A rescue operation was launched after a sudden rush of water and debris entered the tunnel at the Vishnugad-Pipalkoti hydroelectric project in Chamoli district later Thursday night, said top district official Gaurav Kumar.

Of 22 people who were working in the tunnel, 12 have been rescued alive and another three are still missing, the chief minister of Uttarakhand state Pushkar Singh Dhami told reporters.

Rescue teams from the national and state Disaster Response Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and fire services are fighting rising water and debris with as they search for the remaining workers, officials said.

“When our team reached the site and started the operation, there was a lot of water inside the tunnel and water was also seeping from the sides. Since then, the water level has increased considerably,” said the commander of the National Disaster Response Force team, Amrit Lal Meena.

Construction accidents are common in India, where rapid infrastructure growth often collides with fragile geology, construction lapses, extreme weather and safety standards.

In the Himalayan region, fragile mountains, seismic activity and unpredictable underground conditions make tunnel projects especially risky. An explosion inside a coal mine in neighboring Meghalaya state in February killed at least 18 workers. In 2023, a tunnel section in northern Uttarakhand state collapsed, trapping 41 workers for 17 days before they were rescued.

The backing came from 2030 World Cup co-host Morocco, Qatar, Egypt, Mauritania, Lebanon and Sudan, with four of the signatories being FIFA council members.

“We, the undersigned leaders of our respective football associations, express our full support for Mr. Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA, and reaffirm our confidence in his leadership and continued commitment to the development of football worldwide,” the statement read.

“We deeply appreciate Mr. Infantino’s sustained efforts to advance football globally, expand opportunities across all regions and strengthen the game’s role in bringing people and communities together.”

The statement said the signatories “look forward to continuing our close cooperation with him towards a stronger and more prosperous future for world football, expanding opportunities and further enhancing Arab football’s contribution to the global game.”

Infantino is facing a revolt after his plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private equity investors. He withdrew the $20 billion proposal after a furious backlash by global soccer officials, including European body UEFA, which has warned of a boycott of all FIFA games and events.

UEFA teamed up with CONCACAF — the confederation for North, Central America and the Caribbean — and the Asian Football Confederation — and issued an open letter Monday saying Infantino’s plan was a “fundamental breach of trust” and described it as “deception.”

And on Thursday, the Football Association of Ireland said in a statement it has withdrawn its support for Infantino to be re-elected as FIFA president in March, saying “recent events have raised significant concerns regarding governance, transparency and the lack of meaningful consultation.”

The soccer federations in England and Wales did the same last week, while Northern Ireland said it was backing UEFA's stance.

New Zealand Football issued a statement Friday local time saying it had withdrawn its support for the candidature of Infantino and was seeking an independent review of steps taken to develop the FIFA Forward Enterprise scheme.

New Zealand Football broke ranks with its Oceania confederation, saying it “formed the view that decisions and actions within FIFA have contributed to a breakdown in trust and increased division within international football, and that an independent review is required to restore confidence and trust.”

Without commenting on Infantino's position, the OFC said it welcomed FIFA’s decision to withdraw the FFE proposal and its commitment to review the issues surrounding the project.

“OFC recognizes the progress achieved over the last decade in advancing football development in Oceania under FIFA’s leadership and encourages FIFA to use the review as an opportunity to identify and implement any changes that may be necessary," the statement said.

Schism in Asian bloc over Infantino support

By expressing support for Infantino, Qatar and Lebanon aligned against the Asian Football Confederation. Infantino’s official Instagram account previously has posted letters of support from several member federations, including Morocco, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The four FIFA council members among the signatories were Qatar Football Association president Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Egyptian Football Association president Hany Abo Rida, Moroccan Football Federation president Fouzi Lekjaa and Mauritanian Football Federation president Ahmed Yahya.

The other two were Lebanese Football Association president Hashem Haidar and Moatasem Gafar, president of the Sudan Football Association.

Infantino has been FIFA president since 2016 and seemed sure to be re-elected unopposed next year in Morocco.

FIFA has set a Nov. 18 deadline for challengers to come forward.

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

The storm is forecast to bring rain to the Hawaiian Islands starting late Friday as well as high winds and dangerous surf, the National Hurricane Center said.

A hurricane warning is in effect for Hawaii County and a tropical storm watch is in place for Maui County including the islands of Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Kahoolawe, forecasters said.

Lala was about 530 miles (855 kilometers) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii, and about 740 miles (1,195 kilometers) east-southeast of Honolulu with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kph) while moving west-northwest, the Miami-based center said.

Lala is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane as it approaches the Big Island. It's expected to be near the island Saturday. A hurricane warning means hurricane conditions are expected, and it is typically issued 36 hours before potential tropical-storm-force winds.

The system could bring rainfall totals of 8 inches to a foot (up to about 30 centimeters) across Maui and the Big Island, with as much as 25 inches (nearly 64 centimeters) possible across the Big Island, forecasters said. That could produce life-threatening flooding and mudslides, the center said.

Also in the Pacific, Tropical Storm Hernan formed Thursday but wasn't threatening land and was weakening while moving south.

Hernan was about 1,495 miles (2,405 kilometers) west-southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula of Mexico with maximum sustained winds around 40 mph (65 kph), the center said.

In the Atlantic Ocean, former Tropical Storm Cristobal weakened and degenerated into a post-tropical remnant low on Thursday, the center said. It was about 500 miles (805 kilometers) west of the Azores and didn't threaten land.

Many Christians in Israel, who make up less than 2% of the country’s population, are worried visible signs of their faith will draw harassment, which has increased as multiple conflicts grip the region.

“I’m scared after the sister was beat up,” said Sister Mayela, a Mexican nun who’s lived in Jerusalem on and off for more than two decades. “Before, one could live with more confidence. Some people spat, some said hi. Now we have to live trusting in God.”

She finds resilience in her faith — and in support from Israelis like the volunteers. Even that, though, didn’t prevent a teen from spitting right behind her as they passed a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews recently. The teen said she was only clearing her throat, but the volunteer reported it to police.

Incidents like that are among the challenges for Christians in Israel, particularly since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, plunged the country back into war and polarization. But interfaith leaders and researchers are encouraged by better policing and prosecution as well as the recent appointment of a government envoy to the Christian world, who is Greek Orthodox.

In northern Israel, many Christians say they feel the state isn’t doing enough to protect them from crime because they’re not Jewish. But those concerns didn’t stop groups of Catholics from joining a recent joyous pilgrimage on Mount Tabor, where the Gospels say Jesus appeared transfigured alongside the Jewish prophets Moses and Elijah.

“In a world where darkness is filling the hearts of people, we need to diffuse God’s light to other people,” said Sister Muna, the nun who led one youth group.

For many Christians and Jews, protecting coexistence in the Holy Land is a moral imperative after their own long histories of religious persecution.

“I don’t want Christians to go out of their house in Jerusalem … and have fear,” said Yisca Harani, the Jewish Israeli educator and activist who escorted Sister Mayela. “I’ve gone through this 2,000 years in my Jewish history. I’m not going to let that happen.”

Occasional flare-ups occur in multifaith Old City

In the Old City, Jewish men in black hats and tzitzit tassels, Muslim women in hijabs and Christian priests in flowing robes walk past each other daily in the maze of stone alleyways. Many are headed to pray at the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. These are some of the most sacred sites respectively for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and they are close to each other.

“If you stroll around in your habit, sooner or later you’ll get some spitting next to you,” said the Rev. Alberto Pari, who leads interfaith dialogue and Christian-Jewish relations as secretary to the Custody of the Holy Land, the Catholic order ministering to holy sites across the region. “But it’s important not to generalize, because that unleashes antisemitism.”

Religious Freedom Data Center, the organization that Harani founded to track harassment of Christians, has recorded a near-tripling of incidents in Jerusalem from four years ago to the last three months recorded — about one a day now — virtually all by Jewish religious nationalists.

A Jewish man from a settlement in the occupied West Bank was indicted in the violent attack on the nun in April. The French Biblical and Archeological School of Jerusalem where the nun is a researcher expects “effective prosecution at the criminal and civil levels,” said the school’s director, Friar Olivier Poquillon.

Israel's government tackles anti-Christian incidents

Among those reaching out to Catholic leaders to denounce the attack and offer support was Ambassador George Deek, Israel's new envoy tasked with building what he calls the “special relationship” between Christians and the country, to both keep Christians safe and partner on issues like fighting antisemitism.

“We believe that every incident against Christians is immoral, illegal and should be prosecuted. That’s exactly what we are going to do,” Deek told The Associated Press. “We want to make sure that Israel continues to prosper and grow as a place where Christians can not only survive, but they can thrive.”

Around the time that the nun was attacked, two other incidents drew global condemnation. An Israeli soldier smashed a crucifix in a family garden and another stuck a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary in southern Lebanon, where the military is fighting Hezbollah militants. The soldiers involved received military prison sentences.

Most Israelis find harassment unacceptable. But Jewish religious nationalists, particularly uneducated young men, remain a threat, said John Munayer of the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue, an interreligious organization in Jerusalem.

Their hostility to Christians is grounded in the history of persecution of Jews in Christian-majority European countries, in faith practices they see as idol-worshipping, and in a “general intolerance” for anyone who’s not Jewish near sacred areas like the Western Wall, Munayer said.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict spills over in Christian-Jewish tensions

Then there’s the overhanging trauma of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since most local Christians in Israel and the occupied West Bank are Palestinian.

In Taybeh, the last entirely Christian village in the West Bank, Jewish settlers recently cut through house fences and destroyed fruit and vegetable gardens, said the Rev. Bashar Fawadleh, parish priest of Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church.

“All the people here are afraid,” he said. “Settlers come and go every day.”

Israel’s army declared the village a closed military zone earlier this week to curb the attacks. But concerns about Israel’s ability and willingness to rein in the settlers remain even among evangelicals, who are among the staunchest Christian supporters of Israel.

“What happens in Taybeh is really troubling,” said David Parsons, spokesperson for International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. “Israeli leaders have realized for some time that Christian support for their nation is not only vital, it’s a strategic interest.”

And yet since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, “generalized fear and skepticism” pervaded all interreligious work, Pari said. The interfaith music institute he directs, Magnificat, was invited to play at a peace march in Jerusalem. But when the Palestinian members saw that the stage had been set up by an Old City gate flanked by Israeli flags, they refused to play.

“I felt a real failure,” Pari said. “We think that as Christians, we have a very important role to patch things back together. ... It will be difficult, but we can do it.”

Israeli Christians hold tight to faith and identity

That faith-grounded resilience prevailed among the Mount Tabor pilgrims, who gathered on the mountain to celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration last week. Rising interfaith tensions and crime have driven many of the area’s Christians to emigrate, several said.

“It’s very difficult that we keep our identity as Christians in the Middle East, but it’s the most important,” said John Akleh, 20, who came with Sister Muna’s group.

Ten pilgrims from nearby Nazareth — where Jesus grew up — started the climb at 4:15 a.m. led by the Rev. Fadi Shallufi in a yearly tradition they’ve maintained even in wartime.

“We will have a lot of sacrifice, but you will be sure in this land something will change,” Shallufi told them as he celebrated Mass in the mountaintop basilica.

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Associated Press journalists Ibrahim Hazboun and Moshe Edri contributed from Jerusalem.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Farage, leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party who some see as a possible next prime minister, abruptly quit his seat in July amid an investigation into whether he failed to report a 5 million pound ($6.7 million) gift from a crypto billionaire overseas.

He said he would run for the open seat to prove he had voters’ support, and regained it with 63% of Thursday's vote. Binface, who finished in second, won about 27%, according to the results announced Friday. The election, held on the hottest day of the year so far, had turnout of 44%.

Binface, a serial candidate who has challenged prime ministers past and present, became the default challenger in a field of 34 candidates after the major parties boycotted the campaign as a political stunt by Farage.

Farage hailed the result as an “overwhelming win” with 1,000 more votes than he earned when first elected two years ago with 46% of the vote share. Turnout during the 2024 general election was nearly 60% and he faced a more robust field of mainstream candidates.

“Today the voters in Clacton have stuck up two fingers to the entire political establishment,” Farage said, referring to the British equivalent of a crude gesture that employs the middle finger in other cultures.

The victory by Farage showed his strong support in his conservative constituency on the east coast of England but it doesn’t ensure he’ll be able to keep the seat. An investigation by a parliamentary watchdog that was suspended when he stepped down is likely to resume and could still lead to Farage being forced out of Parliament to face yet another election.

Farage is a no-show at vote count

Farage declared victory in the early morning and did not attend the official declaration where he would have had to stand alongside the other candidates, many of them running joke campaigns.

“I’m damned if I’m going to stand on a stage, having won a resounding victory ... and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies,” Farage told supporters at a victory party.

Farage said he didn’t attend because police told him about an “organized campaign to disrupt and degrade the result.” A spokesperson for Reform said there was a credible threat against him, though police disputed that.

Binface, who ran on a wacky platform that included a vow to “cut your taxes, and raise everyone else’s,” build one affordable home and nationalize singer Adele, celebrated his best-ever result. It was a massive increase from the votes he received in a special election two months ago against now-Prime Minister Andy Burnham, in which he won 95 votes.

“So against Nigel Farage compared to Andy Burnham, I am 1,000 times more popular,” he quipped. "Does that have anything to do with why he isn’t here tonight?”

Farage still faces investigation over undeclared donation

Labour Party chairwoman Bridget Phillipson said the election was no victory for Farage and he needs to come clean over his finances and relationship with a convicted fraudster.

“The mountain of sleaze and scandal he and Reform are now engulfed in has grown and grown while he’s been trying to distract the public by fighting a by-election against a bin,” Phillipson said. “Farage’s distraction by-election doesn’t clear his name — it just shows he likely has so much more to hide.”

Parliament’s standards watchdog is investigating an undeclared donation to Farage in 2024 from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire. Farage says he didn’t need to declare the money because it was a personal gift he used to fund his security and was made before he was elected.

However, newly elected lawmakers must declare gifts worth more than 300 pounds ($400) received in the previous year if they are related to political activities.

When he resigned on July 7, he described the scrutiny as an “establishment hit job” and a media-driven “witch-hunt.”

Farage also faces an investigation into his financial relationship with George Cottrell, an aristocratic crypto-gambling entrepreneur who served eight months in a U.S. prison for fraud a decade ago after offering to launder money for undercover agents posing as drug traffickers.

Cottrell, 32, remains close to Farage and has reportedly given him money for security and staff.

Farage, who was a major player in getting Britain to vote to leave the European Union a decade ago, has had strong polling nationally though his numbers have slipped during months of scrutiny of his finances.

Binface led a pack of comedy candidates

Farage’s gambit to resign and run again backfired when other parties refused to participate and he was left facing a massive field of independent and small-party candidates, including novelty acts such as Howling Laud Hope of The Official Monster Raving Loony Party and Marcus White from the Everyone is God Party.

Binface, who was already a running joke in British elections, drew the most attention because of his satirical spin on politics and persona as a space alien from the planet Sigma IX.

By winning at least 5% of the vote, he's earned a refund of the deposit of 500 pounds ($675) candidates pay to run.

Under the black cape, trash can helmet and ample body armor straight out of a low-budget sci-fi film, Binface’s alter-ego is Jon Harvey, a middle-aged comedian who has spent much of the campaign trying to keep his cool during a sweltering summer.

He said his repeated candidacies were aimed at promoting the beauty of Britain’s centuries-old democracy where even the most high-profile politicians are above no one — including someone from outer space.

The Interior Department released a statement late Thursday saying: “Our U.S. Park Police are on the scene and the investigation is ongoing. The public should know we will find the person responsible for this disgusting act.”

The Friends of the National World War II Memorial, a nonprofit organization that helps maintain the site, said: “There are many places in our country for expression, debate, and disagreement. A national memorial honoring those who served and those who never returned home should never be used as a canvas for vandalism.”

The Veterans of Foreign Wars called the vandalism “an act of profound disrespect, a slap in the face to the veterans who served and sacrificed and to the families who carried that burden at home.”

The World War II Memorial is just east of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the Mall. After a botched repair job earlier this year left the pool with peeling blue sealant and green algae, President Donald Trump blamed the issues on vandalism without providing evidence.

“I’m not too concerned,” deGrom said following a 7-0 loss to the Angels. “I mean, hopefully I’ll make my next (start). We’ll see. It was tight in the second inning, and it just didn’t want to loosen up,
so I don’t know, I haven’t really had this before.”

The 38-year-old right-hander, who has been dealing with a left hip and glute injury since the All-Star break, escaped a two-on, one-out jam in the first but gave up two runs and five hits during a 32-pitch second. He was replaced by right-hander Peyton Gray to begin the third with the Angels leading 2-0.

It was the first time deGrom permitted five hits in an inning since Sept. 5, 2017, with the New York Mets.

“I wasn’t going to risk it once I heard (it was) the triceps,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “Obviously, you don’t want to hear anything arm-related. You pull a guy out in the second inning, it’s concerning. But we’ll figure it out when he gets some imaging. We won’t know until they get in there.”

This seven-game road trip began with the Rangers placing pitcher Nathan Eovaldi on the 15-day injured list because of elbow inflammation Monday. Texas beat the Angels 4-1 that night but lost the next three games to fall to 60-62 and two games behind first-place Houston in the AL West.

Now, the Rangers might have to navigate the next few weeks without their two best starting pitchers.

“Our starting pitching has taken a hit, that is reality,” Schumaker said. “With two guys going down, we’ll see what it looks like, but it’s never easy when you’re No. 1 and No. 2 guys are down.”

A two-time Cy Young Award winner, deGrom allowed six hits, struck out three and walked one. He needs two strikeouts to become the ninth active pitcher and 94th in major league history to reach 2,000.

In three starts against the Angels this season, deGrom has yielded 10 earned runs in 10 innings.

“It was very disappointing,” he said of Thursday night's start. “I needed to go out there and give us some length and wasn’t able to do it. I said I could probably keep going, and they said, ‘Well, we’re not going to risk this right now,’ so we’ll just see how it is tomorrow and I’ll go from there.”

One of baseball’s best pitchers when healthy, deGrom made at least 31 starts per season and pitched to a 2.53 ERA across 622 1/3 innings from 2017-19 with the Mets.

He won NL Cy Young Awards with New York in 2018 and 2019 and led the National League with 255 strikeouts in 2019 and 104 strikeouts during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

But deGrom made only 35 starts because of injuries from 2021-24 and underwent his second Tommy John surgery in June 2023, which sidelined him for much of his first two seasons with Texas in 2023 and 2024.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Australia led all but 150 meters of the women's 4 x 200 freestyle relay, with the team of Inez Miller, Lani Pallister, Hannah Casey and Milla Jansen winning in 7 minutes, 42.40 seconds to lower the country's championship mark of 7:44.12 set at the 2018 Pan Pacs.

Katie Ledecky swam the anchor leg for the U.S., but couldn't overhaul Jansen although she got within a body length in the closing meters. Erin Gemmell, Anna Peplowski, Rylee Erisman and Ledecky took silver in 7:43.10, also going under the old championship mark.

“I've kind of struggled with the 200 individually from a flat start over the last couple years, but I always know I'll have something in me for the relay and I'll pull out a good split,” Ledecky said. “I love swimming that anchor leg.”

McIntosh helped Canada earn the relay bronze.

The U.S. team of Luke Hobson, Aaron Shackell, Patrick Sammon and Gabriel Jett won the men's 4 x 200 free relay in a championship record of 6:59.37. The Americans led the entire race, with Jett's explosive turn off the final wall helping him hold off a charging Sam Short of Australia on the anchor leg.

“I just kind of poured everything on,” Jett said. “I swim with my eyes closed, so I didn't know where I was.”

McIntosh briefly dipped under her own world-record pace early in the 400 IM. McIntosh finished in a championship record time of 4:28.01 after qualifying second-quickest for the eight-woman final at the outdoor pool.

McIntosh was disappointed with her time in the 200 free after losing to Pallister of Australia on opening night of the four-day international meet.

“Just trying to forget about it,” McIntosh said.

Jenna Forrester of Australia was second in 4:31.50. Agostina Hein, an 18-year-old from Argentina, took bronze after coming into the final with the fastest time in preliminaries.

Meg Harris of Australia surprised herself with a victory in the women's 100 freestyle from Lane 6. She touched in 52.60 seconds, beating American Gretchen Walsh, who was second in 52.78 after being 0.01 seconds under world-record pace at the turn. Olivia Wunsch of Australia was third.

American Simon Manuel, the 2016 Olympic champion, finished fourth.

The U.S. went 1-2 in the men's 100. Jack Alexy won in 47.14, lowering his championship-record time of 47.40 from the preliminaries. Teammate Patrick Sammon was second at 47.62. Guilherme Caribe of Brazil was third.

American McKenzie Siroky won the 100 breaststroke for her first international medal. She outdueled Tang Qianting of China down the stretch to touch first in 1:05.32. Tang was second in 1:05.46.

The U.S. swept the 50 backstroke events.

Quintin McCarty won the men's race in 24.51, lowering the championship record set by Isaac Cooper of Australia in the prelims. Cooper took silver.

Katharine Berkoff won the women's race in a career-best 26.90, bettering her championship mark set in the prelims. Teammate Regan Smith was second in 27.14.

American Van Mathias earned his third medal of the meet, winning the 100 breaststroke in 58.02, lowering his championship record from the prelims. He took silver in the 50 butterfly and gold in the world record-setting 4 x 100 mixed medley relay Wednesday.

The men's 400 IM was won by Tomoyuki Matsushita of Japan in 4:06.75. His time erased American Ryan Lochte's championship mark of 4:07.59 set at the 2010 Pan Pacs, also in Irvine.

“Next time I come back to the U.S. I'm going to get gold again,” a smiling Matsushita said through a translator.

American Carson Foster was second.

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The Heisman Trophy winner led one touchdown drive for the Raiders (0-1) in four series — not including a kneel-down at the end of the first half — and finished 10 of 16 for 97 yards and a 6-yard TD pass to Jack Bech.

“I thought he led a good scoring drive as far as getting in and out of the huddle and commanding the group and getting the play calls down,” Raiders coach Klint Kubiak said. “I saw the same guy that we’ve seen in practice. I see an ascending player.”

Mendoza was more critical in his self-evaluation.

“Unfortunately, I let my teammates down today,” Mendoza said. “But it's a growing experience, and I feel like we're all growing. It showed me that I need to grow a lot.”

Mendoza became the first top overall draft selection to throw a touchdown pass in his first preseason game since 2018, when Baker Mayfield had two for Cleveland against the New York Giants.

Mendoza just missed a second touchdown pass in the fourth quarter, throwing beyond the reach of Deven Thompkins. He was sharp at times, threading a 19-yard pass in the second quarter between three defenders to fellow rookie Malik Benson.

While noting that everything came together on that play, including his timing with the receiver, Mendoza said some of his throws were a bit off.

“There's other passes I made that did not have great timing and anticipation,” Mendoza said. “But that was one that was a good connection. You see (starter) Kirk (Cousins) is timing and anticipation — boom, boom, boom. So that's an area I've got to grow in.”

The expected rematch of college football national championship quarterbacks didn't happen because the Cardinals (1-1) decided not to play Carson Beck, who has sore ribs. Mendoza led Indiana to a 27-21 victory over Beck and Miami in the title game in January.

“Being the preseason, we just didn't want to risk it,” Cardinals coach Mike LaFleur said. “It was kind of a bummer for our fan base and (media) and me and all us because we want to see these guys out there.”

Raiders pass rusher Maxx Crosby also did not play, which wasn't completely unexpected after Kubiak said Tuesday that his playing status was to be determined. Crosby, who underwent knee surgery in January, has participated in training camp.

Teammate Jermod McCoy, who hasn't played in nearly two years because of a torn ACL, played with the second-team defense at cornerback. He was the primary defender on two Cardinals touchdowns.

Each team's starting quarterback played one series, both resulting in touchdowns.

Las Vegas' Cousins was 5 of 6 for 50 yards and a 13-yard touchdown pass to Michael Mayer. Arizona's Jacoby Brissett completed all five passes for 44 yards and a 7-yard TD to Marvin Harrison Jr.

Brissett and former Raider Gardner Minshew combined to go 15 of 15 for 123 yards and three touchdowns in the first half to build a 21-14 lead. That string of completions extended 16 early in the second half before Minshew finally threw an incomplete pass on a rollout to the right.

Rookie Jeremiyah Love, drafted third overall by the Cardinals, made his preseason debut and rushed for 58 yards on 11 carries.

Injury report

Cardinals: Rookie right guard Chase Bisontis, who was drafted in the second round, injured his left knee. LaFleur said the injury appears serious. ... LaFleur said he didn't think Love's ankle injury was a major concern.

Up next

Cardinals: Host Dallas on Aug. 22.

Raiders: At Houston next Thursday.

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

Trump is visiting the Nassau County Police Academy in suburban Long Island, where the White House said he will release new FBI crime statistics showing a decrease in violent crime for 2025.

“President Trump promised to make America safe again and the data proves he has done just that,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said. “Unlike Defund-the-Police Democrats, President Trump will always stand with our law enforcement officers and deliver safer American neighborhoods.”

