friday. The studio predicted it would lead to a $325 million opening weekend, which would still have beaten the second-place record. It takes the place of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” which opened to $260 million in December 2021. In the realm of best opening weekends in North America, they’re followed by “Avengers: Infinity War” ($257 million in 2018) and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($247 million in 2015).

Expectations were always high for “Brand New Day,” which was directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and cost a reported $225 million to produce, not including marketing expenses. But there were worries it wouldn’t attract the same level of mass audience enthusiasm as its predecessor which integrated past Peter Parker actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield into the mix. In reality, interest was higher than ever. “Brand New Day” also received strong reviews from critics and audiences. It currently has a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes; Audiences gave it an “A” CinemaScore and a five-star rating on PostTrak.

Ticket buyers were predominately male (about 61%) and many were on the younger side, with slightly more than half the audience under the age of 25, according to PostTrak exit polls. The biggest group was between the ages of 18 and 24, which made up 36% of the audience; 27% were between the ages of 25 and 34. The box office analytics company EntTelligence estimates that about 24.1 million people attended “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” this weekend.

It’s also the biggest ever opening for Sony Pictures.

Tom Rothman, the Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, praised “the incomparable Tom Holland” in a statement. Rothman famously pushed back the production of the movie to allow Holland to act in “The Odyssey” as well.

Cries about the death of the superhero movie have been looming since “Endgame” with more than a few high-profile flops in the years since, including several from the once-impenetrable Marvel Studios. Still, when they work, they really work, most notably with “No Way Home” and “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which made over $1.3 billion.

Marvel Studios president and ‘Spider-Man’ producer Kevin Feige said in a statement, “This debut reflects the enduring power of Marvel’s characters, and the connection they continue to have with fans around the world — and, as audiences saw, it sets up exciting things to come.”

Producer Amy Pascal added that it “reinforces that moviegoers are hungry for stories that are both spectacular and deeply human.”

This year has also seen a resurgence of moviegoing from younger audiences, who have made hits out of movies like “Obsession,” “Backrooms” and “The Drama,” which also starred Zendaya.

They’re also helping blockbusters soar, and in a business that is partly propelled by momentum, “Spider-Man” had the benefit of coming after “The Odyssey,” which fell only 43% in its third weekend. “The Odyssey” has now earned $395.5 million domestically, bringing its global total to $911.4 million. The film will soon open in South Korea (Aug. 5), China (Aug. 14) and Japan (Sept. 11). Its studio, Universal, also became the first this year to surpass $4 billion globally thanks in part to “Michael,” which it distributed internationally, and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.”

A slew of animated PG-rated holdovers rounded out the top five: “Toy Story 5” was in third place with $6.3 million, followed by “Minions & Monsters” in fourth and “Moana,” in fifth. And there were bright spots further down the chart as well. In sixth place with $2 million, “Hadestown: The Musical” surpassed “Hamilton” to become the highest grossing live theater capture release ever with a running total of $18.2 million.

Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends for Rentrak, said the “Spider-Man” effect could help the summer movie season surpass the $4 billion mark for the first time since the Barbenheimer summer of 2023, and the third-ever billion dollar August.

“This is perhaps the most important summer moviegoing season in the history of the business,” Dergarabedian said. August, he added, "could set up a home stretch of the box office year like no other and one that could push us over that $10 billion mark."

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak:

1. “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” $355 million.

2. “The Odyssey,” $51 million.

3. “Toy Story 5,” $6.3 million.

4. “Minions & Monsters,” $5.8 million.

5. “Moana,” $5.3 million.

6. “Hadestown: The Musical,” $2 million.

7. “The Invite,” $1.2 million.

8. “I Want Your Sex,” $600,000.

9. “Young Washington,” $477,727.

10. “Obsession,” $470,000.

“It makes me more hungry to keep proving I am who I say I am,” said the star running back, who received a three-year extension in May worth $45.75 million. “It’s making me want to do more than I’ve done in the past.”

Meanwhile, Tampa Bay’s Baker Mayfield said he feels “disrespected” by the Buccaneers for not getting the contract extension he sought and plans to play out the final season of his three-year, $100 million deal.

Several players know exactly how they feel, entering the season with something to prove because of either signing a big-money deal, looking for another contract, joining a new team, trying to overcome an injury or working to rebound from mediocre play.

A.J. Brown, WR, Patriots

The three-time Pro Bowl pick was traded by Philadelphia to New England in June for a 2028 first-round draft pick and a 2027 fifth-rounder. Brown, who's still only 29, had 339 catches for 5,034 yards receiving with 32 touchdowns in four seasons with the Eagles — a tenure also marked by cryptic social media posts and comments that soured his relationship with the franchise, including quarterback Jalen Hurts. In New England, Brown gets a fresh start with his childhood favorite team.

Jalen Carter, DT, Eagles

The Eagles signed the ninth overall pick in 2023 to a four-year extension that included $106 million guaranteed through the 2031 season. The huge deal makes Carter the league's highest-paid defensive tackle. It also comes after he had just three sacks last year while shoulder injuries limited him to 11 games. Carter said he feels the responsibility of living up to the contract and returning to his game-wrecking level of play.

Keon Coleman, WR, Bills

The 23-year-old wide receiver has the talent to be a star for the Bills' Josh Allen-led offense. But inconsistency and lapses in focus on and off the field have prevented Coleman from reaching that potential. He has been disciplined three times for being late to meetings. After having eight catches for 112 yards in Buffalo's season opener, Coleman had just 30 receptions for 292 yards in 12 other games. He acknowledged in minicamp that this is a “make or break” season.

Breece Hall, RB, Jets

Hall ran for 1,000 yards for the first time in his career last season and also had 350 yards receiving with five overall TDs while playing in 16 games. He was mentioned often in trade rumors last year, but remained with the Jets. With Frank Reich running the offense, Hall should continue to be a do-it-all bell cow out of the backfield with the hope — based on what the Jets paid him — he'll firmly establish himself as one of the league's top running backs.

Baker Mayfield, QB, Buccaneers

The No. 1 overall pick in 2018 by Cleveland revived his career in Tampa Bay after replacing Tom Brady in 2023. Mayfield insists he has shown himself with the Buccaneers to be a franchise quarterback — and wants to be paid as such. In his first two seasons in Tampa Bay, he made the Pro Bowl and led the Buccaneers to NFC South titles. Mayfield got off to another terrific start last season, but fizzled down the stretch with injuries.

Kyler Murray, QB, Vikings

Arizona released Murray in the offseason, a disappointing end to what was a promising beginning for the 2019 top pick. He signed with Minnesota in March for the veteran minimum of $1.3 million, giving the Vikings a veteran to compete with J.J. McCarthy for the starting job. Murray has been productive at his best as a dynamic dual threat. But he has had to deal with injuries and questions about his work ethic, something he'll try to put to rest with the Vikings. But he needs to beat out McCarthy first.

Michael Penix Jr., QB, Falcons

The eighth overall pick in 2024 came to Atlanta as the Falcons' possible quarterback of the future. Injuries and inconsistency have threatened those hopes. Penix opened last season as the starter, was benched late in Week 3 in favor of Kirk Cousins and then tore an ACL in Week 11. He's working his way back from that injury this summer and the Falcons aren't quite sure when he'll be fully ready. Atlanta signed Tua Tagovailoa, who's also currently banged up, in the offseason to compete with Penix.

Rashee Rice, WR, Chiefs

The 26-year-old wide receiver, who missed the Chiefs’ voluntary offseason workouts and mandatory minicamp, served a 30-day sentence in a Dallas County jail for violating the terms of his probation, stemming from his role in a car crash that left multiple people injured on a Texas highway. Rice also had surgery to clean debris in his right knee shortly before he was sentenced. When he has played, he has been a productive target for Patrick Mahomes with 156 catches for 1,797 yards and 14 touchdowns. But Rice has also played just 28 games in three seasons because of a suspension and injuries.

C.J. Stroud, QB, Texans

The second overall pick in 2023 had a terrific first season, winning AP Offensive Rookie of the Year, leading the Texans to the playoffs, making the Pro Bowl and giving Houston hope its franchise QB was in place. Stroud's last two seasons might have caused some doubt. The Texans have made it to the postseason in each of his three NFL seasons, but Stroud had his worst performance in the divisional round against New England when he threw four first-half interceptions. The Texans exercised the fifth-year option on Stroud’s rookie contract in April and he's eligible for an extension, with talks ongoing.

Brian Thomas Jr., WR, Jaguars

The 2024 first-rounder set franchise rookie records for catches (87), yards receiving (1,282) and TD receptions (10), quickly emerging as Trevor Lawrence's top target. But Thomas' production nosedived last season with 48 catches for 707 yards and just two TDs. He also tied for second in the NFL with 10 drops. Thomas was impressive during offseason workouts and minicamp, and the hope is being in his second year in Liam Coen's offense will help him more closely resemble the playmaker he was as a rookie.

Deshaun Watson, QB, Browns

Healthy again after tearing an Achilles tendon in 2024 and missing last season after reinjuring it, Watson's competing with Shedeur Sanders for Cleveland's starting job. And this could be the 30-year-old QB's last chance to redeem himself. He has played in just 19 games since being acquired from Houston in 2022 for three first-round picks and then signing a fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million deal. He was suspended by the NFL for the first 11 games that season for his alleged sexual misconduct during massage therapy sessions. If Watson starts in Week 1 for new coach Todd Monken, it'll be his first game since Week 7 of the 2024 season.

Malik Willis, QB, Dolphins

Tennessee thought Willis could potentially be its franchise QB when it drafted him in the third round in 2022. That never materialized and Willis was traded to Green Bay two years later. He rejuvenated his career last season while filling in for an injured Jordan Love and parlayed that into a three-year, $67.5 million deal with Miami. Willis will be the starter from Week 1, but the Dolphins are putting a lot of faith in a quarterback with only six NFL starts.

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

The floodwaters soaked the rug under the new grand piano Connor just bought to replace the one she lost. It totaled her Chrysler Pacifica that took the place of her old truck. It muddied her husband’s tools they’d salvaged last year.

Connor set up a dehumidifier by the piano and got rid of the car and a volunteer group helped clean the tools. Concerned about mold, they again looked for a place to stay in their RV while they fixed their home.

“I don’t care if I end up with zero money in my bank account; I’m going to pay people to get things done,” said Connor, a retired teacher. “We’re tired, and it’s a pretty house when it’s all done.”

When the Guadalupe River flood tore through Hunt, Kerrville and Center Point last year, Connor and many others thought of it as a once-in-a-lifetime storm. The National Weather Service characterized it as a thousand year rainfall — which has a 0.1% chance of happening in a given year.

The July 4 flood struck in the dead of night and traumatized this Hill Country community, killing 119 people in Kerr County, including 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic, and sweeping homes off their slabs.

Just over a year later, on July 16, it happened again — another once-in-a-lifetime rainfall. The main difference was where the rain fell, slightly northeast of last year’s deluge. This flood damaged some of the same homes and businesses, in some cases soon after people got them fixed. It ravaged other neighborhoods and businesses anew.

Now people are again facing the physical and emotional toll that can come with living in Flash Flood Alley: mucking out molding homes, piling ruined belongings by the curb, trying to salvage photos, knitted blankets or grand pianos.

Some locals say selling their properties makes no financial sense, even if they wanted to leave. Others couldn’t imagine leaving a place where they have friends, family, jobs.

For the second straight year, they’re encouraging each other. The Federal Emergency Management Agency as of Friday hadn’t approved funding to help individuals recover. Nonprofits have described the difficulty of soliciting donations a second time around.

But still, people are rebuilding. Strangers helping strangers. And grieving again.

“Last year, you’re devastated,” said Laura Cane, who had reopened her vacation rental house in Center Point three weeks before this year’s flood. “This year, you’re broken.”

Flooded twice, but staying

Eleven years ago, Cane and her boyfriend bought the property, which also has two long term rental homes. A mechanical engineer who designed drill bits and lives north of Houston, the 65-year-old retired with the plan of living off the rental income.

Last year they had to rebuild when the flood swept through the buildings.

Cane and her boyfriend got the vacation rental open again June 26. They were putting the finishing touches on the long-term units when this year’s flood arrived, causing worse damage than the first one. The water rose over the new cabinets and ripped stone from the exterior of one structure.

There’s no way, Cane thought as she watched the news that day.

The couple plans to fix everything again. They don’t want to take the financial hit of selling it now when the value is low after two straight floods.

“It sucks,” Cane said. “It’s horrific. It’s mentally, physically, financially horrific. You wouldn’t want anybody to deal with that. But at the end of the day, my family has a family to go home to.”

Twenty miles away, past Kerrville, Jack Hudson, 62, and his wife had survived the 2025 flood on their porch, standing on a short rock wall and gripping decorative iron columns, worried the house would fall apart. Hudson held onto his 150-pound Great Dane while his wife held their 20-pound dachshund.

She thought they saw someone coming to save them; it was their truck floating by.

Four-and-a-half feet of water got into the home, ruining his mother’s handwritten children’s stories about Billy Wiskers, a mischievous goat, and 21 years of his journals. When the water receded, he helped move a body from a neighbor’s mobile home. He didn’t journal anymore after that.

“The community is exhausted, unfortunately,” Hudson said. “We’re deeply saddened to see the same thing happen again.”

This year when Hudson saw the creek rising, he got his dogs in the truck and drove up the hill. His wife was out of town. They had just moved back into their home in February and reopened their handmade wood furniture business in April. He preferred to start over here, where people knew him.

This time, Hudson lost only some lumber. People reordered furniture he’d made that washed away. He empathized deeply with those hit harder downriver who also had to close businesses.

“It can be tough,” he said. “It kind of knocks you down.”

“It’s been a hard week emotionally just to know what they’re going through,” said his wife, Jennifer Hudson, 62.

Michael Ybarra, who installs septic systems, could only think about last year’s flood when this year’s hit. His cousin, Julian Ryan, died a year ago when he punched through a window to save his family as the water rose; he bled to death when the glass gashed his arm. Ryan and his family lived near Hudson, who had helped carry Ryan’s body from his mom’s mobile home.

“All I could think about that night was my cousin and what happened to him,” Ybarra said. “I’m like, ‘What if I’m in that same situation?’ I didn’t know.”

Ybarra and his family got out of their Kerrville-area home as soon as they could after this year’s flood. They didn’t go back for a week, while they tried to find help; everything stunk from the wet and the heat.

Volunteers from Samaritan’s Purse helped Ybarra gut the home. They helped take everything out and spray it for mold. They cut out the drywall, leaving some evidence of his daughter’s scribbles high up on the wall. His 6-year-old daughter is autistic and nonverbal; the change in routine hit her hard.

Ybarra said they’re rebuilding because they own their home, so it makes the most financial sense. His wife has lived there for much of her life, and it’s where they lived during the birth of their two children.

Ybarra said Kerrville is all he knows. So they will take it day by day, with trust in God.

“It’s more than just a house,” he said.