Trump's visit is aimed at boosting Republican candidates in closely contested races across his home state, but just how much his presence will help is in question as he faces lagging approval ratings and a deeply unpopular war in Iran with no end in sight.

Trump narrowly won Nassau County in 2024, flipping it for Republicans for the first time in more than two decades. It's home to two Democratic House seats that Republicans now see as winnable this fall, and it's home turf for Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman, the Trump-endorsed Republican challenging Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Trump will be joined by Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel in Nassau County, which has one of the largest police forces in the nation.

Crime becoming a theme in New York races

It's the second time this year Trump has visited New York in support of Blakeman and other Republicans. He stopped by the Hudson Valley area in May for a speech in which he said Blakeman would curb “out of control” crime.

Crime has emerged as a significant issue in the governor's race, with both candidates claiming to have the better track record of making New Yorkers safe. Hochul visited a different Long Island police department in July to announce a statewide investment in policing technology.

A statement from Blakeman said he's grateful Trump is visiting “to tour our outstanding, state-of-the-art law enforcement facilities” and pay tribute to law enforcement workers.

In a Fox Business interview Thursday, Blakeman played down concerns that Trump's visit would be unpopular with voters in New York City.

“When the most powerful person in the world comes to visit you and shows that you have a relationship together, I think that’s a very good thing,” Blakeman said, adding that even voters who disagree with Trump might appreciate a governor with a direct line to the president.

Hochul campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki said the governor "has invested billions in public safety to protect New Yorkers — ‘MAGA all the way’ Bruce Blakeman is bringing Donald Trump to tour the county where he let violent crime spike to decade highs and Trump’s unaccountable ICE agents abuse their power.”

For GOP, safety is seen as a winning issue

Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist, said Trump's visit stands to boost Blakeman along with Republican challengers looking to unseat a pair of Democratic incumbents in Nassau County districts. Michael LiPetri Jr. is challenging Rep. Tom Suozzi in New York's 3rd Congressional District, while Jeanine Driscoll is opposing Rep. Lauren Gillen in the 4th Congressional District.

The focus on crime is seen as a cornerstone issue for Republicans that appeals to Trump's base along with suburban swing voters, Gorman said.

“On the strategic level, crime is an issue that Republicans feel comfortable going on offense with, where the country kind of broadly agrees with them,” he said.

Trump is touting the issue as he faces low approval ratings on a number of other issues, including the economy and the Iran war. An AP-NORC poll from August 2025 found that Trump’s handling of crime was among his strongest issues, though his approval on the issue had fallen by 10 points by December 2025.

Trump lashes out over report finding he hasn't reduced crime

While many of Trump's recent swing-state speeches have focused on his tax breaks and economic policies, Trump often mentions his effort to curb crime by deploying the National Guard in Washington, New Orleans and other Democrat-led cities.

This week, Trump lashed out at the Center for American Progress and threatened to sue the liberal think tank over a report finding that the National Guard deployments failed to reduce crime. Without giving evidence, Trump said in a social media post that “crime is way down since I took Office, and they know it.”

For Trump, talking about crime reduction during his trip to New York offers a chance to reach voters across political and class divisions, said Jesse Hunt, a Republican strategist.

“The issue of crime and safety is a massive winner for Republicans,” Hunt said. “What we’ve seen from the Trump administration and Republicans in general is a real focus on that issue. And they should highlight the successes.”

The White House said the new FBI statistics will show year-over-year decreases in murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Crime experts often caution against drawing too much from single-year changes and encourage a focus on long-term patterns.

Mangione could still change his mind about the plea, said the person, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the case and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Previous plea talks in June broke down.

Lawyers for Mangione and the Justice Department declined comment prior to the late-morning court hearing, which was hastily requested by prosecutors and defense lawyers earlier this week.

Mangione, 28, was charged by both federal and state prosecutors with ambushing Thompson, 50, outside a New York City hotel on Dec. 4, 2024, as the insurance executive walked to UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference.

A trial on state murder charges is scheduled to start next month. It is unclear whether that trial would go forward if Mangione pleaded guilty in the federal case.

Mangione faces two federal charges that he stalked Thompson to cause his death. Both the federal and state cases could lead to a life prison sentence. A federal judge earlier this year tossed out additional charges that could have exposed Mangione to a potential death penalty.

Mangione had complained about the prospect of two trials, telling a judge in February: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”

Under New York law, a state prosecution could potentially be barred if the federal case is resolved first. The state’s double jeopardy protections kick in if a jury has been sworn in a prior prosecution, such as a federal case, or if that prosecution ends in a guilty plea. Mangione’s cases involve different charges arising from the same course of conduct.

In a letter last month, state prosecutors objected to the possibility of a guilty plea in the federal case wiping out the state case.

U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett has delivered some setbacks to the defense, including ruling in January that prosecutors could use items collected from Mangione’s backpack during his arrest as evidence against him.

They included a 3D-printed pistol that investigators said matched the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to kill an insurance executive.

In June, Mangione’s lawyers said they would pursue a psychiatric defense in the state case but reversed course a day later. The defense, involving claims that he was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing, isn’t allowed in federal court.

Surveillance video of the killing showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

He has become a cause célèbre for some people upset with the health insurance industry.

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Durkin Richer reported from Washington.

“I commented a week ago on that,” Kiffin said after practice in Baton Rouge. “That's the comment that I had and we're moving forward.”

LSU's official online store has removed replica Daniels jerseys from the menu of those for sale, which include the No. 9 of 2019 Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow and the No. 3 of former star receiver Odell Beckham Jr.

Meanwhile, Pickett showed no interest in relinquishing the No. 5 when he spoke with reporters after Thursday's practice.

“I’ve been wearing the number my whole life, since I was 4 years old,” Pickett said. “That was the number I was promised. I wish Jayden the best. Good player — he did real good here.”

Daniels, drafted second overall by the Washington Commanders in 2024, said in a social media post on Thursday that the matter would not affect his preparation for the NFL season.

“I have been locked in on training camp and that has been my No. 1 focus,” Daniels said in the post. “I have a lot of gratitude for my time at LSU and I'm proud of what my teammates and I accomplished there.

“Obviously there are issues to get worked out” with LSU, Daniels continued. “My hope is that it will get done privately. ... I realize the business of football is unique and I trust that this can all be resolved.”

Daniels' statement came in the wake of reports about a letter in which his Miami-based attorney, Adam Kenner, demanded that LSU no longer use his client's name, image or likeness to promote the university or its athletic programs.

Pickett wore a No. 3 jersey as a freshman last year but was wearing No. 5 when August camp opened last week. The 6-foot-5 cornerback is a former five-star recruit who had three interceptions in 2025.

Kiffin said last week that Pickett was promised the opportunity to wear No. 5 when he signed with LSU in December 2024, when Brian Kelly was coaching the Tigers. Kelly was fired in October 2025, and Kiffin was hired at the end of the regular season.

“When a kid’s promised something to come to a school, he should wear it,” Kiffin said during an Aug. 5 media session. “So at that point, I don’t think it’s really my decision. We should honor what he was told.”

Pickett is the first player to wear No. 5 since Daniels left LSU. Under LSU policy, the only number football players cannot wear is No. 20, worn by the late Billy Cannon, who was the Tigers' first Heisman winner in 1959.

Top LSU officials, including athletic director Verge Ausberry, have declined to comment on the matter.

A number of images of Daniels that are on display at LSU would be considered in the public domain, and not subject to any contractual agreements between the university and the quarterback. But LSU has in the past featured Daniels in promotional videos shown in Tiger Stadium or and elsewhere, and it remains to be seen whether LSU might edit some of those out should the dispute become protracted.

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow — who won the 2019 Heisman Trophy and led LSU to a national title — declined to comment on the specifics of Daniels' situation after Thursday night’s preseason game against the Detroit Lions. But he said he's had conversations about his No. 9 not being issued to another player.

“They told me that they wouldn’t use it again, but you never know what happens,” he said.

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AP Sports Writer Joe Reedy in Cincinnati contributed to this report.

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In all, three ballistic missiles fired by the Iran-backed Houthis struck the ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, just off Yemen’s coast, as it was coming into port, killing six people and injuring at least nine others, according to Yemeni authorities.

It was part of an escalating campaign by the Houthis and their first deadly attack this year on a vessel navigating the strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and accounts for roughly 12% of global trade.

“People were burning ... it was a strange scene of doomsday,” said Zaheer Ahmed, a Pakistani crew member recovering at a hospital in the port city of Mokha.

“I shouted for help and a Yemeni soldier came to my aid,” said Ahmed, who was injured in both legs.

All three of the crew members The Associated Press interviewed Wednesday at the hospital described intense fire, panic and damage aboard the ship, which was struck before dawn on Tuesday.

Muhammad Alteno, an Indonesian crew member, said he was in “complete shock” after witnessing another Indonesian crew member — a friend — die in the attack. Alteno said he had tried to rescue his friend, who was trapped inside the room they shared, after the first missile strike.

“But the flames were so intense that I couldn't breathe,” Alteno said. “I managed to escape with some of the (other) crew members.”

Two members of Yemen's government-allied National Resistance Forces were killed in the attack, as were three crew members from Pakistan.

The attack was one of many in recent weeks by the Houthis, who have killed government forces and civilians in an escalating campaign on the government-held city of Mokha and other areas, according to the Yemeni military. The rebel group has also intensified its attacks on troops and oil facilities in neighboring Saudi Arabia, which supports the Yemeni government.

The attacks risk reigniting Yemen’s civil war following a 2022 U.N.-brokered truce, and could open a new front in the Middle East war.

The Houthis declared a blockade several weeks ago on Saudi-linked ships leaving the Bab al-Mandeb strait in retaliation for a yearslong Saudi siege on Yemen and recent attacks on the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa. The Houthis had said they would only stop vessels connected to Saudi Arabia or going in and out of its Red Sea ports.

During a similar blockade it announced during the war in Gaza, the Houthis attacked over 100 vessels before a punishing U.S. and Israeli air campaign put an end to the attacks in early 2025.

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Ezzidin reported from Cairo.

The wildfires across the West Midlands, which saw several houses burned to the ground, have been “one of the most significant” incidents the region’s fire service has ever dealt with, chief fire officer Simon Tuhill said.

A child and three firefighters were taken to the hospital following the wildfire in Stourbridge.

West Midlands mayor Richard Parker described the “multiple fires across our region” as an “extremely worrying and fast-moving situation."

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has been kept abreast of the situation and has, according to Parker, pledged to support fire and rescue services in the West Midlands with any additional resources they need.

The fires, the cause of which has yet to be determined and which could take days to put out, came on the hottest day of the year, when the mercury struck 38.1 degrees Celsius (100.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in west London, a tenth of a degree higher than the previous high set on June 28.

Britain is experiencing its fifth heat wave of the year, with the first recorded in May. The latest extreme heat means 2026 has now had a record four days with temperatures of 36 C (96.8 F) or higher. It also has matched 2022 with two days reaching 38 C.

These are historic temperatures as a result of human-caused climate change.

Nearby France has also endured its fifth heat wave this year and, if anything, the situation is worse. Temperatures in France approached 41 C (106 F) in several areas, from Aquitaine in the southwest to the Rhone River valley in the east, according to the national weather service.

Britain and France ill-equipped for this sort of heat

This summer has shown that both Britain and France are ill-equipped to deal with these levels of heat. Air conditioning is a rarity outside of shops and offices, for example.

In Britain, nurses have collapsed from heat exhaustion while working in hospitals, many housed in aging buildings that lack adequate cooling, the Royal College of Nursing said Thursday.

“When nursing staff are collapsing, feeling dizzy, sick or even being admitted to the very hospitals they work in because their workplaces cannot handle the heat, it shows just how badly they are being failed,” said Nicola Ranger, the college’s chief executive and general secretary.

Wildfire fears remain a clear and present danger

With the land parched and no sign of any meaningful rain coming, authorities across Europe remain on high alert for wildfires.

French firefighters were back in action after a desperate summer and are threatening to go on strike to demand more staff and resources to cope with increasingly extreme weather events.

One broke out late Wednesday in the northern Pas-de-Calais region, and another in Brittany, far from the hotter, drier and more fire-prone regions in southern France. A historic fire devoured forests near Bordeaux last month and pushed a quarter of a million people from their homes.

In northern Greece, more than 300 vacationers and residents were evacuated by sea Thursday after a wildfire swept through a pine forest and threatened seaside homes, authorities said.

The Fire Service said nine water-dropping planes and seven helicopters were assisting 250 firefighters around the Siviri resort on the popular Halkidiki peninsula. There were no initial reports of injuries or serious property damage.

In Britain, which is increasingly looking sandy brown rather than its traditional luscious green, firefighters have been out in force this week trying to contain a wildfire in the New Forest in southern England.

Some 1,017 wildfires have been recorded in England and Wales this year, according to data from the National Fire Chiefs Council, the same as last year’s record-breaking total.

Though not on the same level as those witnessed in France, Greece and Spain, they provide ample evidence of the need for the U.K. to adjust to a new reality.

Unsurprisingly, drought conditions are spreading

Like many parts of Europe, Britain and France are facing widespread drought conditions that have shriveled crops and drained rivers, heaping pressure on water resources for households, agriculture and the environment, and forcing all parts of society to seek both short- and long-term measures to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Britain’s Southern Water, which oversees supplies in the south of England, has applied for a rare drought order which would ban businesses from nonessential water use, including cleaning cars and filling nondomestic swimming pools, saying an “exceptional” lack of rain is threatening supplies. Environment Secretary Angela Eagle will decide on the application, which would be the first such ban since May 2006.

With temperatures soaring, many people headed to beaches and outdoor pools or found other ways to cool off. In Bordeaux in southwestern France, children and adults sought relief in the city’s iconic “water mirror.” Some frolicked in fountains, splashed their faces and filled up water bottles. Birds too quenched their thirst.

The most intense heat is forecast to move eastward away from Britain and France on Friday and then recede over the weekend.

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Charlton reported from Paris. Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki, Greece contributed.

The pregame pomp before the Minnesota Twins played the Philadelphia Phillies — adjacent to the farmland where the 1989 fantasy was filmed — featured 26 members of the Hall of Fame emerging from the outfield corn just as the ghost players did in the movie.

With some of the loudest cheers saved for former Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt and former Twins catcher Joe Mauer, the capacity crowd of about 8,000 at the newly constructed ballpark in northeast Iowa soaked up the surreal atmosphere as the aged stars strolled into the infield for proper introductions.

Fireworks were launched from the cornfield during the national anthem, and Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber followed with his own big bang — a stalk shot to right on Twins starter Taj Bradley's third pitch of the game that set the tone for a 7-1 win on Thursday night.

After stealing the show at the inaugural 2021 event, which was played on the same footprint at a temporary setup that also hosted the 2022 game, Kevin Costner did not appear.

But the star of the film — as the restless farmer Ray Kinsella who reconnects with his late father by playing catch on his front-yard ballfield — narrated the pregame video that helped pump some old-guard nostalgia through the new-school broadcast on global streaming giant Netflix.

Both teams emerged from the corn together to take their places along the lines like on opening day, and Twins All-Star Byron Buxton — who came off the injured list in the afternoon to play — took the microphone to evoke a line from James Earl Jones, who played the author Terence Mann in the movie.

“The one constant through all the years has been baseball," Buxton said before Schwarber followed with a brief script on an idyllic late-summer night after heavy rain moved through the area earlier in the day.

Then came the legends, and living ones at that, unlike those wool-clad lads in the movie.

Schmidt and Steve Carlton wore Phillies uniforms along with Jim Kaat, who played for both teams. Mauer and Bert Blyleven donned Twins jerseys. The others — Andruw Jones, Harold Baines, Fred McGriff, Adrián Beltré, Andre Dawson, Larry Walker, Cal Ripken Jr., Iván Rodríguez, Jim Thome, Scott Rolen, Tony Pérez, Tony La Russa, Jeff Kent, Fergie Jenkins, Joe Torre, CC Sabathia, Billy Wagner, Rollie Fingers, Lee Smith and Trevor Hoffman — helped form a half-ring around the diamond to represent about one-third of the Cooperstown contingent that's still alive.

This was the largest such gathering at a ballpark, not including the annual ceremonies at the Hall of Fame in upstate New York, since the All-Star Game in 2008 that feted the final season at old Yankee Stadium.

Phillies manager Don Mattingly relished the brief pregame mingle before the grand entrance, with many in the group contemporaries of his as a player in the 1980s and 1990s and a few others in Jones and Kent he was able to coach with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“It was definitely good to see the boys,” Mattingly said.

No place evokes baseball and family nostalgia like the Field of Dreams

Before the game, Buxton played catch with his 12-year-old son on the nearby movie site that remains open to the public for no cost on non-event days. Twins manager Derek Shelton did the same with his 78-year-old father, a former educator who coached him on his high school baseball team. Shelton later complained that his arm was in weaker shape.

“You don’t get old enough that an experience like that is not emotional to be able to do something with your father,” Shelton said.

Mattingly, whose son just happens to be the club's general manager, found himself harkening back to Indiana childhood ballgames with his brothers upon arrival on the team bus.

“This place reminds me of when I was a kid,” Mattingly said. "You’d go down a dirt road, and all of sudden you’d see a cornfield and then there’d be a field there."

Both teams wore throwback uniforms — the Twins in home threads from their first season in 1961 and the Phillies in road jerseys circa 1940 — in step with the hand-operated scoreboard in right field.

The permanent ballpark built for all kinds of events — including the opportunity to host MLB games on a recurring basis — also has plenty of amenities with the video board in left field, a state-of-the-art sound system and, of course, indoor plumbing.

The feel of the farm was just as strong as the buzz of the ballpark, with natural sponsor John Deere pledging $100,000 per home run hit to hunger-relief organization Feeding America.

The special environment didn't erase the circumstance of the stretch run of the regular season, though, with both the Twins and Phillies in the thick of their respective wild-card races.

“We’re not in Minnesota for three days," Phillies star Bryce Harper said, "but we’re still playing the Twins three times and we've still got to win some games."

Even in defeat, the Twins enjoyed taking part in something bigger than simply the 123rd game on their schedule.

“As you grow in this game and get older and play more games, the shine of being in the big leagues and walking out on a big league field starts to wear off,” catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “Moments like this kind of bring that excitement and that energy and the goosebumps similar to your debut day.”

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Qusai Abu Rida was holed up inside with his teenage son when settlers cut the water and electricity, leaving them to drink well water as dozens of Israeli settlers erected tents outside. His Palestinian American brother in Ohio, who owns the house, watched the siege unfold on security cameras and called for updates.

The standoff in the northern West Bank town of Qusra is the latest in a wave of settler violence convulsing the territory, which Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war and which would make up the main part of a future Palestinian state.

On Thursday, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee referred to the settlers as “terrorists” — a word American officials usually reserve for Palestinian militants. It was an unusually sharp rebuke from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has given unprecedented support to Israeli settlement over the years.

Mounting criticism of Israel from the United States could pose a challenge for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is trying to maintain good relations with his country's closest ally as he mobilizes ultranationalist voters ahead of a tough battle for reelection in October.

Settlers have remained in the area despite the army intervening

On Sunday, dozens of settlers arrived at the homes in Qusra, blocking doors and preventing occupants from leaving, according to the families.

Israeli troops have intervened multiple times, but the settlers keep returning, said Loui Ridi, the homeowner in Ohio who spells the family name differently. Rights groups have long accused Israeli forces of turning a blind eye to settler violence or of intervening to protect the settlers.

“It's a cycle,” Ridi said. “They need to be prevented from the entire area, not just removed and moved 100 feet away so when the (Israeli military) leaves, they come back.”

On Tuesday, Israel’s military condemned the siege as “illegal, reprehensible, and unacceptable,” and declared Qusra a closed military zone. The next day, dozens of settlers returned, tried to block the road with rocks and clashed with Israeli soldiers, according to video shot by village residents.

On Thursday, the military said troops dismantled “two illegal outposts” in Qusra and a nearby village, and detained one Israeli. It said more soldiers were sent to “carry out defensive missions and patrols.”

Qusra Mayor Abdel Azim Wadi said that Israeli forces evacuated more than a dozen homes to take up positions in the village. The settlers, though removed from their outposts, remain in other parts of the village, he added.

Abu Rida said soldiers gave the occupants of all the homes 30 minutes to evacuate and move into one of the besieged houses. The military said the soldiers have been told to allow families to remain in their homes and not to operate in them, but families have not yet returned, Abu Rida said.

It's still not clear when families in the besieged area will be able to get basic supplies and what would happen to their homes. Israel’s military said the families had basic supplies like food and water when it checked in on them on Wednesday.

But Ridi said Thursday that after water and electricity lines had been reconnected, settlers cut them again.

Settler violence has surged in recent years

Netanyahu's government, the most ultranationalist and religious in Israel's history, has presided over a surge of settlement construction in the West Bank. It views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

On Thursday, members of Netanyahu's Cabinet joined in celebrating the rebuilding of a settlement elsewhere in the West Bank that had been dismantled in 2005. "The era of withdrawals and expulsions has ended. The era of construction and Zionism begins,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said at the ceremony.

During Trump's first term, he signaled broad acceptance of the settlements, which most of the international community views as illegal and an obstacle to peace. At the start of his second term, he lifted sanctions imposed by the Biden administration on settlers accused of violence.

Huckabee, a longtime supporter of the settlements, has condemned the rising violence.

“Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting,” Huckabee said in his post about the events in Qusra. He said the embassy has been coordinating with the Israeli military and police.

Qusra has been a focus of settler attacks

The U.N. humanitarian office in April said it had recorded more settler attacks in Qusra than in any other West Bank community in 2026. A 25-year-old resident was shot and killed by an off-duty Israeli reservist in March, and eight others have been wounded in the attacks, according to the U.N.

Violence between settlers and Palestinians last month left two Israelis and four Palestinians dead in a nearby northern West Bank village. In the aftermath, a mosque in Qusra was set on fire and the word “revenge” was graffitied on its wall in Hebrew.

A total of 87 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers this year, according to the Palestinian Authority's Health Ministry. Israel says some were involved in terrorism, which it defines broadly to include militant attacks and rock-throwing. Palestinian authorities do not distinguish between militants and civilians when recording deaths in the conflict.

Palestinian officials have reported 1,476 attacks by Israeli settlers in 2026, including several instances in which settlers seized Palestinian homes and property.

The military says it works to maintain law and order in the territory, and Israeli Cabinet ministers have blamed the attacks on a small group of young extremists acting outside the law.

Some 2.8 million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule in the West Bank, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in population centers. The settlers, who now number over 560,000, are Israeli citizens. There have been no Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in over a decade.

“This is not a life that can continue this way,” said Wadi, the mayor of Qusra. “Too much pressure eventually causes an explosion.”

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This story has been updated to correct the first name of the homeowner to Loui.

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Metz reported from Jerusalem.

The slowdown Thursday for people in the capital, Taipei, and six other cities and localities was part of the last phase of the island's annual Han Kuang exercises, military drills that began last week and aim to model a response to a possible Chinese military invasion.

Telecommunication operators slowed mobile web traffic to 256 Kbps, making it difficult to exchange anything other than texts. Usually, residents can access 5G in major cities.

Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te apologized to the public for the inconvenience, “We ask for your understanding and support, as this is a necessary drill,” he said.

Taiwan has stepped up the intensity of the Han Kuang drills, incorporating reservists and more civilians into the exercises with a focus on real-world scenarios. Previously, urban resilience drills in Taipei went largely unnoticed as they were not disruptive. For example, air raid drills in the metro station didn’t stem the flow of passengers.

This year, integrating civilians and coordinating with local governments was a key part of the exercises, according to the Taipei Times.

At a Taipei metro station Thursday afternoon, passengers waited to be released after the station's gates were shut for the simulation as part of air raid drills.

Allen Hsieh, a tourist from Hong Kong who was among the passengers who waited 30 minutes to be let out of the station, said he found the exercises to be convincing.

“The exercise did not cause me any inconvenience. I know that Taiwan needs to conduct exercises, given the current situation. I can understand that,” he said. “I did not expect it to be so real. I thought I would only receive text messages.”

Lai also visited a hospital as it simulated how to relocate its critical operations to underground facilities as part of the drills.

Taiwan is ramping up its defense exercises and purchases in response to heightened tensions with China, which claims the island as its own. China sends military planes, as well as Coast Guard ships and other vessels towards Taiwan on a daily basis and carries out large-scale military exercises from time to time.

Between Wednesday to Thursday morning, 18 Chinese warplanes and 11 navy ships operated around Taiwan, the island's Defense Ministry said.

The warning is typical of the harsh rhetoric that North Korea often deploys ahead of major U.S.-South Korean military exercises and suggests the country could conduct more missile tests in coming days. Experts say North Korea has often used its rivals' drills as a pretext to ramp up its testing activities to expand its weapons arsenals and promote public support for leader Kim Jong Un.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries are to start their major summertime Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises Monday and have described their scope as similar to past years. The allies have said the 11-day exercises are meant to strengthen their readiness against North Korean threats and reiterated that they are defensive in nature.

In a statement carried by state media Friday, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry called the U.S.-South Korean training “a rehearsal for an aggressive war” that is triggering a different level of instability in the region.

“It is our consistent principle of ensuring security to respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent,” the statement said. North Korea “will more clearly express its stance on the enemies to cope with any threats and challenges through the responsible and decisive exercise of the right to legitimate self-defense.”

North Korea also said the drills would be of a “more serious provocative nature and dangerousness than last year” and involve all the military assets and war-fighting modes of the U.S. and South Korea, a claim that those countries haven’t said.

A U.S. military statement issued Friday said U.S. and South Korean forces will practice joint operations in complex scenarios, including a live-fire exercise to test joint precision targeting and maneuver, a wet gap crossing, and distribution of prepositioned military equipment.

North Korea's neighbors detected two ballistic missile launches off the North's east coast in the past week. North Korea hasn’t commented on the launches, but outside experts assess they were likely meant to protest the U.S.-South Korean drills or upgrade its weapons systems.

Kim has ignored the U.S. and South Korea’s offers to resume diplomacy and focused on taking steps to bolster his nuclear arsenal since his diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump broke down in 2019. Experts say Kim will likely eventually aim to use his advancing nuclear program to win greater U.S. concessions such as extensive sanctions relief.

North Korea has expanded cooperation with Russia in recent years by supplying troops and ammunition to support its war against Ukraine in return for economic and military assistance. North Korea has also recently pushed to deepen ties with China, its biggest trading partner.

The bridge — known as Nero's Bridge, named for the former Roman emperor — once connected Rome’s city center with the Tiber’s right bank.

“Nero is the most famous person linked to this area, because precisely in Nero’s circus, where the Vatican is now located, the Apostle Peter was martyred,” said Antonella Bonini, an archaeologist at Rome’s cultural heritage superintendency.

“However, scholars consider the bridge to be older (than Nero’s era) — built by Caligula, Nero’s uncle,” she said, adding that it existed as early as 39 AD.

The Tiber’s flow has fallen below 80 cubic meters (2,825 cubic feet) per second, about half the historic average for the month of July, according to Giovanni Giganti, coordinator of the Rome civil protection service’s center for water management.

“We are facing a major water crisis. And it is a crisis that is also due to the fact that this winter we did have quite abundant rainfall, but then the dry periods ... were quite long,” Giganti said.

It was the program’s sixth state championship — and fifth under McClure. But the 2025 title was especially sweet after Antonian had fallen in the state final each of the previous two seasons.

“A lot of people thought like it was like a rebuilding year — but all of us, we were like, ‘No, this is our year’,” said Antonian senior right side Lucy Rote.

One of the ways the Apaches finally got over the hump was through McClure’s motivational tactics.

It started with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and has now shifted to scenes from the show “Ted Lasso,” where the team’s “Believe” sign originated.

“We have a lot of Ted Lasso in this gym,” said Rote. “I think it’s I think it is really inspiring, because a lot of the clips are very relevant to what we’re going through, especially last year.”

To that same tune, Antonian believes it can defend its title in 2026.

“If you’re having a bad day, it’s OK, because you still have that belief that it’s going to get better,” McClure said. “Even if you’re having a great day, there’s still that belief that it can still get better.”

The Apaches continued their winning ways, opening their season the same way they ended it in November — with a victory — defeating Davenport 3-0.

“We’re definitely meshing and becoming more friends,” said Apaches senior middle blocker Maci Cantu. ”I feel like we definitely, like, push each other to become the best version of ourselves.”

“Humble but hungry; that’s what I see with this team,” McClure said. “They’re still very humble, even though they’re reigning state champions. It was great winning, but we’re not done yet.”

Read more reporting and watch highlights and full games on the Big Game Coverage page.

They’re headed to the LLWS for the second time in the last three years. In the past, they finished the Little League World Series tournament as the fourth-best team in the world. Flash forward to now, they told KSAT how they plan on taking this program further.

“Our defense is going to be one of the best in the USA,” said Kase Yarbough, who plays shortstop for the team.

“We are a power defense team,” he added.

“We don’t crack under pressure. We exceed over pressure,” said Walker Yost, another shortstop star.

Yost also plays second and outfield.

“If we face really good players, we could probably beat them if we’re doing good.”

Head coach Greg Yost has been coaching for a decade. He knows how to win. Yost said the goal isn’t a world title. It’s making sure his team is having fun in the wins and learning from the losses.

Even being this far is something Yost is proud of.

“There’s a lot of good baseball in Texas,” said Yost.

“I do think they’re battle-tested and they’re ready to take on the United States and whatever teams we see domestically,” he added. “Just winning the regional tournament is a big win. Do I think they can have success in Williamsport? Absolutely.”

Boerne will play on Aug. 21. Their opponent is TBD.

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• Boerne heads to Little League World Series after judge dissolves temporary restraining order

The 18-year-old woman said the man rushed into the vehicle after she left it running to make the delivery in the 10000 block of Prescott Drive, according to the preliminary report.

Officers responded around 12:15 p.m., the report said, and later deployed its helicopter to locate the vehicle.

The SUV was found roughly three miles down the road in the 7200 block of Leafwood Drive, SAPD said. Police were not authorized to pursue an arrest at the time, so they said they surrounded the vehicle instead.

An 18-year-old man bailed out of the SUV and ran about a block away from police on foot, according to police at the scene. He was later detained for questioning.

The man’s identity and charges are unclear at this time.

SAPD said the investigation is ongoing.

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The dismissal marks the latest setback in swing states’ efforts to prosecute fake electors who tried to keep Trump in the White House after he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

Three other fake elector cases in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia have been dismissed. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes recently dismissed her office’s criminal case but vowed to bring it back to a grand jury in hopes of securing another indictment. The dismissal was a legal maneuver aimed at getting around a deadline for starting new grand jury proceedings after Mayes lost an appeal earlier in June.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who is also running for governor as a Democrat, brought charges relating to forgery and “offering a false instrument for filing or record” against the six Nevada Republicans, who pleaded not guilty.

His office plans to appeal the ruling.

The defendants included Michael McDonald, the chair of the Nevada Republican Party, and Jesse Law, the former chair of the Clark County Republican Party.

In a Thursday statement, McDonald’s defense attorney Richard Wright called the attorney general’s plans to appeal “hasty” and “premature” and said continuing the case was politically motivated.

After the 2020 election, the six Republican electors gathered outside of the Nevada Legislature to sign a certificate giving the state’s six electoral votes to Trump, despite Biden winning the state by more than 30,000 votes. The ceremony was broadcast online, and the video footage was used as evidence in the case.

The case has revolved around the defendants’ intent behind submitting the certificate.

Prosecutors argue the defendants intended for their documents to be mistaken for actual electoral votes that then-Vice President Mike Pence would count on Jan. 6, 2021.

The defendants say submitting the certificate was an act of “political theater” designed to publicize their concerns about the election. They were preserving their rights to challenge the official election results and had no intent to deceive a government agency into accepting the GOP certificate as real, their attorneys argued.

Nevada Judge Mary Kay Holthus agreed.

She found there was a lack of evidence that showed the electors intended to deceive government officials, and she determined that the state failed to disclose exculpatory evidence to the grand jury.

“The fact that Defendants openly announced both their actions and their asserted purpose, rather than concealing their conduct or attempting to secretly induce governmental reliance, weighs against a reasonable inference that they acted with fraudulent intent,” Holthus wrote in her ruling.

Jurisdiction had also been an issue, but the case eventually landed in Clark County, which is home to Las Vegas and leans Democratic.

The case was originally scheduled for a trial in Nevada's capital of Carson City, but the attorney general's office voluntarily dismissed the case to pursue it instead in Southern Nevada, which leans more Democratic.

Courts have dismissed similar cases in Michigan and Georgia, and a special prosecutor dropped a federal case in late 2024 that charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Those cases ended after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. A fake electors case is ongoing in Wisconsin.

At the World Athletics U20 Championships last week in Eugene, Oregon, Taylor put sprinters everywhere on notice.

He won gold medals in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m races, becoming the first male to win gold in those three events at the U20 Championships.

Taylor’s 9.94 in the 100m is a personal best. His 19.83 in the 200m is a championship record. His 38.16 in the 4x100m is a U20 world record. His anchor leg time of 8.75 seconds is the stuff of legends.

KSAT 12 Sports anchor Larry Ramirez sat down with Taylor before he left San Antonio for Texas Tech to join the Red Raiders track and field program.

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• San Antonio’s Tate Taylor completes sprint double with 200-meter gold at World U20 Championships
• Harlan High School product Tate Taylor continues rapid ascension using coach’s guidance

Discussion

At 300 PM GMT (1500 UTC), the center of Post-Tropical Cyclone Cristobal was located near latitude 39.4 North, longitude 36.8 West. The post-tropical cyclone is moving toward the northeast near 16 mph (26 km/h) and this motion is expected to continue today.

Maximum sustained winds are near 30 mph (45 km/h) with higher gusts. Cristobal is expected to dissipate later tonight.

The estimated minimum central pressure is 1018 mb (30.06 inches).

Watches and Warnings

There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

Land Hazards

None.

The vote was 7-2, with Councilmembers Misty Spears and Marc Whyte voting against the measure.

Councilwomen Marina Alderete Gavito and Phyllis Viagran were absent from Thursday’s vote. Viagran later said she would have voted against it, citing concerns over the speed of the election process.

The proposal would continue the ⅛ cent sales tax dedicated to Pre-K 4 SA for another 20 years. The current authorization was approved by voters in 2020 and runs through June 2029. Voters first approved the dedicated tax in 2012.

The 20-year proposal is the longest funding authorization Pre-K 4 SA has sought. Previous authorizations have been eight years at a time.

District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, a former educator, has been one of the proposal’s strongest advocates.

He said the current eight-year funding structure doesn’t give the program enough financial certainty to make major long-term investments.

“The problem with the 8 years is that an 8-year authorization, is that it doesn’t leave a lot of financial stability or certainty for financial institutions,” said the councilman.

McKee-Rodriguez added that certainty could allow Pre-K 4 SA to make larger investments in its facilities and programs and ultimately expand access to more San Antonio families.

Other city leaders who support Pre-K 4 SA believe the longer authorization could help the program address changing community needs, including expanding infant and toddler care, growing Pre-K 3 sites, strengthening partnerships with childcare providers and supporting the early-childhood workforce.

McKee-Rodriguez also argued that families are struggling with the cost of childcare, making access to affordable early childhood education an economic issue as well as an educational one.

He said the long-term commitment could give families and the program more certainty.

He pushed back on concerns about locking in funding for 20 years, arguing that voters and future leaders would still have options.

“Even though this is reauthorizing Pre-K for SA for 20 years, there’s always the power of the vote,” said McKee-Rodriguez. “And in 10, 15 years, we find that the program is not necessary, or it’s achieved all of its goals, we can then begin to transition out of that.”

The program’s Chief Executive Officer, Sarah Baray, told City Council on Thursday the program has directly served more than 14,000 students at its own centers and supports an additional 13,000 children through 119 local schools and child development centers.

The first cohort of the program, which started in 2013, had roughly 650 4-year-olds who are now beginning their senior year of high school.

The program now operates four education centers and serves about 2,000 students each year. It has also expanded beyond its traditional focus on 3- and 4-year-olds, recently adding infant and toddler classrooms at its South Education Center. That expansion comes as demand for childcare remains high.

Spears, who represents District 9, said her vote was not a rejection of Pre-K 4 SA itself. Her concern is the length and timing of the proposed funding commitment and whether the city has enough information about how the money would be spent over 20 years.

“They were asking for funding without producing a strategic plan for how they would use the extension or reauthorization that would go for 20 years,” Spears told KSAT.

She added she wants to see a clear plan before asking taxpayers to commit to the funding for two decades. She also questioned how the needs of education and San Antonio families could change over that amount of time.

“You need to be able to make sure what you’re doing is effective and where you want to continue spending that taxpayer money,” Spears said.

Her concerns were echoed by Whyte, who also voted against putting the measure on the ballot. He shared Spears’ concerns about the length of the proposed tax commitment and the lack of details about how the additional funding would be used, factors that ultimately swayed his vote.

One of the biggest questions surrounding Thursday’s vote is why voters are being asked to make the decision now when the current authorization doesn’t expire until 2029. Some argue waiting would make long-term planning more difficult.

McKee-Rodriguez told KSAT that Pre-K 4 SA currently leases two of its four education centers and would like to eventually move into buildings it owns. He reiterated that a 20-year funding horizon could make those kinds of investments more financially realistic.

However, those on the opposite end said that reason is precisely why voters need more information before committing to 20 years of funding.

For families, supporters say the long-term investment could mean more access to early childhood education and childcare. For taxpayers, the decision represents a commitment to continue dedicating a portion of local sales-tax revenue to the program for two decades.

City Council has until Monday to officially order the November election. They will discuss further details of the program again on Sept. 1.

After that, San Antonio voters will decide on Nov. 3 whether to approve the 20-year Pre-K 4 SA funding reauthorization.

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The document states Angel Jacinta Hernandez, 31, was wanted since June 29 on two counts of aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony. She additionally faces a charge of failure to identify fugitive from justice by refusing or giving false information, a Class-B misdemeanor.

On June 14, Hernandez and several other people allegedly approached two people wearing Knicks clothing as they walked in the 600 block of Market Street the night after their team beat the San Antonio Spurs to win the NBA Finals, according to the affidavit.

Details in the document describe Hernandez, with a knife in hand, demanding the Knicks fans to surrender their clothing.

The affidavit said Hernandez and the group she was with allegedly assaulted the New York fans and robbed them of their merchandise.

Among the group was Abcdee Rodriguez, 30, who was arrested weeks later on the same felony charges as Hernandez.

The assaulted pair snapped a photo of the vehicle Hernandez was in before she fled from the scene. The San Antonio Police Department said that information helped narrow down potential suspects.

On June 29, the pair selected Hernandez in a lineup of potential suspect photos, the affidavit said.

SAPD took Hernandez into custody Wednesday night and booked her into the Bexar County Adult Detention Center just after midnight Thursday. Her bond is set at $172,500, jail records show.

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• ‘An unprovoked attack’: Knicks fan assaulted after NBA Finals in San Antonio speaks out for first time

The Tennessee man was executed for killing a motel maid in 1985 and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death for killing a 5-year-old girl he had offered to pay her mother to abuse.

Having three executions in one day was a coincidence in scheduling, but reflected a trend of increased executions in the U.S. Eleven states executed a total of 47 people in 2025, the highest number since 2009. With Thursday's injections, 22 executions have been carried out this year in the U.S. with nearly a dozen more scheduled.

The last time three executions were carried out on the same day was on Jan. 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas put inmates to death. Three executions were scheduled on the same day in 2018, but only one went forward after a Texas man was reprieved and Alabama prison officials had problems with the IV line.

Florida executed two men the same day in July and has executed 31 overall since the start of 2025.

Oklahoma prisoner said he regretted killing his girlfriend

Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, received an injection at the state penitentiary in McAlester in Oklahoma's third execution this year.

Cuesta-Rodriguez turned his head toward two relatives watching and mouthed “I love you” but had no last statement. He was declared dead at 10:13 a.m. after several minutes of labored breathing.

Convicted of murdering his girlfriend at their Oklahoma City home in 2003, Cuesta-Rodriguez had said he regretted killing Olimpia Fisher and told a board he didn’t want clemency. Fisher, 43, planned to leave Cuesta-Rodriguez when he shot her.

Fisher’s daughters, Cinthya Allen and Katya Wallis, said in a statement they hoped the execution brings awareness to preventing domestic violence, adding they are “raising our families to reflect the love and faith in God that she taught us.”

Tennessee man challenged execution after previous one was halted

Anthony Darrell Hines was executed in Tennessee for the 1985 stabbing death of Catherine Jean Jenkins, 54, as she worked as a motel maid in Kingston Springs.

Hines said “not right now, thank you” when asked if he had final words, then said, “Tell my son hello."

Hines' son witnessed the execution. He reconnected with his father four days earlier after not seeing him since he was 3 years old.

Minutes after the execution chamber curtain opened, Hines asked his spiritual adviser: “How long do I have?” Soon afterward, witnesses heard groans and heavy breathing while the adviser put her hands on his shoulders and prayed. Hines was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m.

Afterward, Jenkins’ son said his mother had only a plastic spray bottle to defend against Hines' knife.

“I hope he felt severe pain because what he did to my mother is nothing compared to what he may have just gone through,” Dennis Jenkins said.

Hines' execution comes three months after another man's attempted lethal injection was stopped after medical staff couldn’t establish a backup IV line for over an hour.

Hines, 66, appealed unsuccessfully, saying the doctor who oversaw the May execution was unqualified and likely to botch his execution as well.

Alabama man asked to be executed swiftly

Alabama executed Jeremy Williams for the 2021 rape and murder of the young Georgia girl.

“I want to thank God for forgiving me for my sins so I can meet him in peace,” Williams said on the gurney. He rocked his head back and forth, smiled and appeared to sing or speak before becoming still. A member of his family cried quietly throughout, and Williams was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m.

Williams, who pleaded guilty to killing Kamarie Holland, had written the Alabama attorney general’s office seeking an immediate execution date so his victim’s family “may have some type of closure.”

The 42-year-old raped and strangled Holland after offering her mother $2,500 for the child to perform a sex act, prosecutors said, adding he filmed his attack.

“The unspeakable nature of this crime is exactly why we have the death penalty statute,” Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement afterward.

The mother is serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sex trafficking.

Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey described Kamarie’s final moments as “horrific.”

"That baby didn’t die in peace,” he said at a later news conference, recalling Williams' last words about dying in peace.

Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor, who called the case the worst he'd investigated in 39 years of law enforcement, said he believed Williams sought swift execution over worries about how he would be treated in prison.

"He didn’t want to look over his shoulder for 30 years, in my opinion,” Taylor said.

It was Alabama’s first execution this year. A nitrogen gas execution was blocked in June after a federal judge ruled the method unconstitutional.

Williams also was a suspect in the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska, but charges weren't filed until 2022.

Corey Holland, Kamarie’s father, had said she was an exuberant child who loved princesses and made people laugh.

“She loved playing dress-up, all her little Halloween costumes and her princess stuff I got her,” he said.

___

This story has been revised to correct that the Alabama man offered to pay the mother, but didn't actually do so. It also was updated to correct the name of the Russell County Sheriff. He is Heath Taylor, not Heather Taylor.

___

Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins and Hallie Golden contributed.

The use of uncertified teachers comes as districts across Texas struggle to fill classrooms.

As part of KSAT Investigates’ “Dangerous Lessons” investigation earlier this year, we found Texas lost over 4,600 teachers between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years.

That shortage forced districts to compete for a limited pool of certified educators, particularly in hard-to-fill subjects.

“We’re all competing for that one or two math teachers amongst 15 or 16 districts,” South San Antonio ISD Superintendent Saul Hinojosa said.

South San ISD is among the districts that hired uncertified teachers, but Hinojosa said the district spent the past several years working to reduce that number.

“If we were to go to a doctor’s office, I don’t think anybody would be wanting to be operated on by a physician who doesn’t have that credential,” Hinojosa said.

Since the district has worked to decrease the number of uncertified teachers in classrooms, Hinojosa said the district has already seen improvements in subjects such as reading and math.

“We have already seen the impact of having better qualified staff this past year,” Hinojosa said. “It means that we’re on the right track. It means we’re making the right decisions.”

Requirements for Texas teacher certification

There are five requirements to become a certified teacher in Texas, according to the Texas Education Agency.

• Obtain a Bachelor’s Degree 
• Complete an educator preparation program 
• Pass certification exams
• Submit a state application after all requirements are met
• Complete fingerprinting and national background check

Where are uncertified teachers working?

The numbers show uncertified teachers made up about 3% of the more than 127,000 people who taught in Bexar County during the school year.

Data shows the reliance on uncertified teachers varied significantly from district to district.

Edgewood ISD had the highest rate of uncertified teachers in Bexar County during the last school year, with about one out of every five teachers lacking a state certification.

“We’ve been taking lots of measures to be proactive about it, but it’s nothing we didn’t foresee happening,” Edgewood ISD Superintendent Dr. Eduardo Hernandez said.

Hernandez said the district’s focus is on ensuring students still have quality educators in their classrooms.

“My attitude towards it is we still need a quality teacher in every classroom,” Hernandez said, “so how do we develop from within and then, of course, attract and retain teachers as usual.”

The use of uncertified teachers comes as districts across Texas struggle to fill classrooms.

Uncertified teachers lead to learning loss, research shows

Jacob Kirksey, an associate professor of education policy at Texas Tech University, has spent years researching the impact of uncertified teachers on Texas students.

“My research shows, on average, it links to learning loss of about three months in math and four months in reading for students,” Kirksey said.

He also raised concerns about what the increasing use of uncertified teachers could mean for the profession.

“If we legitimize the hiring of uncertified teachers,” Kirksey said, “what we’re doing is we’re essentially saying that just anyone from off the street can go in and lead a classroom of kids.”

“Is there a place in Texas schools for uncertified teachers?” asked KSAT Investigates reporter Daniela Ibarra.

“Yes, there is a place in Texas schools for uncertified teachers, but it is not in elementary classrooms,” said Kirksey. “It is not special education classrooms. It is not in kindergarten classrooms.”

Parents divided over uncertified teachers

KSAT asked viewers on social media to share their experiences with uncertified teachers and received hundreds of responses.

Some parents said they appreciate people who are willing to step into classrooms amid the teacher shortage, but believe educators teaching core subjects should be certified.

“I appreciate those willing to step into the classroom, but I believe educators teaching core subjects like math and science--especially in STEM schools-- should be certified,” commented Michele Rosales Resurez, who shared that her own daughter had an uncertified math teacher in middle school.

“To [the teacher’s] credit, my daughter liked the teacher,” Rosales Resurez added, “but many students struggled to meet expectations, likely due in part to the lack of consistency.”

Other parents defended the practice.

“A certification doesn’t define the teacher’s ability to teach,” commented Kirstin Butterworth. “Some ‘uncertified’ teachers even have higher test scores than seasoned ‘certified’ teachers.”

New certification requirements take effect

Texas law requires those teaching core classes to be certified by the start of the 2029-30 school year.

Starting this school year, Texas requires K-5 teachers who teach reading or math to be certified, unless their school district received an extension.

KSAT Investigates checked the state data and found that more than half of the school districts with schools in Bexar County received an extension.

• Boerne ISD
• Comal ISD
• East Central ISD
• Edgewood ISD
• Judson ISD
• Northside ISD
• San Antonio ISD
• Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD
• Somerset ISD
• South San Antonio ISD
• Southwest ISD

Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.

Here’s a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East. Full coverage can be found here.

Yemeni soldier killed in clashes with Houthis

At least one government soldier was killed and another critically wounded in clashes with the Houthis in the mountainous province of Taiz, Yemeni military officials told The Associated Press.

The fighting came as part of a spate of recent Houthi attacks on government-held areas across the country. Dozens of government troops have been killed since last week, the Yemeni military said.

The Houthis also said they launched another drone attack on an Aramco oil refinery in Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials did not immediately comment on the reported attack in the city of Jazan. Last weekend, the Houthis fired drones at the refinery, where the Saudi Energy Ministry reported a fire but no casualties.

Last month, the Houthis announced a blockade of Saudi shipping, threatening another key trade route in the region.

US carrier heads toward Middle East after issues reported on long-deployed USS Lincoln

The Pacific-based aircraft carrier USS George Washington has begun heading toward the Middle East as reports have emerged of mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed USS Abraham Lincoln.

The Lincoln has been supporting the U.S. war against Iran, and its deployment has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 260 days.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on Thursday that reports of trouble on the carrier were “completely misrepresented.”

Speaking during a trip to Panama, he said the U.S. military could maintain the blockade of Iranian ports indefinitely, “because we’ll rotate ships in and out, as we have and we’ll continue to.”

The USS George Washington left port in Da Nang, Vietnam, last week, a Navy statement said. The carrier, along with a cruiser and a destroyer, have since been spotted crossing the Singapore Strait.

A Navy official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail sensitive ship details, confirmed that the Washington was in the Strait of Malacca, which links the Pacific and Indian oceans and puts the carrier on a course to head into the Indian Ocean. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the Washington would replace the Lincoln as one of the two aircraft carriers now stationed in the Middle East.

The move would leave the waters of the Pacific without a U.S. carrier presence for an unknown period of time.

— Konstantin Toropin in Washington

Peace laureate calls for UN pressure to resolve Yemen conflict

Hans Grundberg, the U.N. special envoy for Yemen, told the U.N. Security Council in a video briefing Thursday that Yemen is at greater risk of returning to large-scale conflict than at any time since a 2022 truce paused the fighting.

Yemen faces “catastrophe” from rising hunger and from health services crumbling amid the fighting, said U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher. He said 6 million people in Yemen face emergency levels of food insecurity bordering on famine, “the highest number globally.”