“You remember this”

The flood hit people this year who were spared last year — Ybarra’s mother-in-law said it helped them better feel what everyone else went through.

For Julie Casteel, 48, buying a home felt like a big deal. She’d moved to Kerrville in 2018 to be part of the recovery community. She stayed in a domestic violence shelter and sought help with her with substance abuse. She had experienced homelessness. In Kerrville, she fell in love, and she and her husband moved into their home in October, on a hill.

Last year’s flood missed their house. This one didn’t.

Casteel’s husband Dan, 68, sprung to action. He had once built outdoor fireplaces and other outdoor amenities for a living, and he grabbed a Shop-Vac and pond pump to move water from one room into another, and sawed a notch into the concrete door frame in the house to let the water flow out.

His quick response spared them from having to rip out the flooring or walls — but camping gear, cycling equipment and power tools got drenched. So did photo albums. Casteel had moments of feeling anger and defeat over all she lost, at the idea of starting over again.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she said.

Casteel and her husband both work for a state hospital, where she expects trauma. But their stone home was a safe place as well as a sanctuary for her 15-year-old daughter and the dogs and wild animals Casteel took in — including three snakes, a prairie dog, a rat and an opossum.

Julie Casteel went to work the day of the flood, and got notifications on her Ring camera as a community of people arrived at her home while she was gone to help clean up. Michelle McGuire, who had survived last year’s flood by swimming to a tree, kept checking in on her and suggesting resources.

“We’re rolling up our sleeves and doing it again and helping each other,” McGuire said.

Ties like those keep Casteel here.

“We take care of each other here,” she said.

Last year, Dondi Persyn, through a group called Found on the Guadalupe River, helped connect flood survivors with lost possessions that others found scattered along the river.

This year she’s helping clean out houses, paying for fans and dehumidifiers, and passing out bins for people to sort their flood-damaged stuff.

“We all were starting to settle our shoulders,” she said. “We got through the one year mark and we were like, okay, we can breathe a little bit. It felt hard, but also like okay, we hit that milestone, and then when the second flood hit, everybody was kind of in disbelief.”

She’s reminding the bewildered people she meets that even if the damage didn’t feel as bad as last year, it still mattered.

At Crider’s Rodeo and Dance Hall, a Hunt institution that flooded last year, forcing them to close for the remainder of the summer season, owner Tracy Moore had told her husband that if they flooded again, she couldn’t rebuild a second time.

Moore kept telling her grandkids: Never build a home by the river, no matter how serene it looks.

“You remember this,” she told them. “You remember this until you die.”

This year, their stretch of river rose again. And stopped short of the dance hall, sparing them.

A network of little black cameras on tall metal posts has sprouted up across Texas, in big cities and along remote country roads.

The cameras, produced by Atlanta-based Flock Safety, use artificial intelligence to scan every vehicle that passes by, uploading the plate number, model, color and even bumper stickers to the country’s largest vehicle surveillance database. Law enforcement agencies that contract with the company — here and across the U.S. — can search the accumulated database with a few keystrokes and without a warrant.

A backlash is growing. U.S. Rep. Keith Self, a McKinney Republican, last month proposed legislation to require federal agencies to obtain warrants before accessing Flock camera data. Meanwhile, some Texans are done debating the cameras and are dismantling them instead.

It’s unclear exactly how many cameras dot the state, in large part because one of the biggest users of the cameras is the Texas Department of Public Safety, which declines to disclose how many devices it has positioned across the state.

What is known: The state troopers have partnerships with more than 200 local law enforcement agencies across the state that allow seamless data sharing between DPS and its partner agencies.

Nationally, Flock Safety estimates some 5,000 law enforcement agencies and 6,000 communities use its surveillance products.

Advocacy groups that track camera positions across Texas estimate there are more than 10,000 cameras in the state, including several thousand concentrated in the Houston area. At least 41 cameras have been installed around Waco-area cities and state roadways since 2024, according to public records and law enforcement officials.

Many police departments consider Flock an invaluable crime-fighting tool. Opponents — including privacy, civil liberty and immigrant rights advocates — argue the system’s capacity for abuse is well established. Texas cities such as Austin and Bandera, a town of about 900 people 50 miles northwest of San Antonio, have terminated their contracts over such concerns. They are among 47 cities nationwide to do so, according to DeFlock, an anti-surveillance group monitoring the company.

Despite the backlash, more local law enforcement agencies are considering adopting the technology, including the Waco police department, but some political leaders are skeptical.

“Americans’ Fourth Amendment right to be secure in their privacy does not disappear just because of new technology or artificial intelligence,” Self said in a July news release describing his proposed legislation. “Americans have a constitutional right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, and our government is supposed to get a warrant before invading that privacy. This bill simply restores that protection. Get a warrant.”

Flock Safety did not respond to a request for comment.

What is a Flock camera?

Most Flock cameras scan license plates, looking for cars associated with warrants, stolen vehicles, missing persons or other suspected crimes.

Surveillance cameras like Flock, commonly referred to as “automatic license plate readers” or ALPRs, are not a new technology. However, Flock’s cameras have additional features that worry privacy advocates.

Flock cameras are notably different from the legacy license plate readers already attached to many police cruisers because they provide access to data by distant law enforcement agencies. Some searches from police departments scan through more than 7,000 camera networks, according to DPS records.

If a department opts in to Flock’s “national lookup” program, officers can search for a vehicle anywhere in the country where another department or agency has opted in. These searches do not require a warrant.

Another Flock difference is an AI capability allowing cameras to create a vehicle “fingerprint” independent of the license plate. A user can search “Blue Toyota Corolla, bumper stickers,” for example, to find matching hits and track the car’s movement. Other search options include accessories like bike racks, or even other vehicles that frequently travel together.

Finally, any user can create a shareable “custom hotlist” of suspected vehicles. Vehicles do not need to be tethered to a suspected crime to be added to a custom hotlist, according to Footnote4a, a nonprofit surveillance watchdog group and creator of haveibeenflocked.com.

Why are they controversial?

The backlash against Flock can’t be attributed to any one concern or trend, but rather a drumbeat of incidents accumulating over several years.

In Baytown, southeast of Houston, the city’s police chief last week announced a criminal investigation into an officer who was accused of misusing the city’s Flock cameras. The officer resigned Thursday, Police Chief John Stringer said, and the department did not specify what the allegations of misuse were.

Cases of Flock misidentifying suspect vehicles, however rare, have resonated well beyond the towns and cities where it happened, fueling fears of opaque technology driving arbitrary arrests.

A Colorado woman was falsely accused of package theft last year after an officer said a Flock camera found her at the scene of the crime. Her story found its way to national news outlets, as did a Denver man who was pulled over repeatedly because of his car’s mistaken addition to a Flock hotlist.

More than one incident has seen innocent motorists surrounded by officers with guns drawn.

Cases of erroneous Flock hits — where the system flags the wrong car — are happening with greater frequency as Flock’s network expands, according to the Institute for Justice, a leading public interest law firm. The institute identified 27 cases in nine states, but none in Texas as of late July.

Flock cameras have also been used to aid immigration enforcement in Texas and elsewhere, even in cases where the Flock customer explicitly restricted sharing with federal immigration agencies. Flock says it does not partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

However, immigration agents were able to gain back-door access to a Houston school district’s Flock data through out-of-state police departments the district shared data with, according to a February investigation by The 74. Meanwhile, an investigation by 404 Media last year found several local and state law enforcement agencies in Texas conducting searches on behalf of federal immigration agents.

Those incidents underscore how the ease of sharing data — what makes Flock so effective for solving certain crimes, such as auto theft — makes data difficult to safeguard.

It’s a dilemma that’s hard to avoid when “the entire system depends on encouraging additional connections to the network,” said Beryl Lipton, a senior researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital civil rights group.

Blake Burleson, a founding member of the Waco-based Heart of Texas Network for Immigrant Rights, said he’s worried about how state law enforcement might use Flock to accelerate immigration-related stops in Waco.

“Given the evidence we have right now of the Texas Department of Public Safety collaborating with ICE within the Waco city limits, and seeing the destruction they’re doing to families … I hope Waco doesn’t go to this quickly, or maybe never,” Burleson said.

The Texas Department of Public Safety approved a $26 million contract with Flock last year to surveil state roads and support Operation Lone Star, the state’s multibillion-dollar effort to curb unauthorized immigration and fortify the border.

State police have a 287(g) task force partnership with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, allowing officers to cooperate with immigration agents in the field.

In the Waco-area, the greatest share of Flock critics appears to be concentrated among data center opponents. A search for posts including “Flock” in the Stop the Waco Data Center Facebook group returns more than 100 hits. Those posts present Flock, data centers and surveillance software, such as Palantir, as interconnected problems.

Sean Terrel, an organizer with the Waco data center opposition, does not see the two issues as fundamentally linked. He said the prevalence of anti-Flock sentiment in the data center opposition group is more a general indicator of community engagement.

“The people that are concerned with their community are interested in the things that are happening [to it],” Terrell said. “And these are two big issues.”

Last week, the Institute for Justice published a survey of 28 cases where police officers used Flock to stalk romantic interests. Two of the Flock stalking cases were reported in Texas this month, one of which involved an officer using Flock to stalk a female colleague.

Flock Safety in April introduced a new AI auditing tool billed as a solution to police abuse of the product. At least 20 officers in Georgia have been disciplined or charged with Flock misuse in the past year, according to an Atlanta News First investigation, which partly credited the sudden spike in cases to the new auditing tool.

The “use of automatic license plate reader data for non-law enforcement purposes is strictly prohibited,” according to a DPS policy document governing the department’s use of Flock.

What does a network of Flock cameras look like?

The Waco area provides a window into how Flock cameras are used in communities. Cameras in the region are operated by local police departments, DPS and private businesses. The Waco Police Department has not purchased Flock products, nor has the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office.

Because there is no centralized register of all Flock products in a given area, the most comprehensive list of known camera locations is a user-generated map hosted by DeFlock.

The Waco Bridge confirmed the following camera counts using public records and calls to local police departments:

• Hewitt – 19 ALPR cameras; 2 Flock video cameras
• Robinson – 11 ALPR cameras
• West – 9 ALPR cameras
• Bellmead – 2 ALPR cameras

Both The Home Depot, located on West Waco Drive, and Lowe’s Home Improvement on New Road have Flock cameras installed. Home Depot has said it does not grant federal law enforcement access to its Flock data. Bellmead’s cameras were partly paid for by Walmart, which has a location in the city along Interstate 35.

It’s unclear how many cameras DPS operates in the area or throughout Texas.

The department has a statewide data-sharing agreement with 206 county and local police agencies, according to a list of partners DPS provided to The Texas Tribune on Thursday. That list was up from 122 partner agencies in February, a 69% increase in five months to the state’s vehicle surveillance network.

DPS declined to answer how many cameras the agency operates across Texas.

“As part of continued efforts to improve public safety, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has installed automated license plate readers (LPR) in McLennan Co. – and across Texas – within several state right of ways following authorization by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and once appropriate TxDOT state roadway permits were issued,” DPS wrote in a Thursday statement to The Texas Tribune. “Only law enforcement agencies who have signed agreements with the department have access to footage and images collected by DPS ALPRs.”

Why are they popular with law enforcement?

The value of Flock cameras for quickly investigating some crimes and preventing others is well-documented.

Flock cameras “have proven very effective [in solving crimes],” the DPS wrote in its Thursday statement. The department cited the system’s use in the July felony arrest of four suspects in a San Antonio home invasion case after a Flock hit led authorities to their location in Northwest Austin.

The Hewitt Police Department has been one of the biggest advocates for expanding the Flock network in the Waco area. With 21 cameras, the city has installed more Flock cameras than any other in McLennan County.

That’s not because Hewitt wants to spy on its residents, Hewitt Police Chief John McGrath told The Bridge.

“We have placed these cameras mainly on the outer limits of our city because what we’re interested in is the people that are coming into our city and committing criminal acts,” McGrath said.

He listed several examples where Flock was the deciding factor, including a victim of domestic violence in Hewitt who had a protective order against someone who lived outside the city. The suspect’s vehicle was added to a hotlist, allowing Hewitt officers to intervene when he approached the victim’s home.

Robinson police share Hewitt’s positive impression of the cameras. This week, the Robinson Police Department attributed a steep, year-over-year drop in burglaries, property crime and vehicle theft to the city’s 11 cameras. However, it’s not clear that Flock caused the drop. National crime rates across multiple categories have dropped precipitously since 2022, according to an analysis by the Council on Criminal Justice.

Flock Safety claimed its products helped locate 10,000 missing persons and supported 1 million investigations in 2025 and have specifically pointed to Texas as a demonstration of their importance.

A shooting spree by three teenagers in Austin earlier this year, injuring four people, led to a citywide chase with city police that took hours — only for the suspects to be caught an hour after entering Manor and being spotted on by city Flock camera. Flock touted the incident as an example of the price paid by Austin for cancelling its contract.

“Manor is a city of roughly 20,000 residents with a fraction of Austin’s resources,” a Flock post about the incident read. “What Manor has is an active license plate recognition network and the community support to keep it running. Manor PD located the suspects almost immediately. The spree ended. Residents stayed safe.”

Flock cameras are also heavily subsidized by state grants in Texas, chiefly through the Texas Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority. Hewitt pays $9,600 a year for its camera network; the other $38,400 is paid for by the state grant. Bellmead’s system is partly paid for by the authority’s catalytic converter grant.

Can local law enforcement create safeguards for Flock?

Police departments can determine how Flock cameras are used and regulated, not just the company.

McGrath said his department takes potential officer misuse of Flock seriously. The Hewitt Police Department is an accredited member of the Texas Police Chiefs Association Best Practices Program and has instituted guidelines for proper use of its cameras.

Flock mandates users enter a reason for their search, though instances of vague search reasons have appeared in Flock audits throughout the country, such as “sus vehicle,” “test,” “investigation,” or random letter strings.

Hewitt’s policy demands a higher standard to execute a search, McGrath said. If a case number isn’t supplied, “you can’t just do a search and say something like ‘drugs’ [as a search reason],” he said. Hewitt officers who misuse the system could be fired.

McGrath said he was not aware of any requests from federal agencies to access Hewitt’s Flock data, nor were the cameras purchased with the intent of aiding immigration enforcement. Immigration enforcement is a “prohibited use” according to Hewitt’s Flock transparency portal.

Sign-up for Flock’s transparency portal service is optional. Because Flock data is owned by the user, according to the company, police can also choose the level of data access they grant other agencies.

Are Flock cameras being defaced?

The trend in Flock vandalism points to an emerging movement rejecting mass surveillance technology. Social media posts about damaged Flock cameras, as well as comedic instructionals on how to disable them, have gone viral.

Now, Flock cameras are being hacked, smashed and blinded across Texas, with reports of similar incidents surging throughout the country.

In July, Dallas police reported 25 attacks on Flock cameras since March, while authorities in Houston are investigating a string of anti-Flock vigilantism this month.