Yemeni Nobel peace laureate Tawakkol Karman told reporters outside the chamber that Houthi rebels bear the primary responsibility for the “collapse of the state” in her home country.

But the human rights campaigner also blamed Iran for backing the Houthis, Saudi Arabia for its intervention on behalf of the government ousted by the Houthis, the United Arab Emirates for its involvement in the conflict and the international community for its failure to do enough to protect civilians.

Karman was invited to brief the U.N. Security Council as an independent civil society voice on Yemen, but was blocked from speaking because of “strong opposition,” Danish Deputy Ambassador Sandra Jensen Landi said. Instead, Karman spoke to reporters outside the council chamber.

Iran and Oman working to clean oil spills off their coasts

Oil spills spreading off the coasts of Iran and Oman are raising concerns about environmental damage as oil shipments have come under fire in the Iran war.

Iran said Thursday it's working to clean up an oil spill off Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. Images distributed by Iran’s semiofficial news agency ISNA showed oil fouling the island's beaches.

While Iran hasn't said what caused the spill, the firm TankerTrackers.com says it appears to have started with an Iranian attack on a bulk carrier off Oman. Iran has repeatedly attacked shipping in the strait since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28.

Oman is responding to another spill in the Arabian Sea, coming from a tanker grounded off its southern coast. The tanker Caroline Bezengi — a sanctioned vessel believed to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” — has been grounded since reporting an explosion in June. No party has claimed responsibility and the cause is unknown.

A British maritime risk and response company said Thursday it has been hired to salvage the tanker and stop the oil leak off Oman. Oil from the ship has been spreading for weeks, reaching shores hundreds of kilometers (miles) north of the vessel.

JD Vance says Iran war will end with US in stronger position

Vice President JD Vance appeared to be lowering expectations for the Strait of Hormuz to return to the way it was before the war. He predicted in an interview on Fox News Channel that the war will end with the U.S. in a stronger position, with Iran not having a nuclear weapon, and with the Strait of Hormuz “returned to a place where oil and gas prices are stable for the American people.”

He did not say anything about the strait being open and toll-free for transiting ships, as he had in the past.

Vance’s comments also seemed to suggest that the administration was more acutely focused on the economic impact of the war than the original aims of the war itself.

“That’s goal number one: keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country,” he said.

The second goal, according to Vance, is to ensure that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon.

Kushner will head to Middle East for talks on Gaza

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and negotiator Jared Kushner will travel to the Middle East next week to try to advance plans for an end to the conflict in Gaza after a deal recently announced by the Trump administration ran into Israeli opposition.

An official with the Board of Peace, the body Trump established to oversee the fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, said Kushner, board high representative Nickolay Mladenov, and executive board member and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair would arrive in Israel on Sunday.

The group will then travel to Cairo, where meetings of a Palestinian technocratic group set to assume control of Gaza under a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal have been taking place for the past several months, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because planning for details of the trip has not yet been finalized,

The trip was reported earlier by Axios.

— Matthew Lee in Washington

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Click here for full AP coverage on developments in the West Bank.

The call for quiet was part of last-ditch efforts to find anyone else alive in the aftermath of the 7.4 magnitude quake that struck the South American country Monday, killing more than 280 people and leaving hundreds more missing.

“Unfortunately, we are reaching a point where the probability of finding survivors is dwindling,” said David Santiago Tamayo, director of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management, in a press conference Thursday night. “But the mission is to never stop searching and find all those reported missing.”

Aid agencies consider the first two to three days after a quake to be the prime window for retrieving survivors. People trapped in debris can live longer if they have access to food and water.

The death toll rose Thursday to 281, authorities said, with another 348 people rescued.

As time runs out, rescuers, families and volunteers across the country continue to hold on to hope.

“There might be two more people alive here, and I’m hopeful,” rescuer Daiana Rojas told The Associated Press. “We have been hearing sounds since 2:30 a.m., so our hope remains.”

Rojas and her family were unharmed by the quake, the most powerful to hit Colombia in this century. She has been volunteering to help search for survivors in Cali, one of the most heavily damaged cities, along with Pereira, Manizales and Quibdó.

“I thought that was going to be my last moment alive,” she said, recalling the terror of the quake. “Seeing this situation in my city breaks my heart.”

Rojas has witnessed two people being pulled alive from the debris, as well as the recovery of bodies.

“They are not a relative or a friend of mine, but it feels as they were,” she said of the survivors who have been found. “Whenever rescuers ask for silence, everyone stays still and tries not to move, speak or whisper. But when signs of life are found, all the teams start to applaud.”

Critical hours

The devastation has tested Colombia’s new President Abelardo de la Espriella and his government as they scramble to respond while aid groups seek to help the hardest-hit communities.

“The situation is complex, but we are using all our capacity and the capacity that has come from other countries,” de la Espriella said.

The president added nearly 400 people remain missing, though civilian-run databases put the number at more than 4,200. More than 3,900 people were reported injured, while nearly 10,600 homes were destroyed and more than 65,800 damaged. In total, more than 44,900 families have been affected, he said.

Authorities recognize that the rescue effort has entered a grim phase as search teams begin shifting toward recovering bodies. But as the government moves forward with plans to help those affected and rebuild the country, finding potential survivors remains a priority. “Our priority is saving lives,” de la Espriella said. “These are human beings who are trapped under the rubble.”

In other developments, a 4.2 magnitude aftershock struck Thursday in San José del Palmar, in the Chocó region — the epicenter of the earthquake. More than 160 aftershocks have rocked the country, according to the Colombian Geological Survey.

“We’re pretty shaken up, but we’re in good spirits. We can see everyone working hard to get through this very complex situation,” volunteer helper Jairo Galán said in Cali, where food and donation centers were set up.

Colombia, with a population of 54 million people, experiences an average of 2,500 earthquakes each month, most of them small. That's equivalent to about 80 tremors per day, according to the geological survey.

More international aid arrives

Meanwhile, international aid continues to arrive.

Speaking to reporters in Quibdó, in the Chocó region, Colombian Vice President José Manuel Restrepo said rescuers had concluded the search for survivors and bodies in the area and would now shift their focus to the “humanitarian phase.”

The region has received some 7 tons of humanitarian aid, with another 10 tons expected to arrive late Thursday night. An additional 20 tons of supplies are expected to arrive on Friday. “That’s almost 40 tons of humanitarian aid, containing everything people will need at this moment,” Restrepo said.

Earlier today, a group of rescuers from the Los Angeles County Fire Department arrived to help with search efforts and structural engineering assessments. Other countries, including Peru, El Salvador, Mexico and Brazil, have also offered assistance.

De la Espriella announced on X that Colombia will receive a $10 million donation from the United Arab Emirates.

The Chinese ambassador to Colombia said China will provide $1 million in financial aid and more than $2 million in humanitarian assistance.

The South American Football Confederation and the Colombian Football Federation also jointly announced a $1 million donation to support reconstruction efforts.

“Soccer transcends the pitch and remains close to its people, especially in the most difficult times,” they said in a statement.

The Colombia disaster unfolded less than two months after neighboring Venezuela endured back-to-back earthquakes. The contrast between the two countries' responses was stark.

In Venezuela, acting President Delcy Rodríguez waited nearly four hours before addressing the nation. In Colombia, de la Espriella announced an emergency command post to oversee rescue efforts barely an hour after the earthquake. For weeks, Venezuelan civilians were clawing through rubble by hand. Hours after the earthquake in Colombia, rescue teams were searching for survivors with cranes and excavators.

The contrast was a reminder of the differences between the nations — their political systems, resources and the strength of their institutions — and a demonstration of how those can take on life-or-death importance.

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Suarez reported from Bogota, Colombia. Batschke reported from Santiago, Chile.

“A People’s History: The American Experiment on Stage” examines how theater artists have interpreted major moments in the nation’s history, from the fight for women’s suffrage to the Vietnam War and its protests.

“It’s this wonderful exhibition looking at how different artists have processed American history and how they have put it on stage,” said Remus Moore, assistant curator for the McNay’s Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts.

The 900-square-foot exhibition is organized around the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness found in the Declaration of Independence.

Moore said the exhibit gives visitors a chance to consider both the past 250 years and what the country’s next 250 years could look like.

Among the works on display is material connected to “The Contrast,” a 1787 production Moore described as the first play written and produced by Americans on an American stage after the country gained independence.

Visitors will also find “Uncle Fatso,” a larger-than-life puppet from Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont, a group known for using theater and puppetry to protest the Vietnam War, nuclear weapons and other issues.

Other highlights include a large portrait of actor Marlon Brando and paper cutout designs by artist Robert Indiana for “The Mother of Us All,” an opera exploring the women’s suffrage movement.

Moore said the variety of works reflects both the diversity of theatrical art and the complexity of American history.

“I hope people just really appreciate the vast array of artwork,” he said.

“A People’s History: The American Experiment on Stage” remains on view at the McNay Art Museum through early November.

More America250 coverage on KSAT:

• San Antonio veterans were on front lines of fight to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
• San Antonio exhibit highlights rancheras’ overlooked role in the American Revolution

A Louisiana grand jury in June declined to indict Christopher Gillum on a state terrorism charge that could have carried up to a 15-year sentence, court records show.

Gillum, who had been held without bond, was released shortly after the grand jury’s decision and is not facing charges in any other jurisdictions, according to his attorney, Dylan Utley. He declined to comment further.

Gillum's release has not previously been reported.

The 45-year-old ex-police officer, who is from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, had been arrested in Florida in April with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a handgun while on his way to Louisiana to commit a mass shooting, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. The investigation had involved the FBI and authorities across Louisiana, North Carolina and Florida.

Authorities did not name the event Gillum was allegedly targeting, but his arrest came on the eve of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers annually.

Gillum, who is white, had “expressed recent threats to harm ‘Black people’ ”, according to authorities. His family had reported him missing in North Carolina and said he had a history of self-harm.

Lester Duhe, a spokesperson for Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, said in a statement that Gillum’s family had taken him “to a treatment facility out of the state” and that he is not facing additional criminal charges.

Duhe said there were “several jurisdictional issues” that complicated the case after Gillum was extradited to Louisiana following his arrest.

“The threat relayed to a family member actually occurred in North Carolina,” Duhe said. “The defendant never entered the State of Louisiana until after his arrest.”

Gillum had been planning to travel to the Florida Keys “during the same period he would have been suspected to travel to Louisiana,” Duhe added.

Gillum was charged under a Louisiana statute for the crime of “terrorizing,” which requires that “a crime of violence is imminent or in progress or that a circumstance dangerous to human life exists or is about to exist.”

Jonathan Guidry, the foreperson for the grand jury, declined to comment on the decision to not indict Gillum.

Katherine Schweit, a former Chicago prosecutor and FBI executive who ran the agency’s active shooter program, said that thwarted acts of mass violence do not always lead to indictments, but prosecutors often seek an array of criminal charges when possible.

“It’s very difficult to convince a jury, or to convince a grand jury, that something might have happened,” Schweit told The Associated Press.

Law enforcement authorities in North Carolina, where Louisiana court records list Gillum as residing, told the AP that they were not aware he had been released from custody.

“If we’ve got an individual that was accused of such an action, we would want to know if in fact he did return to Alamance County,” said Byron Tucker, a spokesperson for the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina.

Nazneen Ahmed, a spokesperson for North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, said their office is not involved and that criminal prosecution authority in the state generally belongs to local district attorneys.

The office of the Florida Attorney General did not respond to a request for comment about whether Gillum may face additional criminal charges in its jurisdiction. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Louisiana also did not return messages seeking comment.

In a statement, the FBI New Orleans office said the decision whether to charge Gillum rested with prosecutors.

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival declined to comment.

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This story was first published on Aug. 12, 2026. It was updated on Aug. 13, 2026, to correct that Nazneen Ahmed, a spokesperson for North Carolina’s attorney general, said their office is not involved in legal proceedings surrounding Christopher Gillum and that criminal prosecution authority in the state generally belongs to local district attorneys, not that there are no plans for the state to pursue charges.

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

The 3.9% proposed increase to the tax rate is lower than the city had previously discussed, but a vocal minority of council has shown it’s already dead set against the idea.

Tens of millions of dollars and more than 100 city jobs were also on the chopping block in the city’s $4.4 billion FY 2027 budget proposal and two-year plan, which they presented to City Council on Thursday morning.

San Antonio is also looking to raise millions more in various new or increased fees, permits and other revenue sources — from charging short-term rentals more expensive permits to recovering a share of city expenses at major Fiesta events.

The city has been projecting a $158 million deficit in FY 2028 as projected expenses outpace revenue. The city balances its budget over two years, though, so the course-correcting starts now.

The deficit is within the city’s $1.76 billion general fund, the largest part of its budget, which covers services such as police, fire, parks, the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District, Animal Care Services and regular street maintenance.

Between the assorted tax hike, new revenues, budget cuts and updated projections, city staff actually expect to end FY 2028 with an extra $49 million to be used for FY 2029.

Tax hike

Property taxes are one of the main contributing factors to the city’s projected deficit.

Unlike previous years when soaring property values and new construction helped fuel budget growth, the city’s taxable base will actually shrink this year.

Raising the city’s current tax rate by 2.129 cents per $100 of valuation would raise close to $29 million in FY 2027, staff said.

That would mean the average homestead, with a taxable value of $231,356, would pay $49 more than if the rate stayed the same.

However, because the average homestead value has also declined from $233,909 in 2025, city staff said the actual difference in their tax bill compared to last year would be closer to $35.

Additionally, senior and disabled homeowners with a tax freeze — roughly 47% of all homesteads in the city — would be unaffected.

The city last raised its property tax rate in 1992, and has either cut or kept it flat every year since. The proposed increase to 56.288 cents would be the highest the rate has been since 2014.

The city’s plans to balance the budget also rely on an additional, 4.4% tax increase in FY 2028.

“We went through 9/11. We went through the financial crash in the early 2000s. We went through COVID. Yet somehow we didn’t raise taxes on the citizens,” Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) said. “Yet somehow today we think that this is something that should be considered.”

Whyte, Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito (D7) and Councilwoman Misty Spears (D9) all voted against a procedural item in an attempt to take the tax increase off the table.

Though their effort failed, an increase isn’t a done deal yet.

City Manager Erik Walsh confirmed staff would prepare alternate scenarios, without a tax rate increase, for council to consider.

On the other side, though, some would like to see what would be possible if the city were to take the tax rate further.

“I would definitely appreciate the different scenarios, not only without a property tax increase in any form, but also any other kinds of scenarios we could look at, even with the larger increase — just to see where that money could go towards improvements in services,” Councilman Ric Galvan (D6) said.

Cuts

City staff plans nearly $90 million worth of cuts to the general fund over the next two years, though a portion of it will just be shifting it to different areas of the budget.

Walsh said the cuts include cutting 101 city positions in FY 2027, more than half of which are currently filled.

However, Walsh said the city would work with those employees to find other vacant positions within the city for them to go into.

Walsh also said he didn’t think “there’s any major reductions to services that people will feel.”

However, avoiding a tax rate increase this year would require finding roughly $29 million in cuts, Walsh said.

If the city were to try and avoid raising the tax rate in FY 2028 as well, it would take about $65 million worth of cuts, which he believes would be “significant.”

Other revenue

The proposed budget lists more than 100 new or increased fees, permits, rental costs or other revenue sources in the general fund alone over the next two years, which the city expects it will bring in more than $30 million in that time frame.

Some, like increasing the EMS transport fee from $1,500 to $1,700, are expected to bring in millions of extra dollars. Others, like a $5 increase to the price of a city-provided dangerous dog collar, are only expected to bring in a few hundred dollars.

Mayor’s proposals

Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones has also thrown out ideas of her own, including diverting dollars dedicated to the voter-approved Ready to Work program and sending a letter to business and philanthropic leaders to chip in to help pay for certain items.

Walsh told reporters diverting money from the Ready to Work program had not been included in the proposed budget.

At least one of the programs Jones had solicited business leaders to fund, a hiring program for military spouses, was set to be cut, as was the scholarship portion of an education partnership program.

Jones had also previously highlighted the San Antonio Botanical Garden as an example of a group that could have its entire $1.2 million in annual funding trimmed. However, the proposed budget had only the $200,000 pruning, as city staff had originally planned.

The mayor pointed to the group again Thursday, as she talked about the choices among the proposed cuts.

“If we are looking at, again, reducing the tuition reimbursement — eliminating the tuition reimbursement program for our citizens, why would we still be giving the San Antonio Botanical Garden $1 million?” she said.

• 101 positions eliminated — More than half of the positions are currently filled, but the city plans to try and move them into other vacant positions.
• Citywide hiring freeze — For non-essential support positions in FY 2027 and FY 2028.
• 49 new SAPD officers — The officers are split between filling 22 vacant Park Police positions with new SAPD officers and 27 new positions for the new airport terminal.
• No additional patrol officers — There are no extra positions included toward the city’s multi-year goal of adding 360 cops to the street.
• New veterinary hospital — Animal Care Services expects to open a new facility at its campus in 2027. The project includes the renovation of the existing clinic.
• Non-San Antonio resident library card fee — $20 fee for library card holders who don’t live in San Antonio.
• Street maintenance — $129.8 million for the street maintenance program, up $7.4 million this year.
• 3% raise for civilian employees — Effective Oct. 1.
• 4% raise for SAPD —Effective Oct. 1 under a tentative union contract.
• 5% raise for SAFD — Effective Oct. 1 under a union contract.
• Short-term rental permits — Fees increasing from $300 to $450 for Type 1 permits and from $450 to $1,000 for Type 2 permits.
• Fiesta event recovery — City is aiming to recover 50% of police expenses from major Fiesta events.

Community Input Sessions

The city has at least 11 budget town halls scheduled between Monday, Aug. 17 and Tuesday, Aug. 25. More details can be found here.

More City Hall coverage on KSAT:

• Cuts, tax hikes, and ballot measures: San Antonio set for messy budget conversations
• San Antonio City Council to discuss putting second Spurs arena vote on November ballot
• San Antonio arena debate heats up as City Council faces $158 million budget shortfall

An official with the Board of Peace, the body Trump established to oversee the fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, said Kushner, board high representative Nickolay Mladenov, and executive board member and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair would arrive in Israel on Sunday.

The group will then travel to Cairo, where meetings of a Palestinian technocratic group set to assume control of Gaza under a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal have been taking place for the past several months, the official said. The trip was reported earlier by Axios.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because planning for details of the trip has not yet been finalized, said the meetings would demonstrate the determination of Trump and the Board of Peace to “see peace, prosperity and sustainable security emerge” in a demilitarized Gaza where Hamas has ceded control to allow reconstruction of the devastated territory.

But Israel has dismissed a recent deal announced by Trump for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its forces from the Palestinian territory, marking a rare public display of friction with the Trump administration. Though Hamas accepted the plan to decommission its weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in recent days that Israel would not withdraw until Hamas has completely disarmed.

The deal had been seen as a potential breakthrough for ending the war in Gaza. The agreement was based on an October ceasefire that ended major military operations and brought about the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza, but it has stalled on other fronts.

The Lincoln has been supporting the U.S. war against Iran, and its deployment has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 260 days. Several Democratic lawmakers are pressing for accountability from the Pentagon over conditions aboard the carrier, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said were “completely misrepresented.”

Extended deployments of carriers during the Iran conflict have raised concerns about the impact on service members who are away from home for long periods as well as the increasing strain on the ship and its equipment. While renewed hostilities between the U.S. and Iran have calmed in recent weeks, the Navy has reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports in the crucial Strait of Hormuz, and the Trump administration has offered no clarity on how it intends to wind down the war.

Hegseth told reporters that the U.S. can maintain the blockade “indefinitely.”

A new aircraft carrier is heading west from the Asia-Pacific

The USS George Washington left port in Da Nang, Vietnam, last week, a Navy statement said. The carrier, along with a cruiser and a destroyer, have since been spotted crossing the Singapore Strait.

A Navy official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail sensitive ship details, confirmed that the Washington was in the Strait of Malacca, which links the Pacific and Indian oceans and puts the carrier on a course to head into the Indian Ocean. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the Washington would replace the Lincoln as one of the two aircraft carriers now stationed in the Middle East.

The move would leave the waters of the Pacific without a U.S. carrier presence for an unknown period of time. The Trump administration sees China, the dominant power in the region, as “a settled force” that only needs to be deterred from dominating the U.S. or its allies and not the top global adversary that it was under the Biden administration.

The Lincoln originally deployed Nov. 21 from San Diego, and it arrived in the Middle East in January, ahead of the launch of the Iran war on Feb. 28. The Navy conceded that the conflict created a “highly contested environment where traditional supply hubs in the Middle East were disrupted by combat actions.” That, in turn, led to shortages and loss of mail aboard the aircraft carrier, the Navy said in a statement.

“Leadership prioritized mission-critical supplies: first food, then hygiene items, then mail,” the statement said, before assuring that sailors aboard the ship now have access to clean water and “healthy meal options.”

Democrats call for scrutiny, while the Pentagon defends conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln

Democratic lawmakers are calling for investigations, more information and greater visibility into conditions aboard the ship, which was originally set to return home in May.

“The Lincoln’s prolonged deployment is especially significant because it is occurring in the context of continuing military operations against Iran and the possibility that substantial US naval forces will be required in the region for an extended period,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote in a letter to Navy leadership asking for a response to several questions.

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Marine Corps veteran, said on social media that he is looking to take a bipartisan delegation on an official oversight visit to the ship and that the way sailors are being treated is “not just disgusting; it’s dangerous.”

Hegseth told reporters during ​a visit to Panama that he wants the Lincoln's sailors home and crews rotated as quickly as possible but pushed back against reports of problems aboard.

“We make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment. Some deployments are longer than others, and ​I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than ​anybody. What they do in those high seas in those austere ⁠conditions with less port calls — it’s incredible.”

Navy leaders, including acting Secretary Hung Cao, last week held a tense town hall for families of troops aboard the USS Lincoln, at which the commanders of the Navy’s air and surface forces promised to do everything they could to relieve the aircraft carrier. MS NOW reported earlier on the meeting.

When reports of food shortages aboard the ship first surfaced in April, the Navy pushed back, calling those reports “false.”

Reports of mental health concerns and more aboard the ship

Reports have since emerged that sailors on the Lincoln are struggling with mental health concerns. The Navy said in its statement that it has “not observed an increase in suicidal ideations or attempts aboard the ship,” but officials declined to provide data, citing operational security and patient privacy concerns.

The Navy official said that a sailor aboard the Lincoln went overboard in early August but that the person was quickly recovered, treated by the ship’s medical department and transferred off ship for follow-on care. The official would not say if it was being considered a suicide attempt.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, pushed back on reports about poor conditions.

“The Sailors and Marines of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group remain resilient and resolved after more than 260 days at sea, 10,000 aircraft flights, and 1.5 million pounds of ordnance expended,” the command said on social media.

Other carriers also have had long runs that have raised concerns about morale. The USS Gerald R. Ford returned home in mid-May after an 11-month deployment, the longest since the Vietnam War, during which it supported the U.S. war with Iran and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

During its deployment, the Ford experienced a fire in a laundry space that forced the carrier to turn around and return to the Mediterranean Sea for repairs and left hundreds of sailors without places to sleep.

Concerns about the demands of battle and the dangers of overextending ships and their crew predate the Iran war, with a number of mishaps on ships battling Houthi rebels in Yemen in 2024 and 2025, including the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman on a longer-than-expected deployment.

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Associated Press writer Ben Finley contributed to this report.

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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. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

The new mandate would likely cost billions of dollars and revert the Navy’s most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.

The memo directs the Pentagon and the Navy to present Trump with plans to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, also known as EMALS, within two months. It also says the Ford-class carrier's electromagnetic weapons elevators should be replaced.

The move comes after years of Trump railing against the new, magnetically powered catapult system that shoots fighter jets off the deck of the carriers. It also comes at a time when the U.S. military is trying to find funding from Congress for all its desired equipment and as the Navy is struggling to fill its ships with enough sailors.

Trump's ire with the new technology goes back to at least 2017 in his first term, when he claimed the new system is “not good” and “doesn't have the power” of the older, steam systems in an interview with Time magazine.

“You're going to goddamned steam,” Trump said at the time. The topic has frequently come up since then at rallies and other events.

While Trump is looking to roll back the latest technology, the newest Chinese aircraft carriers employ electromagnetic catapults and France said it plans to use the system on its new carrier.

Trump's memo directs the fourth Ford-class carrier, the USS Doris Miller, to be the first ship to include the new changes. That will leave the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as the forthcoming USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise, untouched.

However, redesigning an already finalized ship for such a major system change will not be an easy task.

General Atomics, the company that makes EMALS, told The Associated Press in an email that the decision not to proceed with the system on the USS Doris Miller “warrants careful reconsideration.”

Trump's memo that mandates the removal of the system also noted that one of the issues facing shipbuilding is the Navy's constant design changes, “which have resulted in cost growth, delays, and cancellations.”

General Atomics said the work on the Doris Miller's catapults and arresting gear was already halfway complete and said “changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks."

The move comes as Congress will weigh the necessary budget and funding bills that the Trump administration has said they need to fund the Pentagon and the Iran war.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth estimated last month that the war's cost grew to $37.5 billion as Republicans prepared a $95 billion package to fund the military, along with other White House priorities.

Hegseth said the supplemental war funding is an “urgent, necessary” injection of money, and with Trump's proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget a generational investment in the military.

The House narrowly adopted both but the Senate still must act when it returns in September.

Some of the key advantages to the electromagnetic system are its ability to launch aircraft at faster speeds while being easier to maintain, requiring fewer sailors to operate and using less space aboard the ship.

EMALS aboard the USS Ford cut the number of sailors need to operate the catapults from about a dozen to two.

Reverting to a system that requires more people to operate it comes as the Navy has struggled to translate its recruiting successes in the past year to actually filling jobs on warships. At the start of the year, the Navy had about 20,000 unfilled posts across the fleet.

In February, the Navy touted the system in a press release that said it allowed the USS Ford to launch and recover aircraft at a higher rate than its predecessor, the Nimitz-class ships.

In a letter to families, Lake Travis ISD superintendent Curtis Null identified the student as Odin Hensley.

“Odin had been part of the Lake Travis ISD family for many years, beginning at Lake Pointe Elementary School,” Null wrote in the letter. “At Lake Travis High School, he was a dedicated two-sport athlete who excelled in wrestling and football.”

According to the letter, Null described Hensley as a “valued teammate, classmate and friend” who “touched many lives.”

“During this difficult time, we ask that you keep Odin’s family, teammates and classmates, coaches, athletic trainers, teachers and all those who knew and loved him in your thoughts and prayers,” Null wrote.

Lake Travis High School counselors will be available at the campus counseling center for students, staff and families, the superintendent said. Additional counselors will also be on standby.

Hensley suffered the medical emergency at approximately 8 a.m. Monday. The Lake Travis High School football team said in a Facebook post that the incident required the response of Travis County STAR Flight.

The team canceled football activities for the rest of Monday “out of an abundance of caution.”

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The full schedule release highlighted the revival of the Spurs as one of the league’s top teams to watch. At least 34 of their regular season games will air across five national networks and streaming services — compared to 22 national games during the 2025-26 season.

Five of San Antonio’s games will air on ABC and KSAT 12:

• Friday, Dec. 25, 2026 (Christmas Day) at New York Knicks, 11 a.m.
• Saturday, Jan. 30, 2027 at Golden State Warriors, 4:30 p.m.
• Saturday, Feb. 6, 2027 vs. Los Angeles Lakers, 7:30 p.m.
• Sunday, Feb. 28, 2027 vs. Denver Nuggets, Noon
• Sunday, March 14, 2027 at Oklahoma City Thunder, 1:30 p.m.

As previously announced, the Spurs will open the season at home Oct. 20 against the Oklahoma City Thunder, a rematch of their epic, seven-game Western Conference Finals series last season.

Three days later, the Spurs will face the Houston Rockets at the Moody Center in Austin, the first I-35 series game outside the “Rodeo Road Trip” in February.

Kevin Durant, a former men’s basketball star at The University of Texas at Austin, is entering his second season with the Rockets and is set to square off with San Antonio in the new home of the Longhorns.

Chase for the Cup

San Antonio will be in Group C during the fourth annual NBA Cup this fall alongside the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, Portland Trail Blazers and Sacramento Kings. Each team in the group will play four games — one against each Group C opponent.

NBA Cup Group Play games will be held on seven different dates throughout the fall. Below are the Spurs’ Group C matchups (all times are Central):

• Friday, Nov. 6: at Sacramento Kings, 9 p.m.
• Friday, Nov. 13: vs. Golden State Warriors, 8:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, Nov. 25: at Portland Trail Blazers, 9 p.m.
• Friday, Nov. 27: vs. Los Angeles Lakers, 8:30 p.m.

ESPN said Wednesday the Spurs-Trail Blazers game will air on the network as part of a triple-header on the day before Thanksgiving. The Lakers-Spurs game will be the second game of a Black Friday doubleheader on Amazon Prime Video.

The NBA Cup quarterfinal (Dec. 4-5) and semifinal rounds (Dec. 8 and/or Dec. 9) will be held in the days leading up to the championship game. The NBA Cup title game will take place Dec. 11 at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

All NBA Cup quarterfinal, semifinal and championship games will air exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.

Euro-steppin’

The league also announced Wednesday the tipoff times for San Antonio’s international games against the New Orleans Pelicans.

The Spurs are scheduled to face the New Orleans Pelicans, a fellow Southwest Division opponent, for two games: one in Paris (Jan. 14, 2027) and another in Manchester, England (Jan. 17, 2027).

The Paris game will tip off at 1 p.m. while the England game will start at approximately 9:30 a.m. Central Time. Both games will air on Amazon Prime Video.

The ‘Rodeo Road Trip’

The San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo will take over the Frost Bank Center and Freeman Coliseum next February and force the Spurs out on the road again for the team’s annual “Rodeo Road Trip.”

According to Visit San Antonio’s website, the stock show and rodeo will take place Feb. 11-28, 2027.

The Spurs’ first game on the eight-game trip will be Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2027, against the Dallas Mavericks (7 p.m. tipoff). The game will air on NBC and Peacock.

The next five on the road will be as follows (all times Central):

• Thursday, Feb. 11, 2027 at Oklahoma City Thunder, 8:30 p.m. (Amazon Prime Video)
• Saturday, Feb. 13, 2027 at Orlando Magic, 6 p.m.
• Monday, Feb. 15, 2027 (Presidents Day) at Miami Heat, 4 p.m. (NBC)
• Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2027 at Memphis Grizzlies, 7 p.m.
• Thursday, Feb. 18, 2027 at Minnesota Timberwolves, 6:30 p.m. (Amazon Prime Video)

The Spurs will return to the Moody Center in Austin for the final two games of the road trip.

San Antonio will face Memphis at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 26, 2027, and Denver at noon on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2027. The game against the Nuggets will air live at noon on ABC and KSAT 12.

The TV breakdown

San Antonio’s 34 national TV/streaming games this season will be broadcast across ABC, ESPN, NBC, Peacock and Amazon Prime Video.

Below is how many times each broadcaster will air the Spurs:

• 10 (Amazon Prime Video)
• 9 (NBC)
• 8 (ESPN)
• 5 (ABC/KSAT 12)
• 2 (Peacock)

San Antonio joins teams like the Knicks, the new-look Philadelphia 76ers and the Lakers who will have 34 of their games air on national TV.

“The energy around Spurs basketball continues to grow, and the 2026-27 season gives us another opportunity to build on that momentum,” Spurs Sports & Entertainment CEO R.C. Buford said in a Thursday news release.

“San Antonio is home, and we’re looking forward to bringing our community together while reaching audiences in Austin, Paris and Manchester,” Buford continued. “We’re excited for what this season will bring to our fans and proud to represent San Antonio and share the spirit, culture and community that make our city special everywhere the Spurs take the court.”

In the release, the team said regular season single-game tickets will go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. Friday on Ticketmaster. Tickets can also be accessed through the team’s website and mobile app.

Members of the official Spurs Fan Club can now purchase tickets through exclusive presale access.

For a link to the full schedule, click here and scroll down to the San Antonio Spurs page.

More San Antonio Spurs coverage on KSAT:

• NBA announces 2026 Emirates NBA Cup groupings; Spurs receive more national television exposure
• Spurs schedule sneak peek: San Antonio to face Thunder on Opening Night, Knicks on Christmas Day

“It’s another device to help someone get compliant when they are not,” Homan said Thursday in an interview on Fox News Channel's “Fox & Friends.” “You can't just go from 0 to 100, right, and the first thing you go for is lethal force.”

Homan's remarks were the Trump administration's first public defense of ICE's plan to spend up to $20 million to purchase thousands of “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices” for officers and agents. The devices are known as the G.L.O.V.E., which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, and are manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC. They have been used in recent years by some jails and police departments.

The plan has drawn intense criticism from civil rights groups, Democrats in Congress, and some use-of-force experts, who say ICE agents have been too quick to use force while carrying out President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. At least six people have been shot and killed by immigration enforcement agents since last year, including motorists last month in Maine and Texas.

Homan argued the gloves could help avoid such encounters. He said they would give another less lethal option to ICE officers, similar to Tasers or pepper spray, for use in potentially violent situations on the streets and in detention facilities. He said that it would “be awhile” before the gloves are deployed in the field by ICE officers because the agency is still working out training protocols and other policy issues.

In Bardstown, Kentucky, Nelson County Jailer Justin Hall said Thursday that his agency began using the gloves four years ago to try to gain compliance when inmates are out of control. He said that, unlike Tasers, the shocks do not incapacitate people and make them fall or leave contact or burn marks.

Hall estimated that he had been shocked by the gloves more than 10 times during training, and the pain was intense but stops once the gloves are no longer touching skin. He said the shock gloves have been used sparingly, but are helpful as an initial deterrent when de-escalation techniques do not work.

“It’s just a safer way. It’s safer on the inmate. It’s safer on the staff. And most of the time, most of the time we get compliance,” he said. “It's been a great tool for our facility.”

Geoffrey Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina who has written extensively about police use-of-force and tactics, said the devices should be studied more broadly to ensure departments have proper guidance on when and how they should be used. He said it might be a wiser investment for ICE to start with a smaller purchase, given how little is known about them.

“You are wholesaling these to a group of officers who may not be trained in other strategies like de-escalation or trained to interact with the public in non-enforcement ways, like most local police officers are,” he said. “User error is almost predictable at some level. The tech may be fine, but let’s take a minute and make sure that it is used in an appropriate custom and practice.”

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Foley reported from Iowa City, Iowa. AP reporter Claudia Lauer contributed to this report from Philadelphia.

The federal investigation also found that California's corrections department failed to provide victims with a way to report sexual abuse and harassment without retaliation. On top of that, staff who were tasked with investigating the misconduct were often themselves accused of sexual abuse or harassment.

The investigation, which began during the Biden administration, focused on two state prisons: the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla and the California Institution for Women in Chino. It uncovered numerous instances where guards regularly sexually abused incarcerated women. In at least one instance, a guard was convicted of rampant abuse over roughly a decade and sentenced to 224 years in prison.

State says it's making improvements. Advocates say it's not enough.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement that it “enforces a zero-tolerance policy as mandated by the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act,” a federal law passed in 2003 designed to prevent sexual assaults in prisons.

The state agency also said that audits conducted by independent entities trained by the DOJ found the two prisons were in compliance with federal standards as recently as 2024 and 2025.

“CDCR is fully committed to supporting victims of sexual assault and ensuring safe avenues exist for both incarcerated persons and staff to confidentially report misconduct,” spokesperson Will Matthews wrote in an email.

Over the course of the DOJ investigation, the prison agency independently investigated and prosecuted both staff and incarcerated people who violated federal rape prevention laws, he added.

Emily Wonder, who works for Sister Warriors, which advocates for incarcerated women and transgender people, said state audits evaluate prison conditions based on a very “low bar” that allows abuse and neglect to slip through the cracks.

“It's not a very strong protection mechanism in general,” Wonder said. Sister Warriors, other groups and lawmakers are pushing for additional legislation to bolster protections for women, increase opportunities for reporting misconduct and improve transparency.

Federal authorities echoed that assessment on Thursday, saying that there weren’t sufficient mechanisms for victims to come forward.

Women don't have resources to report assaults, Justice Department says

Women were told to report misconduct on an online system that wasn’t confidential and that accused officers had access to, according to Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

Dhillon said that women are “fully aware of this gap in confidentiality, and this serves as a deterrent from women reporting this misconduct.” She named at least one sergeant whose job was to investigate misconduct who was himself sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to receiving child sexual abuse images at work.

“The upshot of our investigation is that California’s prison system, when it comes to women, has inadequate systems in place to deter, detect, and hold accountable rampant sexual misconduct and assault on female prisoners,” Dhillon said at a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday.

The Associated Press has previously exposed similar patterns of rampant abuse by federal prison staff against women held in a Dublin, California, facility that at the time was nicknamed the “rape club.” The prison was closed following the AP investigation.

Justice Department sets a deadline to address problems

The federal government on Thursday gave California's prison system 49 days to remediate the conditions that enabled the rampant abuse, warning that a failure to do so could result in civil litigation.

The measures include expanded camera coverage, enhanced confidential reporting channels and strengthened investigative protocols.

The corrections department was implementing many of those changes before the federal investigation, Matthews said.

But Wonder, whose organization has participated in a state-funded working group with the corrections department since 2023, said that advocates “haven’t seen any meaningful changes” despite regular meetings and pressure from the public.

“We’ve been really frustrated, feeling like we’re spinning our wheels,” Wonder said.

U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, appointed by President Donald Trump as the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said California has to take action.

“The State must confront the persistent failure of its own employees to prevent and address sexual abuse at these facilities,” Essayli said in a statement, “and the systemic breakdowns that have permitted these conditions to persist.”

• THIRD TRIPLE DIGIT DAY: 102° today at SA International
• LOW BRINGS A SHOWER OR TWO: Very small rain chance Friday
• A STRING OF TRIPLE DIGITS: Next week could be our hottest stretch of the year
• STILL WATCHING THE TROPICS: Potentially Dolly & Edouard, too

FORECAST

ANOTHER DAY AT THE CENTURY MARK

Today was our hottest day so far this year with a high of 102°, but tomorrow shouldn’t be quite as hot due to additional clouds overhead.

A SHOT AT A SHOWER FRIDAY

A non-tropical swirl over Eastern Mexico will work its way up the Rio Grande on Friday. While this disturbance could stir up a shower, rain chances sit at only 10%. Added clouds on Friday will bring temperatures down slightly.

A STRETCH OF TRIPLE DIGIT HEAT

Everyday next week could feature a high at 100° or above. Unfortunately, the heat high has found its footing and will park itself over the middle of the country, leaving us dry and HOT.

TROPICS

The next named system would be “Dolly” and may form in the southern Atlantic, however, it will also likely will fall apart once arriving to the Caribbean. Another wave behind that could later become Edouard.

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.

Gun rights activists and Republican lawmakers called the change a historic win for the Second Amendment, while gun control groups said the ruling will leave Americans less safe.

In 1934, following high-profile shootings, Congress used its taxing power to enact the National Firearms Act. The law required individuals to pay a $200 fee before transferring or making certain firearms — on top of registering them — in an effort to curtail these activities. But last year, the One Big Beautiful Bill ended that tax for some categories, including short-barrel shotguns, short-barrel rifles and silencers.

The same day President Donald Trump signed the bill into law in July 2025, firearms trade groups, gun businesses and a San Angelo gun owner sued to overturn parts of the NFA. Just over a month later, Texas and 14 other Republican-led states joined the lawsuit.

On Aug. 5, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix in Lubbock ruled that the regulations, enacted under lawmakers’ authority to impose taxes, could not continue after the tax was revoked.

“The challenged NFA provisions are unconstitutional,” the Trump-appointed judge wrote. “Congress’s choice to eliminate the transfer and making taxes matters, and the defendants cannot save the NFA’s regulatory scheme by referring to a power that Congress never invoked. Efforts to render the NFA constitutional must come from Congress, not this Court.”

Hendrix limited the effect of his order to the states that joined the lawsuit. The judge also gave the federal government seven days to file an emergency appeal. When the Department of Justice did not, the ruling took effect Thursday.

The DOJ could still appeal within 60 days of Hendrix’s decision, but its plans are unclear.

“The Department respects Americans’ Second Amendment rights and is currently assessing the impact of the court’s ruling,” the DOJ said in a Thursday statement.

The lack of an emergency appeal also came after a group of Republicans in Congress, including nine from Texas, urged newly appointed U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche not to fight the court decision. On Thursday, they cheered the win.

“The Trump administration has delivered a decisive victory for the Second Amendment,” U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, said in a post on X.

Others — including state Rep. Wes Virdell, R-Brady, and Brandon Herrera, a Republican candidate running for 23rd Congressional District who is known as “The AK Guy” — celebrated by making a purchase after the ruling took effect at midnight.

“Last night was an amazing experience to be a part of history in the making,” Virdell said in a Thursday post on X.

Gun control groups blasted the DOJ’s decision, saying short-barrel rifles and shotguns are powerful weapons that have been used in mass shootings, while silencers can make it difficult for bystanders and law enforcement to detect if and where a gun has been fired.

“Today, our government is failing us,” Brady President Kris Brown said in a statement. “Today, the gun industry and silencer dealers are celebrating, while Americans are left less safe.”

“This investigation was all started because of a complaint that had been given to the DA’s office, who then referred it to law enforcement,” Meredith Chacon said. “Which is an unusual way that a case can be referred.”

Arrest affidavits accuse the San Antonio attorney Calfas of offering legal services in exchange for sex and paying women for sex, according to documents tied to a Texas Department of Public Safety investigation.

Chacon, who is now a defense attorney, handled a human trafficking case against a lawyer, Mark Benavides. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison, convicted of exchanging legal services for sex.

Chacon said her experience with Benavides’ case taught her these allegations reflect a sobering reality: criminal conduct like this can turn up in unexpected places.

“This does happen at that level,” Chacon said. “You’re not shielded from those things happening just because you reach a certain socioeconomic status or because you have a certain profession.”

Human trafficking charge

One affidavit outlines the evidence investigators used to allege the human trafficking charge, including jail phone calls between a woman and an inmate from March to May of 2024.

Those phone calls show a woman reached out to Calfas for help for her brother, who was in Guadalupe County jail, documents show.

Prosecutors allege Calfas offered two ways to pay for legal services — in cash or, as the document quotes, “the other way.”

Authorities allege Calfas never ultimately provided the legal services discussed in the calls, the affidavit states.

Chacon said people often have a certain image of what human trafficking looks like, but explained it can mean many things.

“Trafficking is anytime someone is forced by physical force, by fraud or by covert coercion,” Chacon said.

Based on the allegations laid out in the documents, Chacon said it appears the case may center on fraud.

Specifically, she said, by taking the allegations from the document at face value, it appears the woman was tricked into sexual acts, believing she would get help from Calfas for her brother.

“It looks like it’s a fraud-based human trafficking,” she said.

Solicitation of prostitution charge

A second affidavit alleges a Snapchat video shows two women and Calfas in his downtown office. Prosecutors allege the video shows Calfas having sex with a woman, and then paying in what appears to be cash.

The Snapchat video showing the alleged transaction was labeled with the caption ‘the deed is done,’ documents state. The video is dated May 31, 2024, the documents state.

The affidavit also cites evidence that the women shown in the Snapchat video were alleged sex workers, including Cash App payments labeled “for (victim)’s love” and “investments,” OnlyFans accounts and mentions of strip clubs in Las Vegas.

Chacon said social media and digital evidence can be compelling for jurors.

“There is tangible evidence that law enforcement can get. And then that makes it very illustrative for a jury later,” she said.

KSAT has reached out to Calfas for comment but has not heard back.

Read more:

• Affidavit: Attorney Neil Calfas accused of coercing woman for sex in exchange for legal help

The Bears announced in June that they were moving forward with a stadium development project in Hammond, Indiana. They have completed their review of what they are calling the Lost Marsh site, and they are doing their due diligence on the Wolf Lake Terminal site. They could merge the two options together in some way.

“Even though we’ve had occasional meetings with the state of Illinois, our sole focus at this point in time is working on a world-class stadium and mixed-use development in Hammond, Indiana,” team President Kevin Warren said Thursday.

The Bears also had been considering Arlington Heights — about 30 miles northwest of Chicago — as a potential location for an enclosed stadium. Wherever they end up, a name change is off the table.

“We will be the Chicago Bears whether we’re in Arlington or whether we’re in Hammond,” chairman George McCaskey said.

The Bears, a charter NFL franchise, have played in Illinois since the team’s founding in 1920 as the Decatur Staleys. They moved to Chicago in 1921 and called Wrigley Field home before they started playing at Soldier Field in September 1971.

The Bears’ lease runs through 2033, but they can pay a fee to break the lease early. Soldier Field is about 40 miles south of Halas Hall — the team’s headquarters in Lake Forest — and Hammond is about 20 miles south of the team’s lakefront stadium.

McCaskey acknowledged the “anxiety” of a move to northwest Indiana for the team's fans.

“But when I’ve driven that route, other than a sign telling me so, I wouldn’t know that I’ve just crossed the state border,” he said. “And as Kevin said, once people see the building, once they get in there, once they understand that our top priority from day one was a world-class stadium experience, we think we’ll make that adjustment. We think Bears fans are up for that.”

The Bears ramped up their focus on Indiana after a proposal to provide financial incentives for the team to build its new home in Illinois stalled in the state legislature. A committee in the Indiana House of Representatives passed a bill in February that established a Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority to finance, construct and lease a stadium.

The Illinois Senate passed a bill that would have cleared the way for Arlington Heights and Chicago to create local stadium authorities, creating a pathway for the Bears to avoid paying property taxes on a new stadium. But the House adjourned without taking up the measure on the last day of the state’s spring legislative session.

McCaskey said the team has had minimal conversations with Illinois legislators since June. Asked if he was hopeful about Illinois coming up with a plan and building in Arlington Heights, McCaskey demurred.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell “has said to us many times in league meetings, ‘Hope is not a strategy,’” McCaskey said. “We have to deal with the here and now. We have to deal with real circumstances, and these are the real circumstances.”

Speaking before McCaskey and Warren held their news conference, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said his office has been in contact with the team.

“We’re working hard to make sure that there’s an opportunity for the Bears to stay in the state of Illinois, whether it’s in Chicago or in Arlington Heights,” Pritzker said.

“I also want, at the same time, to protect the fans and the taxpayers of the state. So we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that that happens.”

The Bears have been pursuing a new home for years, but the process has been hampered by repeated twists and turns.

The team announced in September 2021 that it had signed a purchase agreement for 326 acres of land in Arlington Heights. The $197 million deal with Churchill Downs Inc. was finalized in 2023.

In September 2022, the team unveiled a nearly $5 billion plan for Arlington Heights that called for an enclosed stadium that could host Super Bowls and Final Fours. The conceptual illustrations also provided for a year-round entertainment district with restaurants and shopping.

But the Bears shifted their focus toward building a new stadium next to Soldier Field after Warren was hired as team president in January 2023, replacing the retiring Ted Phillips. The plan to transform Chicago’s Museum Campus got an enthusiastic endorsement from Mayor Brandon Johnson and a tepid reception from Pritzker and state legislators when it was announced in April 2024.

The team switched gears again in May 2025, announcing it had made “significant progress” with local leaders in Arlington Heights.

Amid lingering efforts to secure tax incentives in Illinois, along with as much as $855 million in public money for infrastructure at the Arlington Heights site, the Bears began to take a closer look at possible options in northwest Indiana.

“We’re in regular, almost daily communication with the state of Indiana working on this,” Warren said. “We have an excellent deal, a win-win partnership together. And the cost of the significance of this decision from a stadium standpoint, we will make sure that we take our time to get this right.”

___

See AP’s full NFL coverage here

The plan to remake the flagship campus’ core curriculum replaces the sprawling menu of classes students can now take to meet core requirements with a more structured core curriculum organized around the humanities, social sciences and science, technology, engineering and math.

But how the overhaul connects to UT-Austin’s new Center for the Humanities remains unclear.

A report from a 22-member faculty task force appointed by UT-Austin President Jim Davis proposes 12 requirements across the core areas, compared with the current 10.

Davis described the existing core to the University of Texas System regents as a “haphazard grab bag of classes,” pointing to a course on the history of college football as an example of a specialized class that may be a worthwhile elective but, in his view, should not to fulfill half of a student’s U.S. history requirement.

UT students would have to take courses focused on Western civilization, great questions of human life, the principles of American politics, world politics and cultures, great ideas in science and computer science and artificial intelligence, according to the proposal.

Recommendations include creating a “Texas 40: Great Thinkers” list for courses on great questions of human life and three separate 40-author lists for British, American and world literature courses. Great questions courses would have to draw at least two-thirds of their content from the thinkers list.

Faculty members would have a chance to shape their own courses with their creativity and expertise, one of the taskforce members, Richard Reddick, told The Texas Tribune.

“Academic freedom is a big piece of this,” Reddick said. “I can’t imagine telling our faculty colleagues, ‘Here’s your syllabus, teach this.’ It’s not going to work.”

The task force recommends students complete four of the proposed requirements at UT-Austin, rather than accepting transfer or dual-credit coursework from elsewhere. That would include the great questions of human life, principles of American politics, great ideas in science, and computer science and artificial intelligence.

The new requirements would take 36 credit hours, down from the current 42. That would leave students six additional hours for electives, courses in their major or other classes.

Under the proposal, specialized classes not selected for the new core would remain available as electives, but university leaders acknowledged their future could depend on whether enough students enroll.

The taskforce also recommended UT-Austin offer a small-class option for every core requirement over time, prioritize in-person teaching and limit fully online core classes.

University officials plan to begin offering new courses in fall 2027 and make the redesigned core mandatory for a new incoming class in fall 2028. The taskforce has not yet identified which courses would qualify. Its report recommends three faculty-led committees decide what proposals meet the new standards.