Flock cameras have been vandalized in the Hewitt area, too, police said. “We have actually had a couple of our cameras vandalized in Hewitt,” McGrath said, adding that Hewitt police are considering adding surveillance cameras to watch its Flock cameras in the event of a repeat strike.

A suspect in one of those cases was captured by the Flock camera being defaced.

“We will get arrest warrants for them, and we will put them in jail, and we will work with the DA’s office to try and get the maximum punishment,” McGrath said.

— Ayden Runnels contributed to this report.

Disclosure: Electronic Frontier Foundation has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The fires in and around Spokane, the state's second largest city, burned about 8.2 square miles (about 21 square kilometers) over the weekend and were among dozens of wildfires across the Western U.S. that stretched the ability of federal, state and local agencies to fight them.

A total of about 390 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) has burned across the state, and some of the fires, including those in the Spokane area, have not been contained.

No one hurt or unaccounted for — so far

Fire and law enforcement officials said there had been no reports of injuries or people unaccounted for — but they stressed it was early in the response effort.

Officials also said that the evacuees in Spokane included patients at its U.S. Veterans Affairs hospital.

Video from the Spokane area showed buildings on fire, black smoke billowing up near neighborhoods, and the smoking ruins of homes, with only chimneys still standing. Several officials expressed concern that the area does not appear likely to get a break in coming days from the weather, which is expected to remain dry.

“We are not out of danger,” U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell said during a news conference with federal, state and local officials in Spokane. “The next couple of days will be challenging.”

Investigators had yet to determine how the blazes started.

Grassland in flames in parts of Idaho, Oregon and Utah

Spokane was hardly the only place struggling to contain fires.

Crews using bulldozers and helicopters continued for a 10th day to fight a fire that has burned nearly 525 square miles (about 1,360 square kilometers) of grassland in western Idaho and eastern Oregon. The area is home to cattle ranches, and authorities said the fire is threatening more than 600 homes and 800 other structures.

The weather in the area was expected to remain sunny — and dry — well into the week, with temperatures rising to more than 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) on Wednesday. Officials say the fire was caused by lightning.

In central Utah, a massive blaze more than doubled in size over the weekend, jumping from 16 square miles (about 41 square kilometers) to about 56 square miles (145 square kilometers) by Sunday morning. More than 100 cattle have been killed, according to local law enforcement.

Officials called the fire “catastrophic" as heavy winds helped flames jump containment lines overnight. The fire is moving north toward Fillmore, a town of about 2,600 people and the seat of Millard County. Mandatory evacuations were ordered Sunday evening for the southern portion of Fillmore.

The National Weather Service issued warnings about the air quality across the northwest. It issued red flag fire warnings for parts of Utah and Montana and western Nebraska, and extreme heat warnings for the southern parts of Arizona, California and Nevada and northern Montana.

High winds make it hard to fight fires in Spokane area

While temperatures Sunday in Spokane were forecast to remain below 80 F (27 C), wind gusts from 35 mph (56 kph) to 45 mph (72 kph) had been expected by the afternoon, said Benjamin Cossel, public information officer for the federal response team from California called in Saturday night to deal with the fires.

“We have weather working against us, and we have terrain working against us,” Cossel said.

There were three fires in the Spokane area: the Old Trails Fire, the Fairview Fire and the Meadowview Fire. Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a state of emergency Saturday, and the National Weather Service issued a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag alert for eastern Washington.

Cossel said that as it gets warmer during the day, cool air that's closer to the ground and keeping winds at bay will rise, allowing those winds to move through the area. The Spokane River cuts through the city of about 229,000 people, and there are steep canyons on both sides that channel the wind.

“They push the fire through the canyons, up, up the slopes, and then outside the slopes and around,” he said. “It's very, very hilly, very, very steep slopes, a lot of canyons that create really turbulent, really challenging sort of wind scenarios.”

Spokane sets up shelter for impacted residents

Authorities in Spokane set up a shelter at the city's main convention center. About 400 people were staying there, officials said Sunday.

Spokane County Commissioner Chris Jordan said relatives of his were in an area affected by the fires and that they don't know if their home is still standing. He said he spoke with them as they were leaving the home.

“They’re in their car and all they can see is smoke everywhere, and it was incredibly scary for so many people,” he said during the news conference.

Heather Rosenstrater, president and CEO of Avista Corp., the area's electric and natural gas utility, said about 10,000 people were without power Sunday, down from a peak of 30,000. Avista needs to repair two transmission lines, she said, so it's possible that demand for electricity over the next few days could cause outages.

Meanwhile, several larger fires continued to burn in less populated areas northwest of Spokane, including one about 80 miles (129 kilometers) from the city that has burned about 210 square miles (544 square kilometers). Another fire in eastern Oregon, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) to the northwest in the Stinkingwater Mountains, has burned about 336 square miles (870 square kilometers).

“The whole northwest is heavily impacted right now,” said Keila Vizcarra, the spokesperson for the federal team from California handling what's been named the Big Grass Fire in western Idaho and eastern Oregon.

The remarks by Doron Spielman, spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, were some of the first public comments since U.S. President Donald Trump announced the agreement.

Spielman told The Associated Press that Israel's intelligence assessment is that Hamas remains committed to rebuilding its military rather than genuinely demilitarizing. He said the Israeli military would not withdraw from Gaza — where it controls more than 60% of the territory — before Hamas disarms.

“Our assessment is that if we redeploy before Hamas is truly disarmed, it will quickly expand its presence throughout Gaza, rebuild its terrorist infrastructure, once again threaten Israeli communities, and seek to carry out another Oct. 7-style attack,” he said, referring to the Hamas militant attack on Israel in 2023 that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

“Disarming means physically giving up the weapons. Nothing less,” Spielman said.

His comments come days after Hamas said that it would begin disarming as part of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire signed nine months ago to end the nearly three-year-long conflict. It marks a potential breakthrough in ending the conflict, but many hurdles, conditions and long timelines remain.

Hamas says it's agreed to disarm but the process has obstacles

Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan calls on the militant group to surrender its weapons and destroy its vast network of tunnels. It also envisions Israeli forces withdrawing from Gaza, the arrival of a new technocratic Palestinian government, deployment of an international security force and the rebuilding of the battered Palestinian enclave.

Hamas disarming has been a sticking point and has deadlocked negotiations for months. In announcing the deal on social media on Thursday, Trump said it would be carried out in “carefully structured phases.”

A copy of the agreement obtained and verified by the AP said that all weapons held by the Hamas-run police will be transferred to the U.S.-backed Palestinian technocratic committee, known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, upon its arrival in the enclave. It’s not clear when that would happen since it is contingent on other steps.

A process to decommission and store heavy weapons and to dismantle military production sites and tunnels will begin after the arrival of the Palestinian committee and the deployment of international forces. The process will be linked to a phased Israeli withdrawal, according to the agreement.

The areas Israel controls in Gaza have been mostly destroyed and depopulated. Most of the territory’s 2 million Palestinians are in the other part, where hundreds of thousands live in squalid tent camps and destroyed neighborhoods.

Israel appears unlikely to pull back significant forces or make other concessions ahead of its October elections. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a tough reelection battle, with his far-right coalition partners urging him to keep up the pressure on Hamas and leave forces in Gaza, and opponents accusing him of failing to prevent the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Hamas-led militants attacked Israeli communities then, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 others hostage. Israel responded with a punishing military offensive that has killed more than 73,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The ministry, which was part of the recently dissolved Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and international organizations. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants but says women and children make up around half of all fatalities.

Israel warns that Hamas is rearming

While Spielman said Israel greatly appreciates Trump’s commitment to its security and to finding a durable resolution, the government's position on disarmament is based on detailed intelligence saying that Hamas continues to rearm, recruit fighters, and rebuild its military capabilities.

The White House did not provide additional comments on Sunday, when asked specifically about Israel’s assessment that Hamas remains committed to rebuilding its military.

U.S. officials, who briefed reporters on the disarmament agreement last week, said that Israel had been consulted at every step of the negotiations and was not being asked to do anything more than what it had committed to as part of the ceasefire and hostage release agreement signed last October.

It's unclear what exactly Israel conveyed to the White House. Two people with knowledge of the deal told the AP that Israel had communicated its issues with it to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who's part of the Trump-led Board of Peace. One of them said that among the points Israel wanted was freedom to conduct military operations in Gaza. They spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

According to another person familiar with the deal, the Israelis raised two other issues: that Qatar and Turkey not be involved in verifying the stages of the agreement, and that Hamas’ weapons be destroyed after confiscation. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Israel continues to strike Gaza

Since the ceasefire was signed last October, Israel has continued striking Gaza, saying it’s targeting Hamas and its infrastructure.

Local Gaza hospitals said at least 17 were killed in the latest Israeli strikes, including children. A strike on a residential apartment in southern Gaza killed three family members, including their 4-year-old child, according to Nasser hospital, where the bodies arrived.

The Israeli military said the strikes had targeted militant operatives.

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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

• RAINFALL TOTALS: Heaviest rain totaled near 4″ over the past 24 hours.
• TODAY: Highs returning to the upper 90s and near 100 degrees.
• THIS WEEK: Hot, mostly sunny, and rain chances remain limited.

FORECAST

RAINFALL TOTALS

Saturday’s and Sunday morning’s storms brought heavy rain to the Hill Country and Rio Grande Plains. Over 3 inches were recorded in parts of Edwards, Real, Uvalde, and Kinney counties. Accumulations in La Salle county were close to 4″.

SAHARAN DUST

Dust looks to make a return this week between Tuesday and Wednesday. Coastal areas will see more dust than the rest of us on Wednesday, but we’ll have the haze clear up by Thursday.

HOT & DRY

A hot, dry pattern returns as high pressure builds, bringing sunshine and highs near 100°F next week. Aside from slight humidity increases and isolated coastal showers mid-week, widespread rain is not expected.

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• WATCH LIVE: Doppler Radar
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Over in the American League, Tampa Bay beefed up its rotation by adding right-hander Freddy Peralta while the New York Yankees acquired young slugger Luis García Jr. to give their Aaron Judge-less lineup a little more pop.

The trade deadline is Monday at 6 p.m. EDT and some of the biggest pitching prizes are already off the board. But other enticing options still remain, including San Diego Padres closer Mason Miller, San Francisco Giants second baseman Luis Arraez and Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Daulton Varsho.

Also on Sunday, the Chicago Cubs added Kevin Gausman to their rotation in a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays.

In other recent deals, the surprising Chicago White Sox picked up right-hander Luis Castillo from the Seattle Mariners, and the Atlanta Braves acquired outfielder Lane Thomas from the Kansas City Royals.

Dodgers land Skubal

Skubal is the latest star to join the high-priced roster for the Dodgers that already has big-name players like Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Mookie Betts.

If everyone is healthy, he could be part of a rotation with Ohtani, reigning World Series MVP Yamamoto, fellow two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. The Dodgers led the majors with a 3.36 ERA from their starting pitchers going into Sunday's games and now add Skubal to the mix.

“I’m excited to be a Dodger,” an emotional Skubal said on Saturday night. “I’m excited to get down there and meet all those guys and chase three championships in a row. That’s hard to do, so I’m so excited to a part of that. But it’s a lot of different emotions. Definitely kind of a roller coaster a little bit.”

The Tigers received three minor league prospects in right-handers River Ryan and Brady Smith and outfielder Zyhir Hope.

Skubal is 7-5 this season with a 2.79 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 96 2/3 innings. He is 61-42 with a 3.04 ERA over seven seasons, all in Detroit. In two postseasons, Skubal is 2-1 with a 2.04 ERA in six starts.

Mets unload Peralta to Rays

The last-place New York Mets traded Peralta to the Rays for three minor leaguers, outfielder Aidan Smith, infielder Émilien Pitre and right-hander Gary Gill Hill.

Peralta, a two-time All-Star who can become a free agent following the World Series, has been a disappointment with the Mets after they acquired him from Milwaukee in a January trade.

But he could boost the middle of a strong rotation for the pitching-rich Rays, who began the day with the best record in the American League at 65-45 and a 3 1/2-game lead in the AL East over the New York Yankees.

Garcia ‘both sad and happy’ about trade to Yankees

García has spent his entire seven-year career with the Nationals but acknowledged he would be excited to move to the Yankees.

“I mean it’s a mix of both sad and happy,” García said. “There’s a new chapter in my career, so yeah, 50-50 right now.”

He has a career-high 23 homers and 76 RBIs this season and could help a lineup that's been without Judge for more than two months after he suffered a stress fracture in his right ribs.

“He's been a hitter who has really come of age this year,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “One of the best left-vs-right hitters in the National League. We think he fits our ballpark very well and should hopefully give a little jolt to our offense which has obviously scuffled a little over an extended period.”

The Nationals received four right-handed pitchers for Garcia — Jake Bird, Yovanny Cruz, Jack Cebert and Ben Grable.

Bird, 30, has a 5.93 ERA in 30 games with the Yankees this season, all in relief. Cruz, 26, has a 1.69 ERA in four games. Cebert and Grable have spent the full season in the minors.

___

AP Baseball Writer Mike Fitzpatrick in New York and AP Sports Writer Josh Dubow in West Sacramento, California, and Charles Odum in Atlanta contributed to this report.

___

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

House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a post on X that throughout her career, Granger "broke barriers for women in public service.” He added that she “was a dear friend who will be greatly missed.”

Granger, who began her career as a high school teacher and a businesswoman, accomplished many firsts as a politician. She was the first woman elected mayor of Fort Worth, Texas, and the first Republican woman to chair one of the most powerful committees in Congress, the House Appropriations Committee.

First elected to the House in 1996, she did not seek reelection in 2024 and experienced worsening “health challenges” in her final months in Congress, according to a statement her office released in December 2024. Granger, who didn’t cast a vote in Washington after July 2024, didn’t specify or elaborate on those health challenges but said in the statement that frequent travel to Washington had become “both difficult and unpredictable" since early September of that year.

Granger graduated from Texas Wesleyan University in 1965 and considered a career in fashion design but followed her mother into teaching. She worked in the Birdville school district for nine years, teaching English literature and journalism, according to a profile compiled for the publication “Women in Congress, 1917-2006.”

A divorce would lead to a career change. To earn more money, Granger worked from home selling insurance. Her mother, Alliene Mullendore, who moved in with Granger after a stroke, helped keep an eye on the kids. Granger eventually built a successful insurance business that she managed for more than two decades.

“I was a high school teacher with three children, a 2-year and 6-month-old twins, and my husband left," Granger told The Hill in a 2008 profile. “It's the reason I talk so much to working mothers ... you just fight your way through the day.”

Granger got her political start serving on Fort Worth's zoning commission and then won office to the city council. She went on to win election as the city's first female mayor, serving from 1991 to 1995.

Granger’s “Code: Blue” programs included citizen patrol initiatives that halved the rampant crime rate and partnerships with the private sector that drew major businesses to the city. Her resuscitation of Fort Worth’s flagging economic fortunes drew national attention.

In 1996, she was recruited by both parties to run for the House under their banner, and she won as a Republican.

Upon entering Congress, she was named to an advisory board that consulted then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. She also received seats on three committees: Budget, House Oversight, and Transportation and Infrastructure. She resigned those assignments as part of accepting a seat on the Appropriations Committee.

On the committee, she focused on defense spending, including championing the production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in Fort Worth.

When Republicans took charge of the House in 2023, Granger became the committee's chair, where she sought to enact steeper non-defense spending cuts than the top-line numbers House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden agreed to as part of avoiding an economically disastrous government default.

The Mutiara Sentosa 2 ferry was traveling from Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya in East Java to the city of Makassar in South Sulawesi, with 232 passengers, 39 crew members and 181 vehicles, mostly trucks, and an excavator, when the fire broke out between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. in waters off Sumenep regency, according to Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, or Basarnas.

The ferry operator, PT Atosim Lampung Pelayaran, reported the incident to the Surabaya search and rescue office about an hour later, Basarnas said in a statement. It said the company received information from the ferry's captain that the vessel was on fire near the northern tip of Madura island, but contact was later lost.

By 9:45 a.m., authorities determined the ferry was about 19 nautical miles north of Buruan Sapudi island after communicating with the nearby cargo vessel Meratus Project 3, which was unable to approach the burning vessel closely because it was carrying a flammable load.

Footage released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed thick black smoke billowing from one side of the ferry and spreading across much of the ship while videos circulating on social media and messaging groups showed terrified passengers, mostly wearing life jackets, could be seen clustered on the deck and upper sections of the vessel awaiting rescue, some jumping into the sea as orange flames and black smoke billowed from the burning vessel.

The ferry was reported to be nearly engulfed by flames, with passengers gathered on the bridge and bow. A tugboat and another passing vessel moved in and began evacuating passengers shortly before 10 a.m., the statement said.

By Sunday evening, several nearby vessels managed to rescue 227 passengers and crew and recovered five bodies. At least 39 people remained unaccounted for.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known and remained under investigation.

Ahmad Abdul Karim, one of the survivors, said the fire appeared to have started from a truck on the lower vehicle deck.

“Someone came up from the lower deck and told us there was a fire. When we went down to check, two vehicles were already burning," Karim said, "Fanned by the wind, the flames spread extremely quickly. In less than 30 minutes, everyone had been instructed to move to the bow of the ferry.”

Search and rescue teams dispatched a rescue vessel from Surabaya, although officials estimated it would take about six hours to reach the scene. A rigid inflatable boat from the Sumenep rescue post was sent toward the location but later returned to shore because of rough seas and high waves. The Indonesian Navy also deployed a warship to assist.

The 160 meters (525 feet) long and 25 meters (82 feet) wide ferry was built in Japan in 1992 and operated on the Osaka-Shinmoji route as the “Ferry Osaka” before being sold to Indonesia in 2015. It serves the Surabaya-Makassar route, a voyage that typically takes around 40 hours and is primarily used by domestic travelers and cargo transport between Java and Sulawesi.

Indonesia is an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands where ferries are a common method of travel. Disasters occur regularly, with weak safety enforcement often blamed.

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Karmini reported from Jakarta. Associated Press writer Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

Five San Antonio Police Department officers shot the man in the 600 block of Aurora Avenue, according to Acting Police Chief Jesse Salame, after giving multiple verbal commands to drop the weapon.

Salame said the department had been called to the area multiple times for similar situations over the last month. It appeared as though the man might comply at one point, but ultimately did not.

Michelle Almanza, a neighbor, said she saw the shooting happen after she returned from church.

“(SAPD) even put their guns away and took out their taser,” Almanza said, “and that’s when he pulled out the gun on them.”

Neighbors said the man would talk to himself and started drinking at 5 a.m., more than 12 hours before police arrived.

Police have not confirmed any diagnoses of mental illness at this time, nor have officials linked it to what happened in the moments leading up to his death.

If you are in crisis and need immediate emotional support, call 988 or text TALK to 741-741. If there is an immediate danger to you or someone else, call 911.

If you are not in crisis, but need someone to talk to, or want to ask for services for yourself or a loved one, call NAMI’s Warm Line at (210) 939-9999.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene, and police said the five officers were placed on administrative duty, as is standard procedure.

Salame said there is no evidence the man fired his weapon, which was loaded.

Another resident, who asked to remain unidentified, recorded the moments that led up to the shooting through her window. Her daughter translated what she said she saw.

“She said that there’s female cops that yelled ‘no,’” the daughter said. “That’s when she thinks she saw that he kind of (motioned) near his waist. And she assumes that that’s what he was gonna pull out the gun. And then they all shot at him.”

The woman said it was not the first time she felt threatened by the man.

On a prior occasion, she said the man stood in the middle of the street and pointed his gun directly at her truck as she was pulling out of her driveway.

Neighbors said they have seen the man wearing an ankle monitor at one point. They also said he would disappear for stretches of time, then return and behave more erratically than before.

“I was relieved in a sense, because at least now we know the community was safe,” Almanza said. “But then... he really needed more help. How can you help somebody that doesn’t want it?”

SAPD has not yet released the identity of the man who was killed. The investigation is ongoing.

KSAT is working to obtain additional records and will report those details as new information becomes available.

Read more:

• Five officers shoot, kill West Side man waving gun near park, SAPD says

Most of the 60,000 migrants who swam, scrambled and later charged into the tiny Spanish exclave in North Africa this week had walked back to Morocco by Sunday, but some stayed on in the hills surrounding the city. Spanish authorities continued searching for bodies in the waters near the stretch of urban beach that tens of thousand of migrants had breached days earlier.

Shops in Ceuta reopened, and the usual blend of residents and tourists in the city of 84,000 were filling the open-air terraces, restaurants and cafes.

At least 72 migrants died, including some who drowned and others who were killed in a stampede to cross a breakwater barrier, Spanish authorities said Sunday. Morocco reported 11 deaths on its side of the border, but it wasn’t immediately clear if these were in addition to those reported by Spain. The kingdom's authorities blamed misinformation and human traffickers for the breach, adding that they were investigating the events.

But the city that prides itself on being home to four cultures was still grappling with the aftermath of the border surge, with locals disagreeing on what caused it and who exactly is to blame.

“It's not the young men's fault,” said Mohamad Abdelkader Driss, 44, a waiter at a fish restaurant in town. “If you open the border, of course everyone comes in, but the young men aren't to blame. The authorities are responsible.”

Some migrants who returned to Morocco described a border that was effectively open and said authorities did little as they watched thousands of people cross.

The unauthorized arrivals on Thursday and Friday of 50,000 to 60,000, mostly young men, swelled Ceuta's population by more than half. Abdelkader lamented what happened, but said that those who breached the border behaved relatively well.

“It could have been much worse,” he said.

Far-right politicians call for remaining migrants to be expelled

The humanitarian crisis caused by the sudden rush of people reignited a debate around immigration in Europe and beyond. Over the weekend, far-right, anti-immigrant Spanish politicians and well-known right-wing influencers descended on the city, sparking counterprotests that included members of the Spanish city's large Muslim population, many of whom are of Moroccan descent.

Alvise Pérez, a far-right Spanish politician and member of the European Parliament, called on Saturday evening for migrants to be expelled as he faced an angry crowd of rival protesters. Pérez eventually had to shelter in a bar as residents banged on the windows, until police escorted him away.

Among the counter-protesters on Saturday was 20-year-old Ceuta resident and student Noor Ahmed. She denounced the protest and presence of figures like Pérez in her city as opportunistic.

“They just want to take advantage of the humanitarian crisis Ceuta is currently experiencing,” Ahmed said.

Santiago Abascal, the leader of the far-right Vox party, visited Ceuta on Sunday, slamming the Spanish government for the surge in migrant arrivals, which he called “an invasion.”

“The frontiers of Ceuta and Melilla are the walls of our home and homeland, and they are not being protected by a corrupt and traitorous government,” he said.

The Pope said he was alarmed

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday said he was “following with concern the alarming situation in Ceuta, asking God … that solutions of peace, stability and justice may be found.”

Migration has been one of Pope Leo’s priorities, which he underlined during a recent visit to Spain's Canary Islands, one of Europe’s main migrant entry ports.

Trump added that a plan was in place for U.S. forces to carry out “the biggest attack since World War II” on Sunday. But he decided to scrap the plan and give diplomacy more time to play out after hearing from key Gulf leaders — including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — as well as at the request of unnamed Iranian officials.

“I said to the crown prince, ‘What would you rather do? Would you rather us do this or not?’” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he flew back to Washington after spending the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. “They said we would much prefer a deal as opposed to an attack, because you don’t know where these attacks lead.”

Trump and the crown prince spoke on Saturday before the U.S. president announced in a social media post that Mideast allies had reached the "perimeters" of a deal to end the 5-month-old war.

It was another turnabout for Trump, who a day earlier said he’s “losing faith” in negotiations with Iran and offered the ominous warning that the U.S. military “will be hitting them very hard.”

Trump on Sunday reiterated that the emerging deal would include a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway where about a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas flowed before the start of the war, and would resolve U.S. concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran has repeatedly attacked vessels attempting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz without its authorization as part of its conflict with the U.S.

And Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz “will in no way return to the status it was before February 28th,” the day the war started.

On a call with Iranian state TV, he added that Iran is discussing shipping through the strait with Oman, on the other side of Hormuz, but that there’s no current talk about reopening the crucial waterway.

Trump has announced halts to strikes on Iran on several occasions since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, only for things to unravel and fighting to resume again.

Iran’s defense minister said on X that the country was “neither surprised nor passive” following Trump’s announcement and said the Islamic Republic remains alert in the face of concrete threats from the U.S.

While Iran’s leaders appear united in a war strategy signaling strength and endurance, a struggle for control seems to be brewing within the theocracy’s leadership between those who oppose all negotiations with the U.S. and others who count on military pressure to win at the negotiating table.

The latest proposal would bring sides back to negotiations

Trump on Sunday said he expected negotiations to resume “tomorrow afternoon” but did not detail who would be involved in such talks.

A regional official said the proposal announced by Trump over the weekend calls for the U.S. and Iran to return to negotiations and continue working out many of the issues that have stymied prior progress on the deal.

The official, who is involved in the mediation efforts, said the proposal calls for reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and halting attacks across the region, including by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, on Arab Gulf countries and Jordan.

The U.S., in exchange, will end its naval blockade on Iran and allow Tehran to export its oil as stated in the tentative ceasefire deal, he said.

No deal has been reached yet but mediation efforts are underway, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media.

Trump said that Israel is joining his commitment to end the war by implementing the ceasefire deal reached in June. Israel did not publicly comment on the announcement.

Saudis are concerned about Iran's retaliation

Prince Mohammed, the kingdom’s de facto leader, raised concerns about the U.S. potentially escalating the conflict when he spoke with Trump by phone on Saturday.

The call was “candid and constructive,” according to a person briefed on the call who was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

The crown prince conveyed that an escalation in fighting could have a severe impact on the global economy if Tehran responded to a new U.S. bombardment by targeting some of the United States' Gulf allies.

The call happened before Trump’s social media announcement, the person said. The crown prince sought clarity from Trump on what potential new action he was weighing to take against Iran.

Saudi officials, the person added, have underscored in their engagements with the Trump administration that the kingdom — as well as fellow Persian Gulf energy titans the United Arab Emirates and Qatar — are in a good position to defend against further potential Iranian attacks, but that Kuwait could be more vulnerable to attacks by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.

Trump suggested that his conversation with the Saudi crown prince weighed heavily in his decision to halt his plans to carry out strikes on Iran.

“It would have been disastrous for them. And they didn’t want us to do it," Trump said. "And frankly, Saudi Arabia didn’t want it either. They thought that a deal is imminent.”

___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Toqa Ezzidin in Cairo, Giovanna Dell'Orto in Jerusalem, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, contributed to this report.

Granger was the first Republican woman elected to represent Texas in Washington, D.C. 

She took the seat in 1997 after Democrat Pete Geren retired, defeating Hugh Parmer, and went on to serve Texas’ 12th Congressional District for nearly three decades. Granger was the most senior Republican member of the state’s delegation by the end of her tenure. During this time, she also rose through the ranks to lead the powerful House Appropriations Committee, the first woman from her party to hold that position. 

Across the Texas delegation, Granger’s legacy was honored. Sen. Ted Cruz called her life one of “historic firsts” and Sen. John Cornyn described her as “a trailblazer.”

Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, Granger’s successor, said in a social media post Granger “transformed the city she loved,” working “to improve the lives of those she represented.”

A defense hawk, Granger became one of the House’s most reliable champions of military spending. In 2011, she co-founded the bipartisan Joint Strike Fighter Caucus to shield from budget cuts the F-35 fighter jet program — assembled at Lockheed Martin’s main plant in her own west Fort Worth backyard. Six years later, she became the first woman to chair the Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, where she helmed a $9.3 billion buy of the jets in 2018, before rising to lead the full committee and securing a $34 billion Pentagon contract for 478 more F-35s during her yearlong tenure. Fittingly, Lockheed Martin’s employees and PAC were her single largest source of campaign money over her career, combining for nearly $800,000 in contributions.

“It was an honor to serve alongside her on the House Appropriations Committee and to call her a friend,” said Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Waxahachie, who served with Granger on the panel. “She made history throughout her career, but she never lost sight of the people she represented.”

Granger’s pull stretched well beyond Washington, reshaping her hometown’s skyline. She was the driving force behind Panther Island, an $1.1 billion effort to reroute the Trinity River and turn 800 acres north of downtown Fort Worth into a riverwalk-style entertainment and flood-control district. Her son J.D. Granger ran the project for 16 years as head of the Trinity River Vision Authority — a role that fueled accusations of nepotism, especially as Panther Island struggled to nail federal funding. He stepped down in 2022 just months after the project received $403 million from President Biden’s infrastructure law, which his mother voted for yet publicly celebrated the family’s signature project.

As her seniority grew, so did the friction between her brand of old-school, defense-focused Republicanism and a party base pulling hard to the right. Hardline conservatives often criticized her as too moderate and as part of a GOP establishment willing to compromise with Democrats.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said her “work left a lasting mark on Fort Worth, Texas, and the Appropriations Committee.”

Granger once called herself a “pro-choice Republican,” and her first congressional campaign in 1996 was boosted by a PAC dedicated to electing abortion-rights supporters. Facing a well-funded, MAGA-aligned primary challenge from tech executive Chris Putnam in 2020, Granger reversed course, declaring herself anti-abortion and eventually signing onto a legal brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. She survived that primary, though by her smallest margin in a decade.

Granger’s final year in Congress, though, was steeped in mystery. She announced in late 2023 that she would not seek reelection and stepped down from her role as appropriations committee chair in early 2024. She then missed several months of votes due to her declining health, and neither she nor her staff had told constituents for months.

The Dallas Express, whose CEO is Putnam, reported in December 2024 that Granger was living at a senior facility. Her son Brandon then confirmed to The Dallas Morning News that she had been dealing with “dementia issues.”