Earlier in the meeting, three UT-Austin students criticized Davis and regents for what they described as a lack of transparency and meaningful student and faculty input into recent academic changes.

They pointed to the consolidation of gender and ethnic studies; plans to move biology operations to make room for the School of Civic Leadership; and the closure of the Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy Library.

“You have shown how little you regard the wants and needs of students, staff and professors by bulldozing prominent institutions without allowing feedback from the people they affect the most,” said Elise James, a government major who is a member of the Students for a Democratic Society.

University officials said the review included student input. Reddick, a professor of higher education leadership and policy in the College of Education, and Kristin Patterson, an associate professor of instruction in biology and undergraduate studies in the College of Natural Science, served on the core-curriculum task force.

Patterson and Reddick told the Tribune that the group met weekly for an hour and a half and heard from students and faculty across campus as well as from outside experts. Students generally praised the classes they had taken but found the current core difficult to navigate, the professors said.

Under the proposal, each requirement could be fulfilled by multiple courses, and faculty members from all departments would be invited to develop them.

UT-Austin officials are reviewing the courses all undergraduates must take after a 2025 state law required public university governing boards to certify that those courses prepare students for civic and professional life and support workforce preparation.

The law also requires boards to consider the courses’ potential cost and effect on students’ time to degree. The boards must complete their first review by Jan. 1 and repeat it at least once every five years.

The regents did not vote on UT-Austin’s proposed changes. Davis said he would return to the board for approval as officials develop and staff the new courses.

Last week, the Texas State University System regents were the first to act under the new law, approving revised core-course lists for its seven institutions. At Texas State University in San Marcos, the review changed the learning outcomes for 115 courses to focus on what students should be able to do after taking them — rather than particular attitudes, beliefs or values — and removed eight Honors courses that were no longer taught.

The law did more than require universities to review their core curriculums. At UT-Austin, it also replaced the Faculty Council, an elected body that advised university leaders on curriculum and other matters, with faculty advisory groups appointed by the president, including the core-curriculum task force.

But the push to reshape what UT-Austin students learn predates last year’s law.

Republican state leaders have long argued that Texas’ public universities are too liberal or too focused on ideas that do not prepare students for careers.

In 2021, lawmakers gave UT-Austin $6 million to create the Civitas Institute, a think tank focused on individual liberty, limited government, private enterprise and free markets. Two years later, UT regents created the School of Civic Leadership to house the institute before lawmakers could vote on a bill that would have required the university to do so.

The school and the institute had or were set to have 42 tenured or tenure-track faculty members as of Aug. 3, according to records obtained by the Tribune, nearly triple the 15 positions lawmakers proposed requiring. Its major, Civics Honors, enrolled 103 students when it began last fall.

As UT-Austin built up the School of Civic Leadership, it accelerated plans to consolidate seven College of Liberal Arts departments, including African and African Diaspora Studies, American Studies, Mexican American and Latino Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, into two new departments by fall 2026.

Davis said the restructuring followed a review that found wide disparities in student-to-faculty ratios across the college.

Lauren Gutterman, whose appointment as chair of American Studies ends Saturday, said she expects to become an associate professor in the new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.

Gutterman said she was not aware of any faculty members in the consolidated units losing their jobs, though she added that some staff members were fired or reassigned. She worries university leaders will not replace professors who leave, retire or receive outside offers.

“They’re not going to kind of fire us wholesale, but find ways of chipping away at the faculty within these units,” Gutterman said.

Meanwhile, Davis and university leaders have said little publicly about the Center for Humanities, whose website notes it will focus on teaching and research tied to the core curriculum.

Davis did not answer questions after the regents’ meeting. UT spokesperson Mike Rosen did not respond to questions about who created, approved or funded the center or how it will fit alongside the existing Humanities Institute, which was established in 2001 to support humanities research.

The Austin American-Statesman first reported the center this month. The center’s website was created July 8, according to its underlying code. Eight of the 11 faculty members listed on the website work at the Civitas Institute while five previously worked at the University of Florida’s Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education, a state-backed program that later became a college. Neither Center for Humanities Director Robert Ingram nor Humanities Institute Director Tanya Clement responded to a request for comment.

Patterson and Reddick said the core-curriculum task force’s work is complete. They did not know about the Center for Humanities or what role, if any, it will play in the core-curriculum overhaul, the professors said. The task force’s written report lists both Ingram and Jill Ingram, a professor of humanities at the Center, as members.

Before the 2025 law, a major academic initiative — such as a new center — would generally have been developed with faculty input and presented to the Faculty Council for discussion and a vote before moving to university leaders and regents, said Liliana Garces, a professor in the UT-Austin’s College of Education.

“I was very surprised, to say the least, to learn about the center from a news article,” Garces said.

At Thursday’s meeting, regents praised Davis’ core-curriculum proposal and his leadership.

Board Chair Kevin P. Eltife said UT-Austin had “lacked that in the past.” Board Vice Chair Janiece Longoria said Davis was “proving that we’re capable of doing hard things” by replacing a core that had grown “like an amoeba, way out of control.”

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: Open Campus, Texas State University and The University of Texas System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This week, Cuba commemorated Castro with events including the International Book Fair, art exhibitions, concerts and gatherings of delegates from leftist organizations across the continent.

Posters bearing his image hang in hospitals, while billboards displaying his slogans — including his widely known “Homeland or Death” — line the streets. His presence is so familiar that many Cubans refer to him simply as Fidel.

“I believe (Fidel Castro) leaves Cuba a legacy of dignity, morality, tireless work and concern for the poor,” writer and essayist Miguel Barnet, who also is a member of the National Assembly, told The Associated Press. “And a philosophy that was translated into concrete policies in areas such as culture, education and public health.”

An island in crisis

Castro’s centennial comes as Cuba faces an ever-intensifying squeeze that began when the Trump administration imposed a fuel blockade in January and followed up with a series of sanctions aimed at pressuring the communist government to make political and economic changes. The measures have deepened a five-year economic crisis fueled by earlier U.S. sanctions and a failed domestic financial overhaul.

For Cubans, the effects have been far-reaching: prolonged power outages, shortages of fuel and medicine, declining industrial and tourism activity, flight cancellations, transportation restrictions and reduced work and school hours.

Castro governed Cuba for five decades, from 1959 until he handed over the presidency to his brother in 2008, holding massive rallies and making hourslong speeches. He remained influential until his death in 2016.

“Fidel left us everything, everything good that came from Cuba’s revolutionary process,” said Argelia Mustelier, a 61-year-old retiree who lives in Old Havana. “In these difficult times we’re living through, he would have found a way to bring some happiness to his country and his people.”

From guerrilla campaigns to leading a country

Fidel Castro Ruz was born Aug. 13, 1926, in eastern Cuba’s sugar country, where his Spanish immigrant father first worked recruiting labor for U.S. sugar companies and later built up a prosperous plantation of his own. Shortly after graduating as a lawyer, he became politically active.

In 1953, Castro and more than 100 others attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista. Castro was captured and later released, then went into exile in Mexico. He returned to Cuba with fellow rebels and launched a guerrilla campaign that culminated in Batista’s ouster in 1959 and Castro’s rise to power.

Castro took power and radically transformed Cuba through agrarian reform, a massive literacy campaign and the nationalization of private businesses, policies that put his government on a collision course with the U.S.

Across Latin America and developing nations, Castro became a symbol of anti-colonial and revolutionary movements. His policies also fueled deep opposition, first among wealthy Cubans, many of whom fled to the United States, and later among those who opposed the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power.

“He is a controversial figure,” said historian Manuel Cuesta Morúa, president of the opposition Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba.

“There was no justification for sacrificing freedoms … There was no justification for preventing the rest (of the Cuban people) — and the country’s political diversity and plurality — from expressing themselves,” Cuesta said. “That created a rift whose consequences we are still living with today.”

For many younger Cubans, Castro remains an icon, but his influence is less immediate for them than for older generations who lived under his leadership.

“Our generation didn’t experience him as an active leader. What we saw was a less visible Fidel, one who rarely appeared in public,” 27-year-old Cristian Cohello said. “What remains of Fidel Castro right now, of what he left behind, is nothing; absolutely nothing.”

Raúl Castro makes an unusual appearance

On Thursday, the former president and brother of the leader, 95-year-old Raúl Castro, made an unusual public appearance — who was reportedly last seen in June and has not been seen in public since May 1 — during a tribute at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana.

Dressed in an olive-green uniform, Raúl Castro stood next to President Miguel Díaz-Canel and one row ahead of his own grandson and bodyguard, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who has been cited as one of the island’s negotiators with the United States.

Hours later, Díaz-Canel attended an exhibition of photographs — 30 printed and another 100 projected on a screen — of Fidel Castro taken throughout his life and with prominent figures such as Pope John Paul II and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, both now deceased.

“It is a glorious day for Cuba, 100 years ago Fidel was born ... a man who embodies the ideas for which Cuba fights and the ideas for which we are fiercely defending ourselves against imperial threats,” Díaz-Canel told a group of journalists.

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

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This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of historian Manuel Cuesta Morúa’s name.

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Winner Notification and Verification. Potential winner(s) will be subject to verification of eligibility and compliance with these Official Rules. In addition, Sponsor will attempt to notify the potential winner(s) via direct message on the Entry platform (“Notification”). Potential Sweepstakes winner(s) must respond promptly and supply all requested information including full name, email address and telephone number. Potential Sweepstakes winner(s) must completely and accurately execute and return any required affidavit of eligibility, release of liability, publicity release and/or prize acceptance form (“Forms”) within 48 hours of Notification. Potential winners may be required to display a copy of a valid government photo ID in addition to the submission of any Forms. A potential winner may be disqualified and, time permitting, an alternate winner may be selected by random drawing from among all remaining entries if: (1) a potential winner cannot be contacted/does not respond to Sponsors’ first Notification attempt as directed; (2) a winner does not fulfill the eligibility requirements; (3) a winner does not adhere to the Official Rules; (4) a winner does not sign and return the Forms or provide required ID by the deadline set forth above; and/or (5) if the Notification is returned as undeliverable, refused, or declined. 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. Sponsor reserves the right to contact all Sweepstakes entrants using the contact information provided in the Entry Form in connection with the Sweepstakes entry. The official record(s) of entries will remain the property of 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) Four (4) Visa Gift Cards. Approximate Retail Value (“ARV”) of each Visa Gift Card: $50. Approximate Retail Value (“ARV”) of all prizes: $200. Unless otherwise stated, subject to winner verification and compliance with these Official Rules, all prizes will be available for pick up at the office of the Sponsor/Administrators (address provided below). Sponsor and Co-Sponsor not responsible for loss, delay, or damage in shipping. 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. For tax purposes, the winner of a prize with an ARV of at least $600 will be required to accurately complete and submit IRS Form W-9 to the Sponsor and Sponsor will arrange to issue an IRS Form 1099 MISC to winner reflecting the value of the prize.

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, Co-Sponsor, Instagram 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.

Sponsor defines “personal information” as any information that identifies you as an individual or is directly linkable to you as an identifiable individual. Entry constitutes (a) permission to share all personal information collected in connection with your participation on the Sweepstakes with business partners, including Co-Sponsors to be used for informational and/or commercial purposes and (b) permission to Sponsor and Co-Sponsors to contact you using this personal information for commercial purposes including advertising and telemarketing. Sponsor is not responsible for the privacy practices of these entities.

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.

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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.

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Winner List. For the name(s) of the winner(s), send request and a self-addressed stamped envelope to Sponsor at 1408 N. St. Mary’s San Antonio, TX 78215. Attn: Winner’s List, or request it online at help.ksat.com . Be sure to specify the name of the sweepstakes for which you are requesting the list of winner(s). Request must be postmarked after Sweepstakes Period and received by Sponsor no later than 60 days after the close of the Sweepstakes Period.

Sponsor/Administrator: KSAT 12, 1408 N. St. Mary’s Street, San Antonio, TX 78215

Co-Sponsor: Firstmark Credit Union, 2023 Gold Canyon Rd, San Antonio, TX 78232

The Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram.

The restaurant at 1014 S. Alamo St. is owned by chef Iris Gonzales-Ornelas, who operates the business alongside her family.

It got its start in 2015 with a location in the Brooks area, then moved to the former home of Rosarios in Southtown, before opening at its present location in December of last year.

The local restaurant gained notoriety when the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” featured its Caribbean nachos in an episode of the popular television show.

Read more of this story at the San Antonio Business Journal website.

Editor’s note: This story was published through a partnership between KSAT and the San Antonio Business Journal.

More recent SABJ coverage on KSAT:

• Oxbow plans 10 new buildings at Pearl for retail expansion
• Rackspace Technology, executives named in securities fraud lawsuit over AI strategy
• Terry Black’s hotel renderings reveal glass greenhouse structure

The 24-year-old Hunt started the week by winning the 100-meter final and made it two-for-two Thursday by taking the 200 gold at Alexander Stadium. She’s also in contention to be in two relay teams.

“I am only 50% through as I have set out for the full set of four golds," Hunt said. “Now I am incredibly excited for the relays because I get to do them and have so much fun with my friends.”

The ever-affable Hunt likes to quote a “High School Musical” character when she says “I want it all” on the track. But the University of Cambridge alum can get more serious, too, like when she recently discussed the legacy of colonialism associated with the Commonwealth Games.

Here's what to know about her career:

Medals include silver in 200 at world championships

Hunt was the surprise silver medalist in the 200 at the world championships last September in Tokyo, where she ran 22.14 seconds in the final — U.S. sprinter Melissa Jefferson-Wooden was the winner.

At the 2024 Olympics in Paris, Hunt ran the third leg on the British women’s 4x100 relay team that won silver.

In the youth ranks, Hunt set an under-18 women's world best in the 200 when she ran a 22.42 in June 2019 in Mannheim, Germany.

Hunt juggled academics — studying English Literature — while training and overcame a leg injury to reach world-class levels. After her silver medal in Tokyo last year, she told the BBC she's glad she stayed in school: “You can be an academic badass and a track goddess.”

Hunt quotes ‘High School Musical’ character

When describing her goals, Hunt cites a “High School Musical” character Sharpay Evans and the song called “I Want it All.”

Hunt mentioned it in the pre-championships news conference and again after winning gold in the 100 on Monday night.

“That performance is one step closer to being like Sharpay Evans,” she said after the victory. “I really want to win it all and I’m so happy now I’ve got one out of four done. Hopefully I can take this momentum and the good vibes into the rest of the week.”

Hunt's issue with the Commonwealth Games

Hunt gives fans a behind-the-scenes view of her life as an athlete with video updates on her YouTube page. Her “vlog” touches on everything from meals to sightseeing to anti-doping tests.

The sprinter's most recent video was a review of her time at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow where she won a silver medal in the 100.

Hunt takes a few minutes in the video to discuss the history of the games, saying she doesn't “ethically or morally agree with the kind of notion of a Commonwealth Games.” The games, she added, “used to celebrate a colonial empire.”

“I think the Commonwealth Games provides the opportunity for us to reflect on ourselves and our history with colonialism, also the fact that England as we know it was rebuilt post-war by the Windrush generation, by immigrants,” Hunt said.

Athletes discuss this privately, she said, but that's where it stays.

“I think a lot of people are afraid to speak about it openly. I think as a white athlete, it’s important for me to speak about my thoughts on it. ... I just kind of wish there was more dialogue and more conversation about that.”

She concludes: “You’re more than free to disagree with it and you’re more than free to think that if I have these views it’s hypocritical for me to compete.”

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

During an appearance on KSAT’s Pickup Lines, Russ told anchor Ernie Zuniga he once envisioned a career in radio after listening to National Public Radio broadcasts while growing up in New Orleans.

“I really wanted to be a radio guy,” Russ said.

After a year at the University of Alabama, however, Russ returned home unsure of his next step. His parents encouraged him to find a job, leading him to work aboard the historic Steamboat Natchez, where thousands of meals were prepared daily.

The experience sparked his interest in professional cooking.

Russ enrolled in Delgado Community College’s culinary program before honing his skills in New Orleans restaurants, including the Ritz-Carlton. He said working alongside classically trained chefs opened his eyes to techniques and possibilities he had never imagined.

His career eventually took him across the country and overseas, with stops in Arizona, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland and Europe before landing in San Antonio in 2012.

The move also shaped his personal life. While working at a Maryland hotel, Russ met pastry chef Elise, who would later become his wife and business partner. Today, the couple owns Clementine in Castle Hills and has three children.

Russ said they intentionally built Clementine as a neighborhood restaurant inspired by the local dining culture he grew up with in New Orleans.

“We’re not going to be millionaires,” he said. “Let’s go have a good life. Let’s create a great life for our kids.”

Despite earning national recognition and James Beard Award nominations, Russ said his focus remains simple: continuing to make Clementine the best it can be while raising his family in San Antonio.

“We love our neighborhood,” he said. “That’s our focus.”

Watch the full Pickup Lines with chef John Russ in the video player above.

More Pickup Lines episodes:

• Pickup Lines: Little Joe reflects on hardship, family and the experiences that shaped his career
• Pickup Lines: Gordon Hartman says discipline, determination paved the way from homebuilder to inclusion pioneer
• Pickup Lines: USAA executive Jenna Saucedo-Herrera reflects on leadership, resilience and giving back

Ernie Zuniga started Pickup Lines, a digital talk show, straight from his vehicle. The segments feature a diverse range of guests, including executives, small business owners, and everyday individuals, as they share personal journeys, news, and stories.

According to a GCSO spokesperson, the deputies were dispatched just before 2:45 a.m. Thursday to a home in the 400 block of Hurst Lane in Seguin. The spokesperson said a male called 911 and told the dispatcher that the unidentified man was “going to kill her.”

The sheriff’s office said multiple deputies arrived at the home within seven minutes of the 911 call. Upon arrival, the deputies heard screaming from inside the home and made entry, GCSO said.

After the deputies made entry, the spokesperson said the man was seen holding a knife to the woman’s neck. Deputies said they commanded the man to drop the knife, but he refused.

The deputies, who felt an “immediate threat” to the woman and themselves, said they were “compelled to shoot” the man. A spokesperson said the man died as a result of at least one gunshot wound.

In a follow-up statement to KSAT, the sheriff’s office said the deputies will be placed on paid administrative leave and that the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Texas Rangers will be leading the investigation into this case.

After three days, the GCSO spokesperson also said those deputies will be scheduled to “return to the office to perform administrative duties, pending the results of the Texas Rangers investigation.”

At this time, it is unclear how many deputies responded to the residence, how many deputies fired their weapons and how many times the man may have been struck by gunfire.

KSAT directed those questions to DPS, who sent the following statement late Thursday morning:

At the request of the Guadalupe County Sheriff’s Office, the Texas Rangers are investigating an officer-involved shooting that occurred on August 13, 2026, in the 400 block of Hurst Lane in Guadalupe County. The identity of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. This remains an active and ongoing investigation, and no additional information is available for release at this time

Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson

More recent news coverage on KSAT:

• Woman, 19, charged with manslaughter in connection with Stone Oak crash, affidavit says
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Hill Country Family Services is one of four nonprofits selected by the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country to distribute emergency financial assistance to flood-affected families in Kendall and Bandera counties.

In just two weeks of operation, the organization has already helped 39 families — and staff members are assisting every single working day.

The Community Foundation granted $94,000 to Hill Country Family Services as part of a broader $1.6 million emergency financial assistance effort across the Hill Country region. The amount each family receives is based on household size, with additional factors considered — such as whether children or people with disabilities live in the home.

Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, said the flexibility of the funding is what makes it effective in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.

“Emergency financial assistance is nimble, flexible funding for families who know best what they need next in their recovery,” Dickson said. “And it’s the first step in recovering after a disaster — whereas home repair programs and other things will come in future months.”

Families register through a needs assessment and receive direct cash payments. Dickson said the needs vary widely, from unpaid bills and rent to mold treatment and drywall repairs.

“Almost everybody has an unpaid bill that they’re stressing about right now,” he said. “And so it’s an honor to be able to take care of that for them.”

Inside Hill Country Family Services, families also have access to a food pantry set up like a grocery store. Families shop on a point system based on household size, choosing from fresh produce, meats, dairy and canned goods.

Executive Director Bryce Boddie said the setup is designed like that on purpose.

“It’s shopping with dignity for our clients,” Boddie said.

Boddie said the immediate response after the floods focused on finding shelter for displaced families and ensuring that people had food after losing power. Now, a month later, the needs have shifted.

“We’ve got a lot of homes without sheetrock. We’ve got a lot of homes that need to be re-leveled,” Boddie said. “And I think for that, they’re asking, who’s here to help?”

The Community Foundation has raised $750,000 for the 2026 flood disaster so far — a stark contrast to the roughly $150 million raised following last year’s flooding.

With FEMA individual assistance not declared for the entire affected region, nonprofits like Hill Country Family Services are carrying much of the financial recovery burden.

Boddie said his organization is ready to keep showing up.

“For those families, when something like this happens, it’s a big hit on your finances,” he said. “We can help step in and bridge that gap for them so that they can get back on their feet.”

The foundation said it may issue additional grants as needs across the region continue to grow.

Hill Country Family Services is located at 114 W. Advogt St. in Boerne. Flood-affected families in the Hill Country counties can register for assistance through a needs assessment at the organization or by clicking here. Both English and Spanish-speaking staff members are available on-site in Boerne.

More Hill Country floods coverage on KSAT:

• Ingram ISD students return to class as flood repairs continue
• Catholic Charities Archdiocese of San Antonio continues flood relief for Hill Country families

The Hennepin County search warrant obtained by The Associated Press identified the man as Nathan Brown, 41. It says he stabbed his wife, 41-year-old Kristen Brown, and their daughter, Evie Brown, inside the daycare that Kristen Brown operated out of the family's basement in Hopkins, a suburb of Minneapolis. He then fatally shot himself in an upstairs closet.

Hopkins police said in a statement Thursday that they are still investigating.

According to police records, a father dropping off two of his children for daycare heard screams coming from the basement. The father entered the home and initially thought Nathan Brown was performing CPR before realizing it was an attack. The witness called 911 and fled with his children and two other children.

Authorities said Wednesday that they believe Nathan Brown earlier killed a 78-year-old relative at her home in Burnsville, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Hopkins. Nathan Brown had recently been living there, investigators said. Police have not released the woman’s identity or said how she was related to Brown.

The warrant says the parent who witnessed the daycare attack told investigators that Kristen Brown had recently sent parents a letter that the daycare would soon be closing, citing “relationship issues with Nathan.”

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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. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

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Six other children were present, but none were physically harmed, authorities said.

Authorities have not released any information about a potential motive for the killings. They said there was no history of police calls to the Hopkins address.

Records show that Kristen Brown had been licensed by the state since 2019. The daycare had a capacity of 10 children and was found to be in compliance during visits in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Family members of Kristen Brown declined to comment on Thursday.

Kristen Brown opened Brown Bear Childcare a few months after giving birth to Evie. In a 2019 post on the daycare’s Facebook page, Brown wrote that she hoped to help her daughter and other children “blossom into happy, intelligent, caring individuals.”

Kristen Brown had a bachelor’s degree in elementary education foundations from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and was certified in vision therapy, according to her daycare’s Facebook page. She incorporated music and cooking classes into her days with the children and would take them on field trips to a science museum and an orchard.

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Rico reported from Atlanta.

During an hourslong meeting that was conducted virtually, the board voted to add Trump's name to the building's facade so it would read “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.” The plaza in front of the building would be named after Trump and most of the space at the venue would be closed for two years to allow for substantial renovations.

The changes, described by Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who is an ex-officio board member, and her lawyers, amount to a dramatic test of U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper.

He ruled in May that letters affixed to the building that spelled out Trump's name were added illegally and he ordered their removal, a decision that the Republican administration failed to persuade courts to overturn. At the same time, Cooper blocked a two-year closure that was set to take effect July 5, saying an earlier board vote authorizing the shuttering was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained.”

“This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the Court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed,” Beatty said in a statement. “I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument.”

A Kennedy Center representative did not respond to a request for comment.

Much of Thursday's board meeting was expected to focus on the extent of closures required to allow for renovations that the Kennedy Center's management says are needed to improve safety. In response to the judge's criticism of the earlier vote, the institution's leaders said they would provide the board with three options to consider.

They included a complete closure or a partial closure that would allow “some continued public access and limited programming in spaces unaffected” by the work. A third option would “consider a highly limited series of phased closures to address only the Center’s most serious infrastructure needs while scheduling and maintaining a full slate of programming.”

Ultimately, the board decided to close the building for two years while leaving the potential for some degree of programming to still happen in an outdoor space known as the Reach. The decision to move ahead with the two-year closure, in addition to the moves to memorialize Trump, could revive questions about whether the board seriously considered the full range of options, a point Democrats emphasized after the meeting.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who is also an ex officio board member, criticized a “sham meeting.”

“What happened today was nothing more than a rubber stamp on a decision the President made months ago that the Board already tried to effectuate without doing proper due diligence,” he said in a statement.

The Kennedy Center has become a metaphor for presidential power

During Trump's second term, the Kennedy Center has become an unlikely — and highly visible — metaphor for presidential power. While he largely ignored the institution during his first term in Washington, Trump moved quickly to oust its leadership when he returned to office in January 2025 and replaced it with a board of trustees that named him chairman.

His name was quickly added to the building, before coming down in June in response to Cooper's order. The area where it once stood is now covered by a massive tarp.

The Kennedy Center moves are part of Trump's broader push to reshape the physical landscape of the nation's capital in ways that have few modern parallels.

He demolished the East Wing of the White House and is building a controversial ballroom in its place, though an appeals court ruled last week that construction should stop because Congress didn't approve the project. Trump has said he will take the case to the Supreme Court.

His remodel of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has also stumbled after algae returned and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro refuted his claims that a vandal was responsible for the damage.

Meanwhile, Trump is planning extensive renovations of a golf course in East Potomac Park, which could significantly reduce the public’s access to running and biking paths. He is also moving forward with a triumphal arch that will sit near Arlington National Cemetery.

Trump has derided the Kennedy Center as “rusted, rotted, and rat and bug infested” and threatened to hand the building over to Congress after Cooper rejected the closure and the addition of the president’s name to the building.

The institution’s leadership has argued that it’s in genuine need of repair and updating.

Matt Floca, the Kennedy Center’s executive director and chief operating officer, guided a group of journalists through the building in April, highlighting severe water damage that he said corroded steel in some places as thin as tissue paper. Some pieces of equipment, including several 800-ton chillers that help cool the building, are decades old and in need of replacement.

At the time, Floca said he considered doing the repairs individually but insisted it was his recommendation to Trump to close the building and move forward with the renovation all at once.

“When the president asked, ‘How do you make these projects the best? How do you make them really excellent and deliver them efficiently?’ My recommendation was you close the building and you do everything over a definite period of time, two years,” he said.

More recently, the legal battles became the subject of barbs and jokes as comedian Bill Maher accepted the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in late June. At the start of the program, Pamella Roland DeVos, a Kennedy Center trustee appointed by Trump, described the institution as a “national cultural center open not just for some but for every American patron who wants to experience the greatest art and expression the world has to offer.”

“The responsibility that comes with it is one our board takes very seriously,” she said.

A fan blade in the Boeing 737-800's right engine broke loose, sending fragments flying out of the engine that broke the window and damaged the fuselage in several other places, according to a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board. Greece turned the investigation over to the U.S. agency under international aviation rules.

The July 10 accident happened after the flight departed the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. Investigators found bird remains inside the engine, suggesting the plane may have struck birds during takeoff, though they haven't determined what caused the fan blade to break loose.

The 61-year-old passenger suffered neck and shoulder injuries and friction burns.

Panicked passengers helped the man after the window broke

The flight attendants told investigators they heard and felt loud, continuous vibration and saw smoke or fog fill the cabin before the oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling.

One flight attendant then noticed some passengers standing and calling for help. The man in a row 11 window seat was partially lodged in the damaged window, and other passengers pulled him back into the cabin.

The injured passenger was moved to row 12, where a doctor on board tended to him. Other passengers retrieved a metal box from the flight attendants and used it to try to block the opening until the plane could land.

A series of short videos recorded inside the plane and shared by Radio Thessaloniki showed passengers wearing oxygen masks after the cabin lost pressure. Another appeared to show the broken window, with a man seated nearby wearing an oxygen mask. A third video, apparently filmed after the aircraft landed, showed first responders working in the aisle.

The engine's fan blades were inspected in May

Maintenance records show the fan blades in the right engine had undergone ultrasonic inspections in May 2026 and November 2025, with no damage found. But flight crews had reported four suspected bird strikes to the same engine over the previous year, according to the NTSB. Bird remains were found after two of them.

Jeff Guzzetti, a former NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration investigator who reviewed the preliminary report, told The Associated Press that the required maintenance appears to have been performed on schedule. Investigators, however, will likely examine how the inspections were conducted and whether the previous suspected bird strikes contributed to preexisting damage.

“We know what happened and even to some extent why it happened, but there’s still unanswered questions that the NTSB will get at,” Guzzetti said.

The NTSB last month reprimanded Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary after he told investors the investigation was focused on foreign object damage rather than the plane’s age or maintenance history. The agency said investigators had not ruled anything out and O’Leary wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation.

Ryanair said Thursday it would not comment further until the NTSB investigation is complete. Boeing and CFM International, the engine maker, said they are assisting with the investigation.

FAA had ordered fixes after similar accidents

The FAA issued three directives last year requiring airlines to strengthen parts of the engine coverings on Boeing 737s after two previous fan blade failures sent pieces of the engine coverings flying. In one accident, a Southwest Airlines passenger was killed in 2018 after debris struck the fuselage and knocked out a window, causing the cabin to rapidly lose pressure.

The directives, which took effect in April 2025, require changes aimed at keeping pieces of the engine covering from breaking away and striking the plane if a fan blade breaks loose. Among other things, airlines must replace certain fasteners and spacers that attach the engine’s inlet covering and revise their maintenance and inspection programs.

The FAA gave airlines until July 2028 to complete the major modifications, and the NTSB report says the required changes had not yet been made to the Ryanair plane.

Guzzetti said the latest accident could prompt the FAA and NTSB to examine whether that deadline should be moved up.

“It takes time to do the maintenance, to get the parts, and the risk at the time was assessed such that the industry could probably wait that long. Now with this event,” Guzzetti said, “that may change things.”

Asked whether the July 2028 deadline could change, the FAA declined to comment on the open investigation, saying it closely supports the NTSB and will “take any necessary safety actions based on the evidence.”

The plane returned about an hour after takeoff

The 737-800, which can seat up to 189 passengers, was delivered new to Ryanair in 2008, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24.

Flight records show the plane climbed above 15,000 feet (4,570 meters) about six minutes after departure before descending to about 6,000 feet (1,830 meters) “to burn fuel for 30 minutes” and returning to Thessaloniki about an hour after takeoff, Flightradar24 said.

The flight was operated by Malta Air, a subsidiary of Ryanair, Europe’s largest budget carrier.

The plane landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal. One passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground, the airline said in a statement at the time.

But to the children and staff at the Alamo Heights ISD school, he is much more than the person who keeps the building running. He is “Mr. Ralph,” a beloved staff member known for his kindness, magic tricks and artwork that fills parts of the campus.

Narvaez said he checks the cafeteria, teacher workroom, teacher lounge, gym and library each day as part of his regular duties. Along the way, he has also found ways to connect with students through painting and drawing.

“I love doing artwork for the kids, and they get real happy when they see it,” Narvaez said.

He started doing artwork when he was in middle school, after watching his father constantly drawing. Now, he wants to inspire kids the same way.

His work can be seen across the school. In the library, Narvaez painted ceiling tiles with book titles, including some in Spanish. In the cafeteria, he created a large mural by himself, coming in on Saturdays to work on it.

At the school’s play H-E-B, he added detailed chalk art and said he is already thinking about new ideas for the space.

“To do the art I come over the weekends and sometimes during my lunch break, I’ll eat 30 minutes and the other 30 minutes I’ll draw or paint,” he said.

Students have taken notice.

“In the past, they come up to me and they want my autograph,” Narvaez laughed. “It makes me feel good. It makes me want to draw and paint more.”

Narvaez said his artwork is also a way to help young children feel more comfortable, especially when they are anxious at the start of the school year.

“Especially first day of school, they get nervous and stuff like that,” he said. “I talk to them a lot and sometimes do little magic tricks for them and show my paintings, and it makes them feel a little bit more comfortable.”

He even surprised the KSAT team with a painting during a visit to the campus.

As students return Wednesday for their first day of school, many of Howard Early Childhood Center’s newest learners will get to meet the custodian whose creativity and kindness have made him a familiar and comforting presence on campus.

Read also:

• IDEA Public Schools welcomes 18K students on first day
• Viewers share back-to-school photos on KSAT Connect
• GMSA backpack giveaway: Students, parents excited ahead of new school year

Today on Texas Eats NOW:

KARBACH BREWING COMPANY

2032 Karbach St, Houston, TX 77092

Karbach Brewing Company is a Houston craft brewery rooted in time-honored German brewing tradition, offering fresh beer alongside a full restaurant, biergarten, and expansive event space open for seven days a week. Known for pairing quality craftsmanship with a lively, family- and pet-friendly atmosphere, the brewery features live sports on a large outdoor screen and private event venues. The Hoppadillo IPA has earned multiple medals at both the World Beer Cup and the Great American Beer Festival, a reflection of the brewery’s commitment to quality as its core value.

The seasonal standout is the Karbachtoberfest Märzen, a Bavarian-style lager brewed with 100% imported German malt and hops. True to tradition, it is brewed in spring and lagered through the summer, producing a crisp, clean, and balanced finish without excessive bitterness. The beer is available on draft and in cans at the brewery, and can be found statewide at major retail partners including H-E-B, Walmart, and Kroger. Three weekends of Karbachtoberfest celebrations, featuring a 40-foot traditional German beer hall, run from September into October on the brewery grounds.

GOODE COMPANY ARMADILLO PALACE

5015 Kirby Dr, Houston, TX 77098

Armadillo Palace is a sprawling Texas honky-tonk restaurant and live music venue opened in 2004 by the Goode Company. Spread across 17,000 square feet with one dance hall, two bars, and three stages, it is one of Houston’s premier destinations for live music — particularly during rodeo season, when the venue comes fully alive with performances and private events. A Walk of Fame embedded in the entryway pays tribute to Texas-born music legends.

The kitchen fires over mesquite wood and brines proteins for 24 hours before they ever hit the grill. The 12-ounce heritage pork chop, bone-in and grilled over mesquite, is finished with a house-made tomato bacon jam. The Kennedy Ranch discada features skirt steak slow-stewed in a beer sauce with fresh tomatoes, cilantro, and onions. Texas deer camp quail legs are wrapped in applewood smoked bacon, cooked over mesquite, glazed with quail marinade, and served over white cheddar grits. Rounding out the spread are smoked chicken collard greens and a house-made mac and cheese.

FIFE AND FARRO

221 Newell Ave, San Antonio, TX 78215

Fife and Farro is a wood-fired pizza and pasta restaurant that opened in April 2024 inside Pullman Market. The concept centers on locally sourced ingredients, with fresh mozzarella made on-site every 20 minutes and dough that is worked by hand, shaped with semolina for manageability, and fired in a wood-burning oven until blistered and bubbly.

The Americano pizza builds on a fresh mozzarella and oregano base, dotted with pesto, house tomato sauce, and pieces of meatball, finished tableside with dollops of ricotta. A take on the New Orleans muffuletta arrives as a generously stacked sandwich of mortadella, salami, capicola, provolone picante, and a house giardiniera tapenade with mayonnaise.

BIRD DOG

1701 S Interstate 35, San Marcos, TX 78666

Bird Dog is a San Marcos comfort food restaurant owned by Michael De La Cruz, specializing in made-to-order chicken tenders, loaded hot dogs, and a roster of creative side items. Opened in 2025 along the east side of Interstate 35, the spot has built a following for its scratch approach to classic American fare, including fresh-baked desserts and agua frescas to round out the menu.

Chicken tenders are soaked in buttermilk, pressed for even thickness, double-breaded, and fried to order — served as a six-piece meal with toast and fries, and optionally finished with white gravy. The hot dog program is where creativity runs deep: the CAB beef dog is wrapped in bacon and topped with queso and fried pickles; the Wicked Chili Dog layers chorizo chili, queso, and pickled jalapeños over a bacon-wrapped dog; and the Hot Mess features a no-nitrate dog wrapped in bacon topped with asada, grilled peppers and onions, and queso — landing somewhere between Tex-Mex and a Philly. A loose-grind smash burger rounds out the savory menu, and cinnamon rolls baked fresh in-house, finished with butter sauce and icing, close things out on a sweet note.

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The company operates a vast nationwide network of automated cameras that record the license plate numbers and other characteristics of all passing vehicles every day. Thousands of law enforcement agencies in 49 states can search and share Flock's data across jurisdictions to aid their investigations.

Police have credited the technology as an important crime-fighting innovation that has helped locate missing people and track suspects in violent crimes. But some critics say its pervasiveness amounts to unconstitutional warrantless mass surveillance. Dozens of cities and agencies have nixed their relationships with Flock amid concerns that the data can be accessed for immigration enforcement or used in unauthorized tracking, after a flurry of examples surfaced of law enforcement officers misusing the technology for personal searches.

CEO says changes will drive accountability

In an interview, Flock CEO Garrett Langley said many of the product changes will make what were once optional guardrails mandatory for its users to implement by Jan. 1.

Among them: All law enforcement customers will have to implement an audit tool that's intended to flag abnormal search behavior. When the system detects abnormal behavior, the user would be locked out pending an internal review, the company said in a description of the changes provided ahead of Thursday's announcement.

Flock, which says its customers own the data that the cameras record, is also shortening the standard data retention window from 30 days to seven. It said it will allow data to be preserved for longer when it is evidence tied to a case number.

Law enforcement users will now also be required to enter a code from their records management system tying each search to a specific case before it is run, something Langley said civil liberties advocates have long been calling for. Overrides for emergencies would be automatically flagged for review, the company said.

Customers will also be allowed to decide which offense types — such as homicide or arson — outside agencies can search their data for, which would allow a customer to block outside searches related to immigration enforcement, the company said.

Langley said that change will give individual cities and departments control to use the system in a manner “consistent with community values.”

Critics say updates still leave room for abuses, supporters urge balance

Critics of the company reacted skeptically to the changes, which they said appeared designed to address the growing bipartisan anger about the cameras but could still leave room for police to abuse the system.

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a blog post that the shortened evidence retention window could be “a step in the right direction,” but it characterized the other changes as “retreads” of inadequate safety measures.

Robert Frommer, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that's led closely watched litigation over the technology, called the changes “window dressing” from a company in “panic mode.”

“This is window dressing that doesn’t address the fundamental problem, which is that police officers are the ones deciding who and when to search, and that should be done by judges with real warrants,” he said.

Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a professor at the George Washington University Law School whose scholarship has focused on policing, big data surveillance and the Fourth Amendment, said Thursday’s shifts were “better than the opposite” but called for further scrutiny of the technology in the form of “sustained democratic engagement with the rules and judicial checks on access at a minimum.”

Ferguson said he’s been surprised to see the “growing community backlash” against Flock specifically, given that the technology isn't new and other companies sell it as well. But Flock and the movement against it have “captured people’s sense that maybe they don’t want to be surveilled all the time,” he said.

More than 50 agencies or jurisdictions have canceled, suspended or rejected a contract or deactivated their cameras since the beginning of the year, according to a tracker maintained by DeFlock, a grassroots group formed to track the use of license plate reader technology and push back against it. Cameras around the country have also been vandalized.

In Congress, Republican representatives filed at least two bills aiming to restrict the use of the technology in July.

Ian Adams, an associate professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina currently working on a Flock-related research study, said many of the concerns raised about how the company's data can be used are not new concerns in law enforcement.

“Anyone with policing experience could have reasonably foreseen that what have been termed as ‘curiosity searches’ by officers, searches for private reasons not related to police work, were going to be a problem this technology faced,” he added, noting that other technologies and platforms like the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information had faced those issues.

Law enforcement experts said it's a common tension of “policing in a democracy” — balancing useful technology that officers say helps solve and prevent crime with the community's interest and right to privacy.

“It's a balancing act. A community has a legitimate interest in how information is used, but it also has a legitimate interest in the effectiveness of a police department in preventing crime,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based nonpartisan think tank. “I think a balance can be struck, but it's more likely to come from department policy than company changes.”

Successes and failures have captured attention

Flock, based in Atlanta, Georgia, often posts to its website what the company deems to be everyday examples of success stories for its cameras, including finding missing seniors and catching car thieves.

But the tech has also been used in high-profile cases that have garnered national attention, such as the search for a suspect in a fatal shooting at Brown University and in tracking and arresting a former North Carolina police officer who authorities say had made threats that he planned to carry out a mass shooting at a festival in Louisiana. A grand jury declined to bring charges in that case in June, and state authorities said the former officer's family had taken him to a treatment facility out of state where he does not face further charges.

Abuses have also drawn widespread attention. The Washington Post reported earlier this month finding nearly 50 instances of police officers charged or accused of using the cameras for unauthorized purposes, many for tracking current or former romantic partners or family members.

Just this week, six employees — including four officers — of the Savannah Police Department in Georgia were fired after they were accused of searching for friends and family using the tool and allowing an officer from an outside agency to use the city’s cameras.

The Savannah department said it was made aware of the misuse through Flock’s voluntary audit function.

___

Lauer reported from Philadelphia.

The person, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the case and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that Mangione could change his mind. If he follows through, it would be a stunning development in a case that rattled business leaders while galvanizing their critics.

Mangione’s lawyers, and spokespeople for the Justice Department and Manhattan federal prosecutors, declined to comment.

Mangione is accused of traveling to New York City to ambush Thompson, 50, then shooting him outside a Manhattan hotel on Dec. 4, 2024, as the executive walked to UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference.

Mangione is due in court on Friday for a hastily scheduled hearing in the federal case, which involves two counts of stalking. It wasn’t clear what charge or charges Mangione is expected to plead guilty to. The hearing, in Manhattan federal court, comes as his lawyers have been talking with federal prosecutors about a possible resolution to one of two criminal cases against Mangione in Thompson’s death. Previous talks in June broke down.

Mangione, 28, has been charged in both federal and state court in New York and still faces the possibility of a trial in his unresolved state case. Mangione’s state murder trial is set to begin Sept. 8. Both sets of charges carried the possibility of a life sentence.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty and has spoken out publicly against the prospect of two trials, telling a judge in February: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”

Under New York law, a state prosecution could be barred if the federal case is resolved first, but it isn’t automatic.

The state’s double jeopardy protections kick in if a jury has been sworn in a prior prosecution, such as a federal case, or if that prosecution ends in a guilty plea. Mangione’s cases involve different charges arising from the same course of conduct.

Once Mangione pleads guilty, his lawyers could then ask the judge in the state case to throw out those charges on double jeopardy grounds. State prosecutors argue their case is distinct and double jeopardy shouldn't apply.

Mangione’s federal charges allege that he traveled across state lines by bus to stalk and kill Thompson and that he used means such as a cellphone, the internet, interstate highways and staying at a hostel that serves out-of-state customers while planning and carrying out the attack. The state charges pertain to the killing itself, as well as firearms offenses.

In a letter last month, state prosecutors objected to the possibility of a guilty plea in the federal case wiping out the state case.

“Obviously, any guilty pleas in these matters must account for the seriousness of defendant’s offenses, the loss of an innocent life, the impact of those crimes on the victim’s family, and the other state interests that are implicated, including the sanctity of life principle that underpins the state homicide charges,” Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann wrote.

Mangione’s decision to plead guilty comes after a series of setbacks for his defense.

In January, U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett took the death penalty off the table but ruled that prosecutors could use items collected from Mangione’s backpack during his arrest as evidence against him.

They included a 3D-printed pistol that investigators said matched the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to kill an insurance executive.

In June, Mangione’s lawyers said they would pursue a psychiatric defense in the state case but reversed course a day later. The defense, involving claims that he was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing, isn’t allowed in federal court.

Surveillance video of the killing showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

He has become a cause célèbre for people upset with the health insurance industry.

An online fundraiser for his legal defense fund raised more than $1.5 million, and several dozen supporters have shown up to his court appearances, some wearing green clothing — the color worn by the Mario Bros. video game character Luigi — and “FREE LUIGI” T-shirts.

___

Durkin Richer reported from Washington.

McALLEN — A federal judge upheld a temporary restraining order against government contractors building a border wall along the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, pausing construction until Aug. 27.

Spencer Construction LLC and Royal Concrete Products LLC were prohibited from continuing construction or related work and from entering the property that belongs to Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 2, according to the judge’s ruling, which upholds a temporary restraining order issued by a state district court in Hidalgo County on July 30.

The irrigation district petitioned the state district court for the restraining order, arguing that the contractors trespassed onto their property and began work on the border wall without its consent.

The irrigation district, which is a public corporation that distributes water for agriculture, owns a 120-foot strip of land that housed one of its irrigation canals, as well as 60 feet on either side of the canal.

The irrigation district claimed that Spencer, a Tucson-based company, began interfering with and altering the property on July 20, according to the petition. It also alleged that the company’s activities “recklessly allowed large amounts of dirt to fall into the irrigation canal,” which interfered with the infrastructure.

Royal, a local subcontractor, delivered and poured concrete materials for the border wall construction, which the irrigation district said constituted an ongoing trespass of the property and interfered with the infrastructure.

Prior to seeking a restraining order, the irrigation district said it had contacted Spencer demanding that the company halt its work, but that the company did not stop.

Ruben R. Peña, the attorney representing Spencer, said the company is complying with the restraining order, but that it was only acting as a contractor for the government.

“We don’t have a dog in that fight,” Peña said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to questions about the restraining order.

The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge has been a possible site for border infrastructure since President Donald Trump’s first term, given its location along the Rio Grande. Anti-border wall activists protested and held rallies calling for the refuge’s protection, fearing that a border wall would interfere with the environment and the natural movement of wildlife.

Federal lawmakers had secured protections against border wall construction for the site during Trump’s first term, by preventing funds to be appropriated for border wall construction in certain environmentally or historically significant areas.

But last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump’s signature spending bill, channeled funding for border wall construction that bypassed the appropriations process, allowing construction to move forward at Santa Ana.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said that the border wall in Santa Ana will measure 30 feet tall and will include access gates so visitors will still be able to access land south of the wall.

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

Monday’s announcement by the Republican president calls for separating combination shots — including the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine — into separate injections. Appointments for that and other vaccinations should be spaced out whenever possible, the order states.

To accomplish that, drugmakers would need to revive a slate of individual vaccines that have not been widely used in the U.S. for decades. They would also have to build new manufacturing plants capable of producing millions more vaccine doses than the nation currently uses.

For parents, unbundling the MMR vaccine and spacing out the shots would mean returning to the doctor’s office many more times than is currently needed. Those appointments could also strain pediatricians who typically administer the shots, while driving up costs tied to syringes and other medical supplies.

Studies in the U.S. and other countries have shown that combination vaccines increase the likelihood that children will be fully protected from infectious diseases before starting school.

Health experts say there is no scientific basis for changing course.

“We do things that are less convenient and more expensive if there’s a good reason to do it,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “There is no good justification for this. I think it’s very bad public health policy.”

Trump's plan would require vaccine manufacturing overhaul

Under Trump's executive order, federal officials are instructed to develop within 90 days plans for breaking up the MMR shot and spacing out other vaccines.

But pharmaceutical scientists and former regulators say those changes would likely take years and require drugmakers to spend tens of millions of dollars on new studies and manufacturing facilities.

Currently, there are no individual vaccines in the U.S. for measles, mumps or rubella. All the vaccines approved for those viruses by the Food and Drug Administration are combination shots. That three-in-one approach has been the standard in the U.S. since the 1970s.

Dr. Jesse Goodman, a former FDA vaccine chief, said companies may have to conduct large studies showing their new individual shots produce immune system-boosting reactions in children similar to the current versions. The specifics would depend upon the quality of data from the original standalone vaccines and how it's viewed by FDA regulators.

“The question is how much has changed since then and how comfortable will the FDA and the companies be relying on those comparisons?” said Goodman, who is now a professor at Georgetown University.

Manufacturers may also have to demonstrate the safety of new manufacturing facilities and procedures, given that individual measles shots haven’t been widely produced in the U.S. for decades.

Designing, constructing and getting federal sign-off for new vaccine plants typically takes about five years, according to industry experts.

Additionally, Goodman said the FDA would have to review and license each unbundled vaccine separately, a process with no precedent.

“I don’t think there’s any comparable example of removing hugely effective public health measures that protect babies for no documented scientific reason,” he said.

Individual shots for measles and related diseases tend to be used by lower-income countries that can’t afford the MMR shot. Merck, GSK and the handful of other companies that supply U.S. childhood vaccines make only the combination shot.

In separate statements, Merck and GSK said they stand by the safety and effectiveness of their products. Neither discussed plans to unbundle their shots.

“To date, there has been no published scientific evidence that shows any benefit in separating the combination MMR vaccine into three individual shots,” Merck said in an emailed statement.

Parents would need to make many more trips to the doctor

The MMR shot is currently delivered in two doses — the first at the age of 1 and the second dose after age 4. Splitting up the shot into its three separate components would mean six office visits. Spacing out other shots for pertussis and other infectious diseases could multiply the number of visits many more times.

As the number of visits goes up, parents are more likely to miss appointments or stop making them, according to Durbin.

“It’s going to be less convenient, more expensive and you’re going to have fewer people getting vaccinated,” she said.

For well over a decade, Trump has expressed his view — against medical groups’ guidance — that American children receive too many vaccines and that they should be given in smaller doses over a longer period of time. Last year he called on called on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to look at reducing the number. Kennedy and other officials have pointed to smaller countries, such as Denmark, that recommended slightly fewer vaccinations than the U.S.