Rep. Roger Williams, R-Willow Park, remembered her as a “patriot who understood the true meaning of public service.” 

“Her word was her bond, and she led with strength, integrity, and an unwavering commitment to the people she served,” Williams said. “I was proud to call her a friend, and she will be greatly missed.”

Prior to her barrier-breaking tenure in Congress, Granger also left her mark locally for almost five years as Fort Worth Mayor, predating her defense advocacy. She became Fort Worth’s first female mayor in 1991, just as the Cold War waned, and aerospace giant General Dynamics ordered massive layoffs, and Carswell Air Force Base, one of the area’s biggest employers, was slated to close. 

Granger spent her years in local office fighting to soften the blow, lobbying to convert Carswell into a Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base rather than lose it outright, while also pushing citizen-patrol programs that helped cut the city’s crime rate by roughly half.

In a Facebook post honoring Granger, Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker described her as a “trailblazer and tenacious leader” as well as “a mentor and friend.” 

“What a lady, and the end of an era in political service,” Parker said.cebook post honoring Granger, Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker described her as a “trailblazer and tenacious leader” as well as “a mentor and friend.” 

“What a lady, and the end of an era in political service,” Parker said.

Acting Police Chief Jesse Salame said officers were responding just after 7:45 p.m. in the 600 block of Aurora Avenue, near Alderete Park and Loma Park Elementary School, to reports that the man was waving a handgun across the street from his house, which he said the department has been notified of multiple times within the last month.

Officers gave multiple verbal commands for the man to drop the weapon. Salame said the man appeared as though he would comply, at first, but ultimately did not.

At some point, Salame said the five officers “perceived a threat” and fired shots at the man.

Salame said there is, at this point, no evidence the man fired his weapon, which had bullets loaded. None of the officers were injured.

The officers were all placed on administrative duty, Salame said, pending the results of the investigation.

This story is developing. Check back later for updates.

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Toss in a crescendoing meteor shower and a six-planet parade on the same day, and the heavens will be overflowing with awe.

Daytime darkness will descend Aug. 12 across the Iberian Peninsula close to sunset — plus slivers of Greenland and Iceland — as the sun, moon and Earth align perfectly in the sky.

Starting near the North Pole before tracking south, totality will last up to two minutes and 18 seconds, an appetizer for an even longer solar show next year — a 6 ½-minute extravaganza that will sweep from Spain to North Africa and the Middle East.

It will take 1 ½ hours for the umbra, or moon’s sun-blocking shadow, to race along the 5,130-mile (8,260-kilometer) course, most of it over an empty Atlantic. Maximum totality will occur off Iceland’s west coast. By the time it reaches a small patch of Portugal and then Spain with its massive crowds, totality will have dwindled to a minute or so. The spectacle will end in the Mediterranean.

Eclipse chasers gear up for the solar spectacle

Hundreds of millions more on the sidelines are in for a treat as well.

A partial eclipse will delight as far away as Alaska and Siberia, enveloping Canada, the northern U.S., and much of Europe and West Africa.

The closer to totality’s course, the more the sun will vanish behind the moon – 94% coverage in Dublin and 83% in Oslo, Norway. Montreal will see an 18% bite out of the sun, tapering to 9% in New York and 2% in Norfolk, Virginia.

Special eclipse glasses are crucial. even if a morsel of sun is showing.

Adding to the cosmic wonder, the day begins with six of our neighboring planets forming an arc in the sky before dawn and end with the Perseid meteor shower peaking after nightfall under the new moon. Streaking meteors could photobomb totality, with some of the brighter planets and stars visible in the background.

Eclipse mapmaker Michael Zeiler is chasing an even more elusive interloper: the northern lights.

For his 13th total solar eclipse, Zeiler will be on a cruise ship in a Greenland fjord, sailing as a guest lecturer. He’ll point a video camera toward the north to capture any aurora forming during totality. A massive outburst from the sun would be the icing on his eclipse cake.

“What gets me excited is viewing rare phenomena,” Zeiler said in an email.

He’s not the only one revved up.

See who's hosting solar eclipse watch parties and science experiments

The European Space Agency will host a live webcast from Spain’s Astrophysical Observatory of Javalambre and a public celebration in Leon. NASA will provide its own coverage, as will the Italian-based Virtual Telescope Project and others.

“For me, it’s not just a scientific moment. It’s not just an incredible alignment of heavenly bodies. It’s also a very human moment,” said ESA’s director of science Carole Mundell. “It’s a real human connection between us with our feet planted on the Earth and the cosmos.”

Two of ESA’s space telescopes will observe the eclipsed sun and its corona, or outer atmosphere. Proba-3, the space agency’s artificial eclipse-making satellite duo, will be in the wrong part of its orbit during totality as seen from Earth, but will try to sneak in some before-and-after shots.

U.S. college research teams are also pitching in, launching more than 60 high-altitude balloons from Spain and Iceland to study Earth’s atmosphere and other changes during the eclipse when the temperature momentarily drops. They launched 10 times as many balloons during the 2024 total solar eclipse that captivated North America.

“A couple of minutes isn’t a lot of time, but it’s still plenty to affect the atmosphere and to make that cold, dark shadow of the moon on Earth,” said Montana State University’s Angela Des Jardins, who leads the NASA-funded balloon project.

Southwest Research Institute’s Amir Caspi also expects a scientific bonanza from his study aboard a NASA high-altitude plane. Four cameras will record the corona in nine wavelengths as the jet chases the eclipse at 460 mph (740 kph), extending totality to nearly three minutes in the air. Caspi anticipates thousands of images gathered from each camera during those precious 180 seconds.

"It’s true the eclipse is short, but it’s still incredibly valuable," he said.

And there's more to come

An exceptionally long total solar eclipse is in store for 2027, yielding nearly three times more observation time.

The southern tip of Spain will take center stage on Aug. 2, 2027, with up to six minutes and 23 seconds of totality extending into Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia.

Then on Jan. 26, 2028, a ring-of-fire eclipse will round out Spain’s celestial trifecta — “a lucky coincidence,” according to ESA’s Mundell.

It’s all the more extraordinary considering Spain’s last full solar eclipse — not counting the Canary Islands — occurred two days before the Titanic’s sinking in 1912. Because that rare hybrid eclipse toggled between a ring-of-fire and just a few seconds of totality for Spain, some consider 1905 for the country’s last pull-out-all-the-stops solar eclipse.

The Royal Observatory of Belgium’s Andrei Zhukov can’t get enough of them regardless of their length or origin. His Proba-3 science mission has created more than 60 simulated total solar eclipses over the past two years, with the longest lasting five hours and 38 minutes from two satellites flying in formation.

“We’re looking forward to more eclipses,” Zhukov said, “natural or artificial.”

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

Curator Marcus Lobbes and his team were greeted with boos and whistles as they took to the stage at the end of Saturday evening's performance of “Götterdämmerung,” German news agency dpa reported. However, there was warm applause for the singers and musicians, and particularly for conductor Christian Thielemann.

Festival organizers said ahead of the performance that it would be the first time AI took part on stage at the event, “not as a character, but as an image-generating force.” They said that singers would be “the fixed point within a visually seething cosmos of light, texture, history, and association, amidst projections that erupt, constantly shift, and merge into one another.”

The AI-assisted projections included scenes from previous performances of Wagner's “Ring” cycle and historical themes, and drew from images pre-selected by Lobbes, the director of the Academy for Theater and Digitality in Dortmund, and his team.

The collage that the technology projected on stage puzzled the audience, dpa reported, with images including former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the towers of the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and a special postage stamp marking German reunification in 1990.

The festival website said that “every performance will be unique — because the images and associations never stand still.” Two more performances are scheduled.

The Tigers traded the two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner to the Los Angeles Dodgers for three minor league prospects in a deal that was agreed to late Saturday night.

“Baseball has a funny way of challenging you to deal with change,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said before the series finale against the Athletics on Sunday. “Sometimes that’s difficult, sometimes it’s part of the game and part of the business. These guys are callous to some of the emotions that come with it.”

Hinch's team responded with an 11-0 win to complete the series sweep and keep the Tigers within 2 1/2 games of the last wild-card spot.

“We played a really good series in the midst of a lot of different things swirling around us,” Hinch said. “This group’s pretty tough. We go through it game by game and showed a lot of character, obviously.”

Moving on without Skubal will be the ultimate challenge. The ninth-round draft pick in 2018 developed into one of the best pitchers in baseball, winning the Cy Young in 2024 and '25 and posting a 2.40 ERA over the past three seasons.

Skubal is 7-5 this season with a 2.79 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 96 2/3 innings and had a major impact in the clubhouse. But with him set to become a free agent after the season, the Tigers opted to trade him for minor league right-handers River Ryan and Brady Smith and outfielder Zyhir Hope.

Hinch said it was important for the players to appreciate what Skubal gave the team while still understanding the task ahead.

“He wasn’t going to pitch today. So we have to be sort of cold about we got to move on and go play today’s game that he wasn’t going to impact despite the loss of his presence in our clubhouse,” Hinch said. "We have a ton of respect for what he brought every day, his preparation, his attitude, his desire to win. That impact doesn’t leave with him as he gets on a plane to go to a different team. The day-to-day does, and we’re going to have to find a way to overcome it.”

News of the trade broke during Detroit's 8-6 win over the A's on Saturday night with many players first hearing about it from fans near the dugout during the game. Skubal was back in the clubhouse beyond the center-field fence at the minor league stadium where the A's play when he got the news, making it impossible for the players to get the news directly from him until after the game.

But they managed to focus on the game and come up with the win.

“The team’s handled it really well,” first baseman Spencer Torkelson said. “Leading up to the trade, I thought we blocked out the noise amazing. Even in the sixth inning when everyone’s screaming at us from the stands that we traded our best pitcher, I think we kept our focus and kept the main thing the main thing. I think as a team we still believe in ourselves and we know that we’re definitely not out of it.”

The trade came at an uncertain time for the Tigers, who have overcome a slow start to the season to get close to playoff position.

Prized prospect Max Clark was called up from the minors on Friday and has delivered by reaching base safely nine times in three games. But the team also scratched Casey Mize from his scheduled start this weekend in case he gets traded before the deadline Monday.

“It’s a weird, weird place," Mize said. “We’ve played really good baseball the last couple days. We trade our best player. It says we’re 2 1/2 back, but obviously there’s a lot of teams still to overpass, so it’s certainly a strange spot."

The task now will be to try to get back to the playoffs without Skubal after they lost in Game 5 of the division series the past two seasons. Skubal started both of those losses. He had a rough start and took the loss in 2024 against Cleveland. He had a strong start last season with 13 strikeouts in six innings against Seattle but the bullpen squandered a 2-1 lead and the Tigers went on to lose 3-2 in 15 innings.

Skubal said Saturday night after the trade that it hurt that he couldn't help deliver Detroit its first World Series title since 1984.

“Over the last couple of years, we don’t get anywhere near to what we’ve done without Tarik Skubal,” Mize said. “I hope our fan base is appreciative of that, even if it maybe didn’t end the way that everyone wanted it to.”

The Tigers fans might get a chance to see Skubal again later this month when the Dodgers visit Detroit Aug. 28-30.

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“Perfect pace, perfect read,” he said.

The 24-year-old Thorbjornsen sealed his spot in the FedEx Cup playoff after rolling into the Motor City No. 69 in the standings. The top 70 advance to the postseason after next week’s Wyndham Championship.

“Just to be in the playoff for the first time is very exciting, he said. ”It's great to be playing against the best players in the world."

Thorbjornsen started the fourth round three shots behind leader Davis Riley, whose rough start opened opportunities for the field.

“The start got the best of me and kind of put me behind the eight-ball early unfortunately,” Riley said.

Thorbjornsen took advantage, surging into the lead at No. 14 with his third of four birdies in a six-hole stretch and closing with a clutch, curling putt that went in the right side of the cup.

He's the eighth first-time winner this season on the PGA Tour and the second straight, following Jackson Koivun’s victory last week at the 3M Open.

“It was such a battle, playing with some great players," Thorbjornsen said. "Everyone was in the mix after nine holes.”

Xander Schauffele (65) briefly led during the final round and finished second, two shots behind Thorbjornsen.

“I played really well and he just beat me straight up, so hats off to him,” Schauffele said.

Riley (70) was another stroke behind in third, falling out of the lead with four bogeys.

Rasmus Hojgaard (68) was alone in fourth, four shots back.

Hideki Matsuyama (64), Matt Wallace (67), Kristoffer Ventura (68) were another stroke back, tied for fifth.

Thorbjornsen was born in Cleveland, grew up in Massachusetts and attended Stanford. He won the 2018 U.S. Junior Amateur over Akshay Bhatia, who has three PGA Tour wins.

He went straight to the PGA Tour in 2024 as the No. 1 player in the PGA Tour University ranking.

“I think it's one of the best programs in golf,” Thorbjornsen said. “It’s changed all of our lives.”

Thorbjornsen chipped in from 35 feet for birdie at No. 12 on a day when he accurately aimed for pins that left him with some short birdie putts before his long one on his 72nd hole.

He had a bogey-free round, an accomplishment many other players on the leaderboard were unable to pull off on a day that started with rain and became windy when the clouds cleared.

Riley started with a one-shot lead and quickly lost it — and couldn't find his ball in fescue at No. 4 after about a dozen people helped him try — with three bogeys through six holes.

He rallied with three birdies in a seven-hole stretch before giving back a stroke with a bogey at No. 17, taking away his chance to possibly force the tournament into a playoff.

The eighth and final Rocket Classic drew its strongest field and biggest crowds.

The PGA Tour is moving to a new model for 2028, effectively creating two tours and Rocket Mortgage decided not to exercise its option to host another tournament next year. The Detroit-based company isn’t interested in continuing to spend $15 million a year to be part of the second tier in the new era and didn’t want to double the costs to be part of the elite tier.

“There have been some conversations about having a tournament here again," tournament director Mark Hollis said. “Michigan deserves to have professional golf.”

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

Lula's rival, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, has enjoyed open support from members of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, Argentina's President Javier Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Brazil's president said in his party convention speech he wants to boost his country's defense industry, protect its rare minerals, and claimed “no Chinese, no American, no French will touch” these resources without respecting the South American nation's sovereignty.

“We will have to be much more daring to change a lot of things in this country,” Lula said.

Other members of his party highlighted the risk of foreign intervention in Brazil's elections, pointing to Trump and Milei. However,

“This election in Brazil determines the future of Latin America,” Edinho Silva, the Workers' Party chairman, said during Sunday's convention. Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia have elected Trump-inspired presidents in the recent past.

Flávio Bolsonaro's father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, was an ally of Trump but is now serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for an attempted coup.

Lula has managed to draw centrist parties away from his right-wing adversary and arrives at his party’s convention with higher popularity in the polls than six months ago.

His campaign is specifically boosting a change to Brazil's income tax system that charges less to people on low incomes and a debt forgiveness program that has quickly become very popular.

Workers' Party politicians have expressed worries about foreign-sponsored threats of coordinated automated bot campaigns and social media manipulation designed to influence voters and undermine trust in Brazil's electronic voting system.

On Wednesday at the party convention, Lula said he doesn't want Trump as an enemy.

Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, who will run again alongside Lula, said Sunday that Brazil’s electronic voting system “is so good that it doesn’t take votes from Argentines and Americans,” in a reference to Milei and Trump.

Lula is counting on some level of interference

The Trump administration has also imposed new tariffs on Brazilian exports and changed the designation of two local criminal groups to terrorist groups, which legal analysts say could hurt companies and open a path for other kinds of intervention. Both moves took place after Sen. Bolsonaro visited the White House and the Department of State.

Argentina’s Milei came to Sao Paulo on July 25 to speak at Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party convention and sparked a diplomatic crisis when he insulted Lula and the Supreme Court justice who oversaw the elder Bolsonaro's trial and conviction over the attempted coup.

Netanyahu recorded a video in support of the president’s adversary.

Lula has said he is defending Brazil's national sovereignty. He recently held a long call with China’s President Xi Jinping, the leader of one of Brazil's most important trading partners.

His supporters say he could lead South American trade bloc Mercosur into striking deals with partners worldwide. Though Brazil is by far the biggest economy in the group, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay are also members.

Like his father, Sen. Bolsonaro has recently tried to sow unfounded doubts about Brazil's voting system. Those statements have raised concerns at Brazil's foreign ministry, which in July denied visas to two U.S. Department of State officials reportedly due to fears they sought to do the same.

The U.S. Department of State denied that claim in a statement.

The Senate is likely to vote on the measure before leaving Washington at week's end for its traditional August recess, a period that many lawmakers want to spend shoring up their reelection prospects rather than working in the nation's capital.

The bill generally funds the federal government at current levels though Dec. 11. The House has passed a similar measure, but it did not include various exceptions sought by the White House. Senators have been spending recent days negotiating which of those exceptions to include.

One exception that did not make it into the bill, Democrats noted, was the administration's request to include $1 billion to build “Trump-class” battleships.

In another major difference with the House bill, Democrats say they also were able to include language that will ensure the administration cannot transfer funds from other programs to the Border Patrol.

The late-summer action on a funding fix is unusual. Normally, Congress waits until the final days or hours of a funding deadline to pass short-term funding extensions, but this time senators are acting two months before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said passing the measure was his top priority going into the August recess. He noted that the American people have already experienced two record-breaking government shutdowns in the past 10 months.

“We need to ensure that they do not face a third,” Thune said.

Both parties want to avoid another shutdown

A short-term funding extension is needed because Congress has struggled to get the dozen annual appropriations bills negotiated and approved before the Sept. 30 deadline. By extending government funding now, lawmakers can use the ensuing months to work out their differences on full-year funding.

It won't be an easy lift as Republicans seek a dramatic increase in defense spending while cutting non-defense spending. Trump proposed a 10% cut in non-defense programs overall. Meanwhile, he called for boosting defense spending by some 44%.

A potential shutdown before voters go to the polls is a scenario that both parties are looking to avoid, as polling indicated that neither party evaded blame for last fall's record 43-day shutdown. Democrats sought to extend an expiring health insurance tax credit and refused to go along with a short-term spending bill that did not include that priority. But Republicans said that was a separate policy fight to be held at another time.

A second spending battle over funding for the Department of Homeland Security took 76 days to resolve when Democrats refused to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol without changes to those operations.

The bill delays a controversial policy on grants

Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, along with Democratic senators, are seeking to block a proposed rule from President Donald Trump's administration related to grants. The rule would require a senior political appointee at each agency to review grant proposals through criteria that include “ensuring that discretionary awards advance the President's policy priorities.”

Collins and Sen Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said the rule would not take effect during the course of the stopgap spending bill. Collins said she advocated for significant changes to the rule, “citing its potential to politicize grants and harm small, rural communities, families, and biomedical research.”

Democrats want to kill the administration's effort altogether. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said it was a “disgraceful” effort that would “further politicize all federal grants.”

“While Republicans rejected killing the proposed rule outright, I’m going to keep fighting to put a stop to it once and for all, and I will keep pressing my Republican colleagues to do exactly that,” Murray said.

Democrats fear Trump would turn federal grants into a cudgel to punish perceived political foes and reward allies, while also undermining Congress's constitutional power of the purse. The White House Office of Management and Budget says its effort is about improving accountability to ensure taxpayer dollars aren't wasted or misused.

Peralta, a two-time All-Star who can become a free agent this fall, has been a disappointment for the Mets after they acquired him from Milwaukee in a January trade.

“He gave us everything that he had, stepped out on the mound every single day and competed,” interim Mets manager Andy Green said. “I know he wanted better results. And I think when we struck the deal to get him, we were all hoping for a different set of circumstances on this day than what we’re looking at.”

Green said Peralta was informed of the trade during the early innings of a 2-0 loss to the Miami Marlins that dropped the Mets to 47-66 — their worst record through 113 games since 2003, the last time New York finished last in the NL East.

But Peralta could help a strong pitching staff with the Rays, who began the day with the best record in the American League at 65-45 and a 3 1/2-game lead in the AL East over the New York Yankees.

“Freddy is a proven major league starter with high-stakes experience and a strong track record,” Rays President of Baseball Operations Erik Neander said in a statement. “Adding a pitcher and competitor of his caliber strengthens our team as we push forward.”

The last-place Mets received outfielder Aidan Smith, infielder Émilien Pitre and right-hander Gary Gill Hill in exchange for Peralta. Pitre was a second-round pick of Tampa Bay in the 2024 draft while Hill was a sixth-round pick in 2022. Smith was picked in the fourth round of the 2023 draft by the Seattle Mariners, who sent him the Rays in the Randy Arozarena trade in July 2024.

The move came a day before baseball’s trade deadline at 6 p.m. EDT on Monday, and hours after the Los Angeles Dodgers landed the biggest prize on the market, ace pitcher Tarik Skubal, in a deal with the Detroit Tigers.

Before joining the Mets last offseason, Peralta went 17-6 with a 2.70 ERA over 33 starts in 2025. He led the National League in wins, finished fifth in Cy Young Award voting and helped the Brewers win their third straight NL Central crown.

With the Rays, the 30-year-old right-hander joins a rotation headed by All-Stars Drew Rasmussen and Nick Martinez. Left-hander Shane McClanahan, an All-Star in 2022 and 2023, is 9-6 with a 3.09 ERA in 20 starts but was placed on the 15-day injured list Friday with mid-back tightness on his left side.

Last winter, New York sent youngsters Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams to the Brewers for Peralta and right-hander Tobias Myers, giving up a pair of players rated among the game’s top 100 prospects in the anticipation Peralta would be the frontline starter the team needed.

Instead, he went 5-9 with a 4.99 ERA in 22 starts and failed to complete five innings in four of his last five outings for the Mets.

“I know he’s disappointed by it,” Green said. “He came here to anchor a rotation and felt the weight of that. I know from talking to him he certainly doesn’t feel like it went the way that he thought it would.”

He was 5-5 with a 3.90 ERA after beating Atlanta 8-1 on June 14, but is 0-4 with a 7.93 ERA in his past seven starts, including a June 20 dud when he allowed 10 runs and 10 hits over 2 2/3 innings at Philadelphia.

“I know that so far I let them down,” Peralta said late last month. “I haven’t (done) what I was supposed to do.”

Peralta becomes the latest pitcher traded away by the high-priced Mets, who are selling off assets for young prospects after beginning a miserable 2026 season with World Series aspirations.

“I think where we are today screams that we’re all wishing we were in a different spot,” said Green, who began the season as the Mets’ vice president of player development before moving into the manager’s chair following the firing of Carlos Mendoza on June 26.

They sent David Peterson to the Chicago Cubs for minor league infielder Cole Mathis one day before Mendoza’s dismissal and reliever A.J. Minter to Minnesota for minor league infielders Bruin Agbayani and Billy Amick last Friday.

Peterson and Minter are eligible for free agency after this season as well. New York also is expected to move pitcher Clay Holmes, reliever Brooks Raley and outfielder Tyrone Taylor before Monday’s deadline — and possibly players such as relievers Huascar Brazobán and Luke Weaver, each of whom are under team control next year.

Holmes, who broke his right fibula on May 15, made a rehab start for Single-A Brooklyn Sunday, when he allowed four runs in 5 1/3 innings. Raley, Weaver and Brazobán all threw a hitless inning of relief while Taylor pinch-ran in the ninth inning.

“Those guys were all healthy, rested, available, good to go,” Green said. “So we felt comfortable letting them do what they do during a baseball season.”

To open a spot for Peralta on the 40-man roster, Rays outfielder Jake Fraley (hernia) was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

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Moreno, who has been publicly restrained in recent months as the bitter custody dispute has played out between Miller and his daughter Emily, said in a lengthy post: "If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them. He should not serve in the House of Representatives.”

Moreno wrote that Miller “needs serious psychological help. He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter."

Miller, who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump, said Sunday that he will remain in his race for reelection before a Wednesday deadline to replace him. Democrats have seen a new opportunity in the northeast Ohio congressional seat as the Republican incumbent has faced mounting pressure over the domestic abuse allegations in a bitter and drawn-out custody battle with his ex-wife.

“I’m not dropping out of this race and I’ll win in November,” said Miller, who denied abusing his former wife and his daughter.

Asked on Sunday evening if Miller should resign, Trump said that “so far it's accusations.”

“I'll be looking at it,” Trump said.

Scrutiny of Miller has escalated in recent weeks

Accusations against Miller, who was a White House adviser during Trump’s first term, have been public for years but have recently drawn increased scrutiny as back and forth in the case has escalated.

Emily Moreno has said that Miller scalded, hit and threatened her while they were married. Miller denied those allegations in the video, as he has in the past.

“It's incredibly upsetting,” Miller said, as he went through a list of the allegations.

Miller also said he had nothing to do with a broken collarbone on their 2-year-old daughter that led Emily Moreno to contact authorities. The pair, who were married in 2022 and finalized their divorce last year, have presented different theories about how the injury occurred, according to court filings and police reports detailed in an article in July in the magazine Mother Jones that first revealed the child’s injury.

Miller accompanied his announcement with the release of a voluminous cache of investigative and court documents, as well as audio and video clips, related to the custody dispute.

Spokesperson for Miller's ex-wife says video was ‘shameful’

A spokesperson for Emily Moreno, Stefan Mychajliw, said Sunday that the video was “shameful.”

“No loving parent would have ever used their daughter as a PR pawn to save their own political career,” Mychajliw said. “Miller can lie and spin on X, but he cannot do so under oath in a court of law. We are confident that justice will prevail in court.”

Sen. Bernie Moreno's statement on Sunday came after he had declined to comment on the specific allegations for months. Last week, a spokeswoman issued a statement saying the senator “will not litigate these matters in the media or respond to baseless public attacks.”

“Senator Moreno’s top priority is the safety and well-being of his daughter and granddaughter,” said the spokeswoman, Reagan McCarthy.

Potential GOP candidates eye Miller's seat

The senator’s statement was prompting some hand-wringing behind the scenes in his home state, where Trump-endorsed candidates like Miller typically win with ease.

Miller's Democratic opponent, Brian Poindexter, said no one facing such accusations “belongs in the halls of power.”

State Rep. Mike Dovilla, a U.S. Navy veteran and former presidential appointee to the Office of Personnel Management, and Kevin Coughlin, a former state senator and representative who ran for the U.S. House in 2024 and 2026, were among Republicans whose names were being floated should Miller drop his fall House bid, according to a high-ranking Republican who discussed the sensitive subject on condition of anonymity.

Democrats have recently called on Miller to resign, requested a congressional ethics investigation and suggested more help could be directed in the fall toward Poindexter.

Miller won reelection two years ago with just over 51% of the vote.

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Smyth reported from Columbus, Ohio.

Around 10 p.m. Saturday, officers responded to a single-vehicle crash on the Northwest Loop 410 eastbound frontage road near Northwest Military Highway.

Upon arrival, police said officers determined the driver, identified as a 21-year-old man, was pronounced dead at the scene. The man was the sole occupant of the vehicle.

The man was traveling at an estimated speed of 90 to 100 mph before striking a concrete barrier and overturning, police said.

Police said there are no signs that intoxication was a factor in the crash.

The crash remains under investigation.

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Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve wore a light blue shirt under her jacket that said, “Trans kids belong” as she directed her team — the top team in the WNBA — to a 108-100 win over the Fever. There were fans in the stands wearing T-shirts that read, “Trans kids belong in sports.”

It's the third straight Fever game that drew a rally after Cunningham recently voiced support for barring transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s sports in an ESPN article published last week.

Before the contest, Cunningham and Reeve held a conversation at midcourt. Reeve didn't want to share the exact nature of their talk.

“Both of us understand that we have platforms and we both talked about wanting to, more than anything, educate,” Reeve said. “There are some things that we have in common, and maybe some things you differ on, just like any issues. I think it’s how you handle things. It was nice to be in person, for sure.”

Cunningham was booed by the crowd on her first touch of the game and throughout.

Outside the arena, dozens of fans gathered near the entrance. A person using a loud speaker repeated over and over, “Protect trans women.” There were signs held up that read, “Love is truth" and “Thank you Sophie.”

Asked how she and the team are navigating the outside conversations, Caitlin Clark said after the game, “I think we’re excellent.

“I think it’s for leagues and governing bodies to work with their athletes to find solutions,” Clark said. “Our focus is on basketball. That’s what we talk about and how we can get wins and obviously we didn’t do that tonight. So we need to find an area to improve in that way.”

Any reaction?

“I just answered,” Clark said.

Cunningham said Friday in Portland that she wasn't concerned about rallies against transgender participation in women’s sports becoming a distraction for the Fever.

“I think everyone who knows me personally, they know that I’m full of love. I’m bubbly. I love the people around me,” Cunningham said Friday. “I love basketball. I love inspiring the next generation and doing that in a positive light. And so that doesn’t even cross my mind. Doesn’t cross my teammates’ minds.”

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Pro Football Hall of Fame member, and former Cowboys great, Charles Haley addressed the crowd at the beginning of the ceremony.

During media availability, Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer was asked about whether he felt the energy surrounding the ceremony.

“Yeah, I feel it,” Schottenheimer said. “I think it’s a big day. We try to throw great practices every day whether we’re by ourselves or no one’s out here — that’s where the music helps. The coaches should always drive the energy. This is pretty special because we love having the fans come out here in Oxnard, California. We feel like this is really our second home. It should be a great day.”

Compared to the first two days of camp, fans will get to see the Cowboys be more physical.

“We say play on the edge without going over the edge,” Schottenheimer told the media. “We’ll be in shells (wearing helmets and shoulder pads instead of full pads) today, which is different. It’s part of the NFL-mandated ramp-up. First two days you’re in helmets, and now you’re in shells.”

While the coach wants the players to get after it, he also wants to see them come out of practice healthy.

“The biggest thing we emphasize is run your feet. You got to run your feet — once your feet stop, then guess what happens: guys coming from your left or right or front or behind get tangled up. I think that’s where we can get better,” Schottenheimer told the media.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones presented the mayor of Oxnard, Luis A. McArthur with a $25,000 check, an annual donation celebrating the partnership between the Cowboys and Oxnard.

Read more Campin’ with KSAT coverage:

• Dak Prescott’s patience wearing thin entering Year 11 with the Cowboys
• Quinnen Williams embraces Cowboys culture, championship mindset at training camp
• Cowboys rookie Caleb Downs impresses early at camp, welcomes tough test against offense
• Franchise-tagged George Pickens reacts positively to Jerry Jones’ remarks on future in Dallas
• Cornerbacks thrive under new DC Parker at Cowboys training camp, position battles headline first practice
• Dallas Cowboys open training camp in Oxnard with Super Bowl mindset
• Cowboys open 2026 training camp with focus on defensive overhaul
• Cowboys set to open training camp with revamped defense, no holdouts
• Dallas Cowboys 2026 training camp: Key storylines to watch in Oxnard

The Cowboys will kick off their second week of training camp Monday, Aug. 3, wearing pads for the first time since reporting. Players will tell you that’s when training camp really starts.

On Saturday, the team practiced in shells (helmets and shoulder pads instead of full pads) in front of a large opening ceremony crowd.

Now that the first week has concluded, KSAT 12 Sports anchor Larry Ramirez will share his top takes from the week.

Larry’s takes

The opening ceremony was fantastic. The energy was high, and the stands were nearly full, perhaps an indication that Cowboys fans believe this team can make a serious playoff run.

Last season, the stands were about half empty for the opening ceremony.

Defensive coordinator Christian Parker is just what this defense needed. His energy and communication skills are top-notch, and both sides of the ball can feel it, not just the defense.

“Several offensive players have told the media that during their interviews,” Larry noted.

Defensive tackle Quinnen Williams is the real deal and loved by his teammates on both sides of the ball.

The New York Jets traded Williams to the Cowboys midseason last year, and Dallas is beyond excited to have him. He is 6-foot-3, 312 pounds and fits perfectly in Parker’s 3-4 scheme. Williams has expressed his desire to improve a unit that struggled mightily last season, and he has not disappointed in his first training camp with Dallas.

Running back Javonte Williams has been sharp, decisive and reliable with the ball. He is coming off his first 1,000-yard season in the NFL, running for 1,201 yards and 11 touchdowns in his first season with the Cowboys, both career highs. He’s proving he’s the Cowboys’ lead back.

In an annual sit-down with team owner Jerry Jones, Jones was asked about this squad and what he likes about it.

“Fresh,” Jones said, repeating it three straight times before explaining why. He credited the new players added through the draft and free agency, as well as new defensive coordinator Parker, for making this team fresh. Jones believes the Cowboys will end their two-year playoff drought.

Just what Cowboys fans want to hear.

Read also:

• Dallas Cowboys kick off 2026 training camp with Opening Ceremony in Oxnard

The deal was finalized late Saturday night ahead of Sunday's trade deadline and was first reported by ESPN. It's rare for an All-Star to be traded in the middle of the season, only happening a handful of times before Saturday night.

“Kelsey is one of the league’s most dynamic players,” Mercury GM Nick U’Ren said. “She is a fierce competitor with a winning mentality who impacts the game on both ends of the floor. Her combination of shooting, explosiveness and decision-making allows her to create offense at a high level and makes her one of the league’s most complete guards. We have wanted Kelsey here for a long time, and we’re excited to finally bring her to Phoenix as we continue to build on our foundation.”

Plum will wear No. 0 for the Mercury. She is a free agent at the end of this season and has been sidelined since June 21 because of a lower leg injury. She practiced earlier this week and was expected to play Sunday in the Sparks' game against Portland before getting traded. Phoenix's next game is Monday at Chicago.

Plum was averaging a career-best 23.9 points and 6.4 assists before getting hurt. Los Angeles has struggled without her, including its last six games.

Phoenix is currently 11-19 and six games behind the New York Liberty, who sit in eighth place. New York edged Phoenix 94-92 on Saturday.

The Mercury are coming off a WNBA Finals appearance last season, but have seldom looked like that team despite returning stars Alyssa Thomas and Kahleah Copper.

Akoa Makani is averaging 9.4 points and 2.5 assists this season in 16 games. She was injured earlier in the season with a hamstring issue.

Los Angeles acquired Plum before last season in a blockbuster deal that sent the No. 2 pick to Seattle. The Sparks had hoped they could accelerate a rebuilding effort. Seattle used that pick on Dominique Malonga, who was an All-Star this season.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents the 4,400 cabin crew at the airline, announced the strike on its Facebook page. WestJet confirmed the strike and canceled 495 flights Sunday, according to FlightAware, snarling travel plans in Canada in the middle of a three-day weekend. The airline said Sunday that the strike led to travel being canceled for 250,000 travelers.

Key issue is how flight attendants are paid for work performed while still on the ground

A key issue in the dispute is how flight attendants should be paid for duties performed while still on the ground. The union said some of that work is unpaid, while the company said its staff was indeed compensated, citing pay through a “credit hour” system rather than an hourly rate.

“We presented a proposal that would have set a new standard for cabin crew in Canada, making WestJet the only airline to offer an hourly rate covering all time before and after flights, plus a double-digit wage increase in year one among other priorities the union raised,” said Alexis von Hoensbroech, CEO of the WestJet Group. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t accepted.”

The airline's proposal included a 13% wage increase in October, increases of 2.5% each January for the next three years, retroactive wage payment to last January and additional pay for all hours worked, which is equivalent to another 12% of salary increase, according to WestJet. The proposal also boosted other benefits such as meal per diems, vacation allowance and maternity leave.

Alia Hussain, president of the union chapter that represents the cabin crew, said negotiators “tried until the very last minute to get a fair deal that recognizes the value of the work cabin crews do.”

“WestJet’s offer did not go far enough," Hussain said.

Both sides said they were willing to resume negotiations to reach an agreement.

Flight cancellations leave travelers stranded

Meanwhile, travelers whose flights were canceled struggled to find accommodations or alternate flights.

Keavin Ly, a systems administrator for an animation studio, was stuck in Squamish, British Columbia, with his girlfriend after the couple spent the week rock climbing. They were supposed to fly back to Los Angeles on Sunday morning. The airline offered to reschedule their flight for Aug. 4, but they're scrambling to figure out where to stay between now and then.

“Inconveniently, our Airbnb and car rentals are done, and everything’s booked,” said Ly, 29. They were entertaining the idea of sleeping in the back of a friend's rental car, he said.

Ly had planned to take time off from work to watch a friend compete in a national billiards competition, but now he fears he'll miss it. And his girlfriend will miss shifts as a nurse, he said.

“We’re pretty much at the behest of the airline striking a deal, the cabin crew with WestJet, but all in all I hope they get what they’re looking for and they deserve to get compensated more," Ly said.

The airline said it could not operate any of its scheduled flights on Boeing 737s or 787s, and travelers will be refunded or reaccommodated. WestJet said it would contact people who reserved with them directly via email, while those who booked through a travel agent or third-party platform should reach out to them.

WestJet Encore flights operated on a Q400, as well as code-share flights operated by airline partners, remain unaffected. 

Airline and union under pressure to resume bargaining

Canada’s Minister of Jobs and Families, Patty Hajdu, called the strike “a disappointing development.”

“A strike or lockout does not mean an agreement can’t be reached; the expectation is that parties can and should come to an agreement at the bargaining table,” Hajdu said in a statement. “The federal government will always maintain that the strongest deals happen at the table. Canadians are counting on them to put their best efforts forward to reach a deal at the bargaining table.”

Last August, when Air Canada flight attendants went on strike over a similar issue, stranding more than 100,000 travelers during peak travel season, Hajdu directed Canada’s labor board to order them back on the job.

The union defied the order, forcing Air Canada back to the bargaining table where the parties hashed out a tentative deal. That work stoppage lasted three days before the sides came to an agreement.

WestJet caught the union off guard by publicly releasing its offer to the flight attendants, said John Gradek, a faculty lecturer on aviation management at McGill University in Montreal.

“This is a bargaining strategy on the part of WestJet to intimidate the union,” said Gradek. “I don’t think the union is happy this has gone public. Right now, the union is kind of trying to figure out what the next steps are going to be. The WestJet offer forces the union to come back to the table and get very specific.”

Gradek estimates the dispute is costing WestJet between Canadian $10 million and $15 million (U.S. $7.13 million and $10.69 million) a day.

Gradek doubts the dispute will last a week. He expects the federal government will give the two sides another day or so before intervening but isn’t sure the government will order the union back to work.

“They may try a different strategy,” he said. “They may want to sit in on the negotiations themselves.”

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Associated Press writer Bernard Condon contributed to this report. Bussewitz and Condon reported from New York.

The attack happened in Kabal, a town in Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where demonstrators had gathered near a police station, chanting antimilitant slogans and demanding peace, district police chief Omar Khan said.

According to witnesses, shortly before the attack, speakers at the rally said that ensuring security and eliminating militancy were the state’s responsibility. They also accused authorities of failing to act decisively against militants, saying residents wanted to live without fear after years of violence that devastated the region.

Bilal Faizi, a spokesman for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial emergency service, said the attacker struck dozens of people who were chanting antimilitant slogans and demanding peace. Police official Omar Khan said at least nine civilians and five officers were among the dead.

President and prime minister offer condolences

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the bombing, expressing deep sorrow over the loss of life. In separate statements they offered condolences to the families of those killed, prayed for the recovery of the wounded and directed authorities to ensure the wounded receive the best possible medical treatment. Zardari and Sharif also said Pakistan’s fight against terrorism would continue until it is eradicated.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi also condemned the attack. In a statement, he extending condolences to the families of those killed and prayers for the speedy recovery of the wounded.

The Swat Valley was once a stronghold of Islamic militants who imposed a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, before the Pakistani military launched a major operation in 2007 that drove them out and restored government control.

However, militants have resurfaced in Pakistan’s Swat Valley in recent months, fueling fears that the Pakistani Taliban are seeking to regain a foothold in the region. In response, residents have repeatedly staged anti-Taliban rallies to protest the militants’ presence across the valley.

Suspicion falls on Pakistani Taliban

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The TTP is separate from, but allied with, Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers. Many of its leaders and fighters have found sanctuary in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power there in 2021.

Pakistan has long accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring TTP militants, an allegation Kabul denies.

Pakistan has experienced a surge in militant attacks in recent years, particularly targeting police and security forces.

On Friday, Pakistan's military spokesman Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry said that Pakistan has recorded 3,145 “terrorism incidents” since January. He said Pakistan had killed 2,084 militants since January, while 819 Pakistanis, including soldiers, police officers and civilians, had been killed.

Chaudhry also said Afghanistan-based militants had carried out 28 suicide attacks in Pakistan since January and alleged that most were carried out by Afghan nationals or people associated with Afghanistan’s security forces. He said the TTP and other militant groups were carrying out attacks inside Pakistan with the support of Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and Pakistan would continue to target the TTP and its support infrastructure.

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Associated Press writers Rasool Dawar in Peshawar and Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this story.

Kaptur, 80, was a passenger in a vehicle headed to a church service “when the car she was traveling in was struck,” the statement from her office said. The statement said she is “active, alert” and “looks forward to returning to a full schedule soon.”

The House is on its summer recess so she was not expected in Washington this week.

Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in House history, is in a rematch for her closely watched seat against former state Rep. Derek Merrin. In 2024, she won by just more than the 0.5% margin that would have triggered an automatic recount, with a libertarian candidate snagging about 4% of the vote.

Her office said first responders from the Toledo police and fire departments arrived promptly on the scene and had “medical professionals helping to take care of those involved in the crash.” The statement said “we look forward to any additional information from Toledo Police as they investigate the accident.”

The Toledo Police Department’s traffic division did not immediately respond to an AP query.

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Smyth reported from Columbus, Ohio.

Since then, all her meals have come from local residents, and she isn't sure when her next one will come. Yet Dikra is certain she does not want to go back.

“I want to stay. I want to go to Spain,” Dikra said, who asked that her last name be withheld for safety reasons.

By Sunday afternoon, Dikra was among the last remaining migrants in the city after tens of thousands of the 60,000 migrants that had breached the border with Morocco on Thursday and Friday walked back to that country. At least 72 people died in the crossing, and the humanitarian crisis the sudden rush of people caused reignited a debate around immigration in Europe and beyond.

In Tangier, Dikra said she worked as a cleaner, but decided to leave alongside her sister and cousin, in part to escape her alcoholic father. She hopes to make use of a hairdressing diploma in continental Spain — from which she remains separated by the Strait of Gibraltar and the European Union's complex asylum system.

Migrants wonder what will happen with holdouts

Abdel Karim, 35, also from Morocco, waited outside Ceuta's official migration reception center on Sunday, asking for updates about what officials were saying they would do with the holdouts still in the city.

Karim was unemployed in Morocco, and had lived in continental Spain years ago, before he was expelled from France where he was living on the streets.

“In Morocco, I'm seen as a deportee,” Karim said. “Those who are deported know what it means — stress, depression, anguish.”

Karim said he saw posts on social media about those making the crossing and took advantage of the chaos. He crossed with 10 euros in his pocket, he said, and pointed to his blistered feet. In Spain, Karim said he wants to do whatever work he can find, and remained unfazed about how he would get there.

Ceuta and its sister city Melilla are not part of the European Union's Schengen area, and those traveling to mainland Europe must go through border checks upon arrival.

At a beach in Ceuta, hundreds of migrants who had arrived days earlier gathered on Sunday evening. Some crowded around an army truck where Spanish soldiers distributed water.

Senegalese migrant Cesse Aliou, 25, rested with a group of sub-Saharan men and women outside the nearby shelter. In Morocco, Aliou said he earned 279 euros ($322) a month at a call center, but the work wasn't stable.

So he boarded a train in Casablanca to Tangier and then to Fnideq, where he said he swam to Ceuta.

Across the street, on another wooded patch near the shelter, a group of migrants began fighting over water that local residents had brought to the area.

“We are very tired. To eat, to sleep, it's very difficult here," said Aliou, pointing to the scuffle. “You see how the situation is.”

The collision laid bare the danger at the most volatile front of Europe’s wildfire emergency. Strong winds drove flames deeper into the region of the Greek capital and forced fresh evacuations, France guarded a still-burning scar four times the size of Paris, while Spain’s major fires stopped advancing.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed “sorrow for the tragic accident” and extended condolences to the families of the firefighters killed in the crash.

"The loss of the Greek coordinator and the Danish pilot at the time they were attempting the major fire in Porto Gremeno fills us all with grief," Mitsotakis said in a statement.

The aircraft were Bell helicopters operating over the Psatha area west of Athens, each with a two-person crew. Foreign firefighting and helicopter crews are often deployed in Greece to help tackle wildfires during the country’s hot, dry summers.

The two crew members who were recovered alive were a Greek and a British national.

The flames had spread rapidly, threatening communities and an industrial district as violent gusts prevented firefighting aircraft from collecting water from the sea. The blaze carried a grim resonance in a region where the 2018 Mati wildfire killed 104 people, Europe’s deadliest blaze this century.

Farther west, containment brought no end to the emergency. France’s largest wildfire remained held within its perimeter after forcing 224,000 people to flee in what may have been the country’s largest civilian evacuation outside wartime.

Hot spots still burned within a 420-square-kilometer (162-square-mile) scar, thousands remained unable to return home, and nearly 3,000 firefighters were deployed against the Gironde megafire and a second, still-uncontained blaze in Provence.

Together, fires in France and Spain have driven roughly a third of a million people from homes and vacation sites, emptied communities at the height of the European summer and stretched emergency services across simultaneous disasters.

Record fire damage underscores Europe’s growing wildfire threat

The mass evacuations in France and Spain are the latest measure of a wildfire threat growing across Europe.

The continent entered 2026 after its worst fire year on record, with more than 10,000 square kilometers (3,860 square miles) burned in 2025. Over the past four decades, wildfires have been linked to nearly 800 deaths across much of Europe, according to the European Environment Agency.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent. It has warmed more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Human-caused climate change made the extreme fire-weather conditions behind this year’s French blazes at least twice as likely, scientists at World Weather Attribution found in a rapid analysis conducted while the fires were still burning.

Gale-force winds cripple aerial assault near Athens

Nearly 500 firefighters and 23 aircraft were deployed, but gale-force winds drove flames through dry forest and crippled the response, preventing some aircraft from reaching the sea to collect water.

Authorities ordered the evacuation of Kandili, Agia Skepi and Toutouli as smoke rose over the mountains. Crews were particularly concerned about Porto Germeno, a seaside community on the Gulf of Corinth.

The fire began Friday near Agios Vasileios before sweeping toward Porto Germeno and into the forested mountains west of Athens. Firefighters evacuated 254 people by sea Friday and another 12 Saturday — often the last escape route when fire and smoke cut the few roads from coastal communities.

Wildfire meteorologist Theodore Giannaros estimated the blaze had affected 40 to 50 square kilometers (15 to 19 square miles), though authorities had issued no official figure.

Elsewhere in Greece, flames threatened homes on Kefalonia, forcing evacuations from inland communities as aircraft made water drops over the Ionian island. Firefighters battled another blaze near Nea Tenedos on the peninsula of Halkidiki.

Earlier this week, two firefighters died fighting a fire on Crete, while a third was killed on the Peloponnese.

“A pristine forest, a paradise, was surrendered to the hands of the fire,” local farmer Minas Tzortzanis said Saturday. “There are no words to explain what has happened. Destruction. Total destruction.”

France holds off renewed flames

In southwestern France, the Gironde megafire remained held within its perimeter Sunday but continued to burn after scorching 420 square kilometers (162 square miles) of forest in 10 days.

“The fire is now fixed, which does not mean that the fire is extinguished,” the Gironde prefecture said, using the French firefighting term for a blaze whose advance has been stopped.

The region remained under France’s highest red forest-fire alert. Dry conditions, soaring temperatures around Bordeaux and afternoon winds threatened to rekindle the flames.

In Le Porge, local officials said about 150 homes were destroyed. Mechanic Matthieu Plessis returned Saturday to the ruins of a house that had been in his family for seven generations.

“There are places I don’t even recognize anymore,” he said. “You don’t even know what was here anymore, or who lived where.”

Firefighters from Ukraine, Lithuania and French Polynesia were expected Sunday and Monday to reinforce the operation.

Provence fire stops advancing but remains uncontained

In southeastern France, nearly 1,500 firefighters battled a separate blaze in the Var department that tore through about 18 square kilometers (7 square miles) in little more than a day.

The Gros Bessillon fire was stabilized Sunday after its perimeter held overnight, but it remained uncontained. Some 2,500 people were evacuated as flames threatened nearby communities.

It was the fourth major fire to strike central Var since July 19. A smaller blaze near Brignoles earlier in the week forced actor George Clooney and his family, along with about 700 other residents, to evacuate before it was brought under control.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said France’s fires were generally under control but warned that conditions remained volatile. He appointed a national coordinator to oversee reconstruction in fire-ravaged areas.

More than 1,170 square kilometers (452 square miles) have burned across France this year.

Spain’s deadly fire siege eases

Spain’s major fires — which have killed at least 13 people, produced the country’s largest recorded wildfire and prompted a national emergency — were no longer advancing on Sunday.

In Zamora province near the Portuguese border, more than 20 ground and aerial units guarded the perimeter of the Fermoselle fire against flare-ups in the rugged Arribes del Duero landscape. Most evacuees had returned home, according to local media.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called for a national pact to confront wildfires, warning that climate change is making them increasingly destructive.

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Adamson reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Nicolas Garriga in Lacanau, France; Michael Varaklas in Megara, Greece; and Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.

Nazca's municipal government said the plane departed from the nearby city of Ica and was operated by Peruvian company Aerodiana. On its website, the airline said that it has offered scenic flights over the Nazca lines for the past 14 years using Cessna Grand Caravan planes.

The Nazca Lines are a group of extensive geoglyphs scraped into the desert around Nazca hundreds of years ago by Peru's Indigenous inhabitants. The lines form images of animals that can only be fully appreciated from planes or viewing towers.

Among the dead were seven Italian citizens between the ages of 18 and 54, two 52-year-old Spaniards and two Germans of 77 and 78 years, Peru's Transportation Ministry said. The other two fatalities were the pilot Américo Salazar and copilot Irenka Guanilo del Carpio, it said in an official report.

President Keiko Fujimori expressed regret over the accident and said a “temporary suspension” of the airport was being considered, though the decision will be made once she receives reports from the relevant ministries.

Peruvian authorities said the accident is under investigation. Aerodiana was not immediately available for comment.

The shooting was reported Saturday evening at Glen Fair and Glen Echo.

On Sunday, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office told KSAT three juveniles are involved in the shooting, including the victim who was shot in the lower body.

The teen is recovering and is expected to make a full recovery, BCSO said.

Additional information was not immediately available. The investigation is ongoing.

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The emerging deal “would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat,” Trump wrote in a Saturday evening social media post.

“Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL,” Trump said.

However, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz “will in no way return to the status it was before February 28th,” the day the war started.

On a call with Iranian state TV, he added that Iran is discussing shipping through the strait with Oman, on the other side of Hormuz, but that there’s no current talk about reopening the crucial waterway.

Trump has announced halts to strikes in Iran on several occasions since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, only for things to unravel and fighting to resume again.

Iran’s defense minister said on X that the country was “neither surprised nor passive” following Trump’s announcement and said Iran continues to remain alert in the face of concrete threats from the U.S.

While Iran’s leaders appear united in a war strategy signaling strength and endurance, a struggle for control seems to be brewing within the theocracy’s leadership between those who oppose all negotiations with the U.S. and others who count on military pressure to win at the negotiating table.

The latest proposal would bring sides back to negotiating table

A regional official says the proposal announced by Trump over the weekend calls for the U.S. and Iran to return to negotiations and continue working out many of the issues that have stymied prior progress on the deal.

The official, who is involved in the mediation efforts, said the proposal calls for reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and halting attacks across the region, including by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq on the Arab Gulf countries and Jordan.

The U.S., in exchange, will end its naval blockade on Iran and allow Tehran to export its oil as stated in the tentative ceasefire deal, he said.

No deal has been reached yet, but mediation efforts are underway, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media.

Trump said that Israel is joining his commitment to end the war by implementing the ceasefire deal. Israel did not publicly comment on the announcement.

Saudis concerned about Iran retaliation

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader, spoke with Trump by phone Saturday and raised concerns about the U.S. potentially escalating the conflict with Iran, according to the Saudi press agency.

The Saudis, according to a person briefed on the substance of the call but not authorized to comment publicly, are concerned that Tehran could respond with attacks on the energy infrastructure of the kingdom and other Gulf countries. The call happened before Trump’s social media announcement, the person said.

The crown prince sought clarity from Trump on what potential new action he was weighing to take against Iran, the person said.

A White House official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity, confirmed the leaders spoke Saturday but did not offer any detail.

Iran has repeatedly attacked vessels attempting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz without its authorization as part of its ongoing conflict with the U.S.

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Madhani reported from Washington. Toqa Ezzidin in Cairo, Giovanna Dell'Orto in Jerusalem, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, contributed.

The sheriff said deputies were assisting the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department with the drowning.

In the post, Nolasco reminds residents to use caution when swimming in the Nueces River, warning that the waterway can be unpredictable.

“Currents, sudden changes in water level, and hidden hazards can make swimming more dangerous than it looks,” the sheriff said.

Additional information was not immediately available. KSAT has reached out to the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office for more information.

Read also:

• 16-year-old La Vernia HS student killed in rollover crash, police say

Trump is not getting a glowing endorsement on his immigration approach from Americans overall, the new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found. Only 39% of U.S. adults approve of his performance on immigration, a decline from 49% at the beginning of his second term.

Despite that, about 8 in 10 Republicans continue to approve of how Trump is handling immigration. That’s a slight decline from the beginning of Trump’s second term, when about 9 in 10 Republicans approved, but his support on the issue within his base has been mostly stable since last summer despite a chaotic year of immigration enforcement actions.

Republicans are also more likely to approve of how Trump is handling immigration than the economy or Iran. In just the past month, Republican approval of Trump's handling of Iran dropped slightly in AP-NORC polling

The poll found that about half of U.S. adults say Trump has “gone too far” on deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. That number has also remained steady for over a year, despite multiple immigration crackdowns that deployed federal law enforcement to large cities and at least 10 deaths involving encounters with immigration officers since the mass deportation campaign began. Republicans, however, are much less likely to say Trump has overstepped in his immigration enforcement actions.

Overall, Trump’s popularity has fallen since he took office last year, but the findings highlight the relatively muted impact of the past year’s aggressive immigration enforcement on his public standing. That’s a contrast with views of his handling of Iran, where he’s seen more recent signs of slippage, even among his own supporters.

Immigration remains a strong issue for Trump with Republicans

Americans remain divided on whether Trump has overstepped on immigration.

About half of U.S. adults say Trump has “gone too far” when it comes to restricting legal immigration, in line with the last time the question was asked in February. Roughly half — 47% — say Trump has exceeded his authority when it comes to deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. In each case, about 3 in 10 say Trump’s actions have been “about right,” and closer to 2 in 10 say he hasn’t gone far enough.

Few Republicans – about 2 in 10 or fewer – say he’s “gone too far” on deporting immigrants in the country illegally or restricting legal immigration.

Most Americans, however, say he’s gone too far when it comes to using traffic stops to find and arrest immigrants living in the U.S. illegally — a practice that was at the center of two recent ICE shootings in Maine — and when it comes to sending federal immigration agents into U.S. cities. Republicans were also less likely to see these as oversteps.

James Leatherman, a 68-year-old Republican from San Antonio, is overall supportive of Trump’s handling of the presidency and backs him on immigration in particular.

“You cannot come in here illegally — you’re breaking the law,” he said.

More Americans disapprove than approve of the way ICE is enforcing immigration laws. About half of Americans “strongly" or “somewhat" disapprove of the agency's approach, while roughly 3 in 10 “strongly" or “somewhat" approve. There's a wide partisan split, though: About 6 in 10 Republicans approve of ICE’s approach, compared with about 2 in 10 independents and just 4% of Democrats.

Eric Coursen, 76, an independent from Chincoteague, Virginia, agrees with the president that there were issues with the immigration system. He said doesn’t believe in open borders — but he’s deeply opposed to how the administration has been enforcing immigration law.

“It’s like taking some bread when you’re hungry and you take it, you’re going to shoot that person rather than just, you know, get them for theft?” he said. “It’s just overkill.”

Trump’s approval on the economy remains low

About 3 in 10 U.S. adults, 32%, approve of how Trump is handling the economy. That’s down from 40% at the start of his second term, and marks a shift from his first presidential term when the economy was a stronger issue for Trump.

During Trump’s first term, his lowest approval on the economy was 40% in December 2017. Now, his rating is well below that.

Roughly 7 in 10 Republicans – 69% – approve of how Trump is handling the economy. That’s roughly in line with the share who approve of how he’s handing the presidency, but it’s slightly below the 78% who approved early in Trump’s second term.

Leatherman, despite his support for Trump, said he's feeling the pinch of higher prices in his budget. “I almost have to go to the bank to get a loan before I go grocery shopping,” he said.

About 7 in 10 U.S. adults describe the nation’s economy as “very” or “somewhat” poor, in line with April. Republicans are more optimistic, with about 6 in 10 saying that the U.S. economy is doing well, compared with about 2 in 10 independents and roughly 1 in 10 Democrats.

More Republicans approve of how Trump is handling healthcare

Healthcare has never been a strong issue for Trump. Unlike with immigration and the economy, a clear majority of U.S. adults has disapproved of Trump’s performance on healthcare across both presidential terms. That hasn’t changed in the new poll, which found that only about 3 in 10 Americans approve of how Trump is handling healthcare, in line with when the question was last asked in December.

He’s seen a rebound on the issue among his own supporters since late last year, though. Roughly 71% of Republicans now approve, compared with 59% in the December poll.

That shift comes as Democrats kicked off 100 days until the midterm elections last week, with leaders saying they’ll focus on healthcare cuts, in addition to the cost of living and the war in Iran. Democrats and independents continue to overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump’s handling of healthcare.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,165 adults was conducted July 23-27 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 6.0 for Republicans overall and plus or minus 5.4 for Democrats overall.

The crash happened just before 4 a.m. in the 12000 block of U.S. Highway 87, near Chihuahua Street. Responders arrived to find a 2015 Lexus RX3 rolled over on its side and on fire.

The teenager, who has not been identified, was the only occupant in the vehicle and was found dead inside, police said.

Police said the girl was traveling northbound on U.S. Highway 87 when, at some point, she left the roadway for an unknown reason, entered a grassy area, and struck a brick-and-mortar “City of La Vernia” sign before rolling over.

La Vernia police confirmed to KSAT the girl was a student at La Vernia High School.

In a statement, a La Vernia Independent School District spokesperson said the district’s thoughts are with everyone affected by the tragedy.

The district said counseling resources will be available for students and staff.

The full statement can be read below:

“As we prepare to welcome students back for the first day of school tomorrow, our thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragedy.

“La Vernia ISD has taken steps to ensure support is available for those who may need it. Our campus teams are prepared to provide counseling resources for students and staff, with additional support available through neighboring school districts if needed.

“Our focus remains on supporting our students, staff, and families while providing a safe, caring, and welcoming environment as we begin the new school year.

“Out of respect for the privacy of those involved, we will not be providing additional details at this time. We appreciate your understanding.”

Additional information was not immediately available. The Texas Department of Public Safety is leading the investigation.

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