But breaking up combination shots will result in kids receiving many more individual shots than other comparable nations, Durbin notes.

White House spokesman Kush Desai said the Trump administration’s efforts on the MMR vaccine “will give parents more options on timing and frequency for their children, which ultimately will increase vaccination rates for all three diseases.”

Vaccine order is not legally binding

Despite the precedent-breaking nature of Trump’s order, some experts are skeptical it will result in meaningful changes.

Neither the White House nor the FDA can compel drugmakers to develop and seek approval for new vaccines. And from a business perspective, companies have little incentive to develop individual versions of vaccines they already sell in combination shots.

“They’d be competing against themselves, and there’s no reason to do that,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia vaccine researcher and former government adviser.

While Trump’s order calls for more federal research and recommendations, only state governments have the legal authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren. The order simply advises states to consider updating their laws to reflect the Trump administration’s approach.

“I think states will ignore this,” Offit said. “I think that bottom line is that we don’t need to look to Donald Trump for our medical advice.”

___

AP videojournalist Mary Conlon in New York contributed to this report.

___

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.

___

Follow the AP's coverage of immunizations at https://apnews.com/hub/immunizations.

Opening statements at the murder trial in Las Vegas are expected to begin Monday.

Family members and fans of the legendary rapper have been waiting for decades to learn the truth behind the 1996 drive-by shooting that left Shakur dead at the height of his career.

Shakur was just 25 when he was shot near the Las Vegas Strip at a time when he was in the middle of a fierce battle for dominance in a music scene shaped by rival gangs.

Authorities three years ago charged Duane “Keffe D” Davis with murder, describing him as the “shot caller” who orchestrated the killing. Davis has pleaded not guilty and could be sentenced to life in prison if he’s convicted.

Sixteen jurors were picked for the trial, which is expected to last about a month. During the selection process, potential jurors were asked about their favorite books and movies, if they had any strong feelings about gangs, and whether they had listened to Shakur’s music.

Shakur still is considered one of the most influential rappers of all time. With hits like “California Love” and “Dear Mama,” more than 75 million of his records have been sold worldwide, including seven albums released after his death.

He was in the passenger seat of a BMW driven by Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight on Sept. 7, 1996, when shots were fired from a Cadillac at a red light. Knight survived but Shakur died six days later.

Prosecutors have not accused Davis, now 63, of pulling the trigger that night, instead saying that he made the calls that led to Shakur’s death and provided the gun.

In Nevada, a person can be convicted of murder for helping another person commit the crime.

Davis is the only person still alive who was in the car where prosecutors said the fatal shots originated.

The case against Davis was revived when Davis published the book “Compton Street Legend,” about the shooting and his time in the Crips, in 2019 as well as his statements during police and media interviews.

Davis’ attorneys unsuccessfully fought to block from the trial details written in the book and said during a 2008 police interview. They argued the book was fictionalized and had a co-author, making it impossible to know which parts Davis wrote.

They also argued Davis’ previous interview with a federal task force was supposed to be confidential and not used against him.

Among those who could be called to testify in the trial is Knight, the rap music mogul whose label represented Shakur. He continually has said that he wants no part in the trial.

Knight, who is serving a 28-year sentence for running over and killing a Compton businessman in 2015, is the only surviving person who was in the car with Shakur at the time of the shooting.

Prosecutors expect to call between 35 and 45 witnesses, ranging from people who saw Shakur moments before he was shot to those who were associates of both Shakur and Davis at the time. Sean “Diddy” Combs, who Davis claimed wanted Shakur and Knight dead, will not be one of those witnesses, attorneys said.

___

Associated Press writers John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

The Democratic National Committee is expected to vote at its summer meeting in Austin, Texas, on the new order that frontloads states with more diverse populations.

The meeting comes ahead of bitterly contested midterm elections that will decide control of Congress later this year. Democratic voters have delivered mixed messages on the direction they want to see the party go — backing candidates viewed as more left-wing as well as moderates in consequential primaries across several states.

The group also is convening at a time of internal turmoil, with some members calling for DNC Chairman Ken Martin to be replaced. Critics have questioned Martin's leadership decisions and the party's fundraising, which lags well behind that of Republicans just months before the crucial midterms.

Martin had his defenders, though, on Thursday. William Owen, a committee member from Tennessee, pointed to the victories in special elections that Democrats have won under Martin.

“I think all of us are working as hard as we can to elect Democrats across the country,” Owen said during a resolutions committee hearing. He added later: “I’m tired of people criticizing Ken Martin and criticizing the DNC.”

Martin himself addressed the spotlight he's been under during remarks on Thursday.

“There’s all these stories about ‘Democrats in disarray’ and ‘Ken Martin this,’ ‘Ken Martin that," he said, adding an expletive. “You know, who’s not focused on that? Me. You shouldn’t be either. I want you to focus on power and support.”

New calendar would cement S

outh Carolina as first primary

The party is expected to give final approval to a calendar that has South Carolina's primary first on Jan. 22, followed by Nevada on Feb. 1. New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia would round out the early states, voting throughout February.

The overhaul shows Democrats’ effort to give greater influence to states reflecting the party’s coalition, particularly Black and Latino voters. It follows years of a calendar led by Iowa and New Hampshire, two states with overwhelmingly white electorates.

The proposed calendar would cement South Carolina at the start of the calendar, reflecting a change former President Joe Biden pushed for after that state revived his struggling 2020 campaign.

South Carolina has long been the first Southern contest and has served as a key test of candidates’ support among Black voters.

2 traditional early states aren't happy

Iowa and New Hampshire officials have expressed disappointment with the decision after the early approval at a committee meeting in July. Rita Hart, the Iowa Democratic Party chair, said it was a sign the party is “out of touch with voters.”

New Hampshire congressional leaders, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, said the decision was wrong for their state and the country. New Hampshire's secretary of state is required by law to schedule its presidential primary at least seven days before any other state holds a similar contest, setting up a potential conflict with the DNC calendar.

The GOP still needs to draw up its calendar. Republicans are expected to stick with their traditional early-state lineup led off by Iowa and New Hampshire.

Questions linger about Democrats' next steps

Democratic primaries already have been testing which direction the party is headed in, through races in states such as Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

While there's been a split between more progressive candidates who buck the party's establishment and those with more moderate views who have backing from party officials, the common thread is that Democratic voters have been looking for change.

Republicans, confronting high prices and the president's sagging approval, have been eager to cast the party as moving too far to the left.

Meanwhile, the DNC's leadership and financial concerns continue.

The gathering also coincides with financial struggles confronting Democrats, including lackluster fundraising and carrying debt. The DNC reported about $16 million in cash on hand in its most recent Federal Election Commission filing, along with more than $18 million in debt. The GOP, meanwhile, reported nearly $129 million cash on hand in its latest FEC filing.

Martin isn't expected to be replaced before the midterms, as the party has no clear alternative to take over. But members have said the most likely time for a leadership change may be the DNC’s winter meeting after the November contests — and before the 2028 presidential primary process begins in earnest.

Martin, desperate to save his job, has been avoiding media appearances, monitoring his critics’ social media posts and refusing — at least so far — to make any substantive changes at his troubled organization. He said in a recent Substack post the Democratic Party "will be ready to win — everywhere, at every level, in this election and for the decade ahead.”

___ Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in New York contributed to this report.

The ruling allows people to purchase silencers, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and certain other firearms without registration, while also removing an extra layer of background checks.

The order benefits parties that brought the lawsuit, including some dealers based outside northern Texas, but it is not a national injunction. Advocates say there are similar challenges in federal courts in other states. Separately, some states have their own prohibitions on silencers.

U.S. District Judge James Hendrix in Lubbock, Texas, said regulations in a 1930s-era law are unconstitutional. He said the rules must fall after the Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump eliminated a $200 permit tax on the devices.

Hendrix said his Aug. 5 order would take effect in seven days unless the government appealed. There was no sign of a filing Wednesday in online entries at Hendrix’s court or the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The government’s refusal to pursue an immediate appeal “is a failure to defend public safety,” said Emma Brown, executive director at Giffords, the gun violence prevention group.

An email Thursday seeking comment from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which enforces the law, was not immediately answered. Under court procedure, the government still could file an appeal in the weeks ahead, even while Hendrix’s order stands.

Gun Owners of America said two members acquired suppressors at Silencer Shop in Leander, Texas, without having to register.

“Our members are putting the historic victory into action. The era of federal registration for constitutionally protected arms must end,” said Erich Pratt, the group’s senior vice president.

The National Firearms Act has been around since 1934 in response to concerns about mafia violence. It regulates firearms that are considered the most dangerous, though gun-rights advocates say it conflicts with the Constitution’s Second Amendment.

“The system of regulating these weapons has been effective. The need is no less today than it was after the Prohibition era almost a century ago,” said Giffords chief counsel Adam Skaggs.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.7% and topped its prior record set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 69 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.8%.

Wall Street relaxed after a report showed prices at the U.S. wholesale level were 4.7% higher last month than a year earlier. While that’s more painful than anyone would like, it’s not as bad as June’s 5.5% inflation rate at the wholesale level, and it was slightly better than economists expected.

If inflation continues to trend that way, the Federal Reserve could decide to hold off on hikes to interest rates. Higher rates would help keep a lid on inflation, but they do so by intentionally slowing the economy and making it more expensive for everyone to borrow money.

Fed officials are split on whether they should have already begun hiking interest rates. But Thursday’s report, following a similar update on inflation at the U.S. consumer level the day before, has traders now betting on just a 35% chance that the Fed will raise the federal funds rate at its next meeting in September. That’s down from the roughly 50% probability seen two days ago, according to data from CME Group.

Any increase by the Fed would be the first in more than three years. It also could anger President Donald Trump, who has been lobbying for lower interest rates.

Treasury yields sank in the bond market, which eases pressure on stocks and other investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.65% from 4.68% late Wednesday and from 4.72% on Monday, though it’s still well above its 3.97% level from before the war with Iran sent oil and gasoline prices surging.

Oil prices eased back on Thursday, helping to limit worries about inflation. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil fell 2.1% to $87.07.

It’s been swinging sharply recently and pinballed between $72 and $102 last month as hopes rose and fell that a deal in the war could allow oil tankers to freely exit the Middle East again and deliver crude worldwide.

On Wall Street, stocks in the real-estate industry climbed to some of the market’s bigger gains. When interest rates are lower and bonds are paying less in yield, the dividends that many real-estate investment trusts pay look more attractive.

Lower mortgage rates could also drive more activity in the housing market, and the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate fell this week for the first time in six weeks.

AvalonBay Communities, which owns apartments across the country, rose 2.3%. Homebuilder D.R. Horton added 2.8%.

Fossil Group climbed 5.9% after the seller of watches and jewelry became one of the latest companies to report better results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Such reports have helped drive Wall Street to records because stocks tend to track the path of corporate profits over the long term.

They helped offset a drop for Cisco Systems, which fell 8.4% even though the tech giant reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than Wall Street expected.

Analysts said investors may be worried about its profit margins going forward, and its stock has been shaky through the summer amid worries that AI-related stocks in general shot too high.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 50.49 points to 7,798.99. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 69.72 to 53,839.99, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 214.54 to 26,803.03.

In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped in Europe following a mixed finish in Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi again had one of the world’s biggest moves and jumped 3.6%. Seoul has been at the center of the world’s swings for artificial-intelligence stocks because its market is dominated by two tech giants, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

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

Platner won Maine's Democratic primary for the right to challenge veteran Republican Sen. Susan Collins, but he dropped out in July after Politico reported that a former girlfriend said he sexually assaulted her. Platner denied the allegation but said at the time he left the race that he was stepping aside because of the importance of defeating Collins.

Platner will appear at an event organized by Hancock County Activists called “Labor Day Rally for Labor” at Ellsworth City Hall, near his hometown, organizers said. Hancock County Democrats posted a notice about the event on the party's website, but removed the reference to Platner on Thursday afternoon.

“The rally will kick off a series of events leading up to the primaries, with musical performances and featured speaker Graham Platner, who will talk about the history of unions and the important role organized labor has played in our communities and our country,” the notice initially stated.

The event is not being hosted or organized by the Hancock County Democratic Committee and it has no affiliation with the Maine Democratic Party, a party source said. Posting information about the event online was consistent with Hancock County Democrats' past practice, said Marcia Myers, chair of the county Democratic committee.

“We felt people should be aware of it, and informed about it,” said Myers. “It's certainly notable that Graham Platner is a person scheduled to speak. We post this as information for people and they can decide whether to attend or not.”

Platner spoke at the rally last year, said Carol Leonard, who works with the community organization group Acadia Action, which is also helping to host the event. He’s not expected to talk about the campaign, but instead will focus on the history of the U.S. labor movement, she said.

The state party hastily called a special convention and nominated former state Senate President Troy Jackson after Platner dropped out.

Platner has kept a low profile since dropping out of the race and did not respond to requests for comment.

Jenny Racicot, who has accused Platner of sexual assault, and Lyndsey Fifield, who has accused Platner of domestic abuse, said in a joint statement Thursday that Platner is “trying to sweep the truth under the rug and pretend things are back to normal.” The Associated Press does not usually identify victims of abuse, but Racicot and Fifield came forward on their own. Platner has denied the allegations.

The Maine Republican Party also criticized Democrats for the event.

“If Graham Platner is still a heroic leader for Maine Democrats, as this speaking event indicates, their party is out of touch with Maine," said Maine Republican Party spokeswoman Kristina Parker, adding that Maine voters were “disgusted” by Platner's actions.

Platner, 41, is an oyster farmer and combat veteran who filled theaters around Maine with his booming voice and progressive politics. He has no experience in elected office, but fashioned a campaign focused on working-class issues such as the high costs of housing and healthcare.

Platner’s campaign was beset with controversies for months. Among them, media reports emerged that the candidate had previously exchanged sexually explicit text messages with several women while he was married. He also had a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he said he didn’t realize until he was several weeks into the campaign. He later had it covered up with a different design.

Platner grew up in Sullivan, a tiny town near Ellsworth and about 170 miles up the coast from Portland.

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Associated Press writer Kimberlee Kruesi contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island.

Also, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the youngest person to hold the role, will leave the Trump administration at the end of the month to spend more time with her young family. Leavitt, 28, called it a “bittersweet decision” in a social media post Wednesday shortly after President Donald Trump announced she would be stepping down.

Here's the latest:

Vance appears to be lowering expectations for the Strait of Hormuz to return to the way it was

He predicted in an interview on Fox News Channel on Thursday that the war will end with the U.S. in a stronger position, with Iran not having a nuclear weapon, and with the Strait of Hormuz “returned to a place where oil and gas prices are stable for the American people.”

He did not say anything about the strait being open and toll-free for transiting ships, as he had in the past.

Vance’s comments also seemed to suggest that the administration was more focused on the war’s economic impact than the original aims of the war.

“That’s goal number one: keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country,” he said.

The second goal, according to Vance, is to ensure Iran will never get a nuclear weapon.

“I feel confident we’re accomplishing both of these goals, but it’s an inherently unpredictable thing because the Iranians themselves are unpredictable and they sometimes don’t honor the commitments they’ve made to us.”

Blanche seeks to rally a depleted Justice Department workforce in first speech as attorney general

Attorney General Todd Blanche sought to rally a depleted Justice Department workforce Thursday in his first speech since taking the reins of the beleaguered agency, promising rank-and-file staff that he will lead them with integrity.

Blanche’s speech inside the storied Great Hall at Justice Department headquarters represented an effort to reassure lawyers and law enforcement officials following a tumultuous confirmation battle that exposed deep concerns about the agency’s direction under Republican President Donald Trump.

Blanche vowed to uphold the rule of law “without fear or favor,” and told staff he would welcome their ideas and encourage disagreement.

Without mentioning specific moves that have raised alarms from critics that Blanche is still functioning as Trump’s personal lawyer, the attorney general acknowledged he would “not get every decision right.”

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Hegseth says the military can maintain the Iranian blockade ‘indefinitely’

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking to reporters in Panama, said that “the United States Navy can maintain a blockade like that because we’ll rotate ships in and out, as we have and we’ll continue to.”

The statement comes as the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln heads into its ninth month and has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 240 days.

Several Democratic lawmakers are pressing the Pentagon for accountability over conditions aboard the carrier, including increasing reports of morale and supply issues.

Hegseth dismissed those reports as “completely misrepresented” and claimed that “every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment.”

Wall of US Embassy in Brazil’s capital is vandalized as relations remain tense

One of the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Brazil’s capital was vandalized on Thursday as tensions between the countries remained high. Police said they detained one man in connection with the case but that he has already been released.

The messages against the U.S. government sprayed on the wall of its Brasilia embassy come as President Donald Trump places high tariffs on some Brazilian goods and revokes the Brazilian ambassador’s visa to Washington.

Brazilians rarely vandalize embassies and consulates of any country.

A message that read “The USA makes war and profits from death” was written in Portuguese and English outside the embassy.

The American embassy in Brasilia said in a statement that it is committed to Brazilians and to staffers’ security.

Brazil’s government did not comment on the incident.

Judge dismisses Trump administration lawsuit alleging antisemitism at Harvard University

A federal judge in Boston on Thursday dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit that accused Harvard University of turning a blind eye to harassment of Jewish students.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns said the administration failed to prove an ongoing violation of federal civil rights laws. The judge said the lawsuit, filed in March, mostly focuses on incidents during the 2023-24 academic year, with a few from March 2025.

The cases were “too isolated and episodic” to prove a persistent civil rights violation at the Ivy League campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the judge said.

The lawsuit accused Harvard of failing to protect Jewish students during pro-Palestinian demonstrations that roiled the campus after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. The Trump administration argued that Harvard officials did nothing as Jewish students were “harassed, physically assaulted, stalked, and spat upon.”

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Democratic senator calls for Hegseth to discuss civilian deaths from US strikes

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee is calling out the number of civilian deaths from U.S. military operations under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island cited a recent Pentagon report to Congress that said 153 civilians were killed last year from U.S. airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Reed also said the Pentagon has yet to release a report into a U.S. airstrike in Iran this year that involved a missile hitting an Iranian primary school, killing up to 168 people.

“This did not happen in a vacuum,” Reed said in a statement Thursday, noting that Hegseth had “gutted” an office focused on reducing civilian harm.

Reed called for Hegseth to explain the incidents before Congress.

Judge dismisses Trump administration lawsuit alleging antisemitism at Harvard University

A federal judge in Boston on Thursday dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit that accused Harvard University of turning a blind eye to harassment of Jewish students.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns said the administration failed to prove an ongoing violation of federal civil rights laws. The judge said the lawsuit, filed in March, mostly focuses on incidents during the 2023-24 academic year, with a few from March 2025.

The cases were “too isolated and episodic” to prove a persistent civil rights violation at the Ivy League campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the judge said.

The lawsuit accused Harvard of failing to protect Jewish students during pro-Palestinian demonstrations that roiled the campus after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. The Trump administration argued that Harvard officials did nothing as Jewish students were “harassed, physically assaulted, stalked, and spat upon.”

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New aircraft carrier heads toward the Middle East after reports of issues on long-deployed USS Lincoln

The Pacific-based aircraft carrier USS George Washington has begun heading toward the Middle East, according to Navy statements and open-source information.

It comes as reports have emerged of mental health and supply issues aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose long deployment in support of the Iran war includes a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 240 days.

The Navy acknowledges the war has created an environment “where traditional supply hubs in the Middle East were disrupted by combat actions.” That, in turn, led to shortages and loss of mail aboard the Lincoln.

“Leadership prioritized mission-critical supplies: first food, then hygiene items, then mail,” the Navy statement said, before assuring that sailors aboard the ship now have access to clean water and “healthy meal options.”

Several Democratic lawmakers have called for investigations, more information and greater visibility into conditions aboard the USS Lincoln.

Kennedy Center board votes to add Trump’s name to the building’s facade

The Kennedy Center board has voted to add President Donald Trump’s name to the facade of the performing arts building. That’s according to Rep. Joyce Beatty and lawyers.

The move Thursday comes after the board decided to move forward with a two-year closure to allow for substantial renovation work, while some outdoor programming may continue.

Kennedy Center board moves forward with a 2-year closure to allow for renovations, AP sources say

The Kennedy Center will move forward with a two-year closure of the sprawling performing arts venue to allow for substantial renovation work, while some outdoor programming may continue, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The decision, made Thursday by a board largely composed of President Donald Trump’s allies, amounts to a doubling down on the institution’s initial plan so changes could be made that leaders said were necessary for safety. Critics have raised concerns that Trump could move ahead with more drastic renovations as part of his second-term effort to remodel Washington in his image.

The two people were not authorized to publicly discuss the board’s action before an official announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in May blocked a closure set to take effect July 5. It was not immediately clear whether the board’s move would prompt another round of legal challenges. Cooper had ruled that the board’s March 16 vote backing the move appeared “ill-informed and seemingly preordained.”

In moving forward, board members may face pressure to prove they have thoroughly considered their options.

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Associated Press reporter Steven Sloan contributed to this report.

Trump White House says it’s losing $19B-$26B a year in revenue as countries dodge tariffs

The Trump White House said in a new report on Thursday that countries are routing their exports through third countries to avoid U.S. tariffs, estimating tax revenue losses of $19 billion to $26 billion annually.

The report specifically highlights that China responded to new tariffs in 2018 by sending its goods to other nations ranging from Mexico to Malaysia for packaging and limited assembly — a practice known as transshipping. That pattern made it look like U.S. imports from China had dropped, but enabled Beijing to continue growing its manufacturing sector in ways that could challenge U.S. factories and employment.

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Democrats are gathering to give final approval to their 2028 presidential primary calendar

Democrats are gathering to finalize their 2028 presidential primary calendar this week, setting the stage for a wide-open contest to succeed President Donald Trump and chart a path ahead as the party’s voters oscillate between progressive and more moderate candidates.

The Democratic National Committee is expected to vote at its summer meeting in Austin, Texas, on the new order that frontloads states with more diverse populations.

The meeting comes ahead of bitterly contested midterm elections that will decide control of Congress later this year. Democratic voters have delivered mixed messages on the direction they want to see the party go — backing candidates viewed as more left-wing as well as moderates in consequential primaries across several states.

The group also is convening at a time of internal turmoil, with some members calling for DNC Chairman Ken Martin to be replaced.

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Did you pay tariffs last year? You might be due a refund from FedEx or UPS

If you bought something from an overseas vendor last year, it might be time to check your bank account.

Shippers including FedEx and UPS that acted as customs brokers for imported packages and received tariff refunds from the U.S. government have started to pass on those refunds to the customers that originally paid the tariffs.

The refunds to consumers are the last step in a monthslong process that kicked off in February when the Supreme Court struck down sweeping tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump in March 2025 under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act on goods from almost every country. The court ordered the government to return the tariffs it collected.

So far, about $100 billion in tariffs have been refunded to companies who paid them under a system set up by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

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US unemployment claims rise but remain at historically healthy levels

The Labor Department reported Thursday that 209,000 people filed jobless claims last week, up from a revised 200,000 the week before and higher than the 205,000 forecasters had expected. The four-week average of applications, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, was unchanged at 199,000.

The overall number of people collecting employment benefits the week that ended Aug. 1 dropped by 22,000 to 1.78 million.

Claims for jobless benefits are a proxy for layoffs, and they’ve been at a historically low range of around 200,000 to 230,000 a week for the past year, suggesting Americans who have jobs enjoy unusual job security. The U.S. unemployment rate is low at 4.1%, as the economy has proven resilient despite a spike in energy prices caused by the fighting with Iran.

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US stocks rise toward records as oil prices drop and inflation gets less bad

The stock market is rising toward an all-time high Thursday following the latest sign that inflation is getting less bad. Stocks also got a lift from easing oil prices in their latest yo-yo move.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.8% and was on track to top its record set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 185 points, or 0.3%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1% higher.

Wall Street relaxed after a report showed prices at the U.S. wholesale level were 4.7% higher last month than a year earlier. While that’s still very high, it’s not as bad as June’s 5.5% inflation rate at the wholesale level, and it was slightly better than economists expected.

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House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries says party is in a moment of ‘generation change’

During an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Atlanta, Jeffries said progressive wins in recent congressional races show generational change.

“I think transition, change, renewal will continue to be an important part of the story, and that energy is being brought to the House in a variety of different ways, including from our progressive members,” Jeffries said.

But he also highlighted his own ascent to Democratic leader and some moderate wins as part of the same trend.

“I think we’ll see what happens in terms of what the caucus looks like on the other side of the midterm election,” Jeffries said when asked if the party’s progressive wing would have greater influence. “Our focus right now is making sure that we win as many seats as we can in November.”

But Trump’s vaccine order is not legally binding

Despite the precedent-breaking nature of Trump’s order, some experts are skeptical it will result in meaningful changes.

Neither the White House nor the FDA can compel drugmakers to develop and seek approval for new vaccines. And from a business perspective, companies have little incentive to develop individual versions of vaccines they already sell in combination shots.

“They’d be competing against themselves, and there’s no reason to do that,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia vaccine researcher and former government adviser.

While Trump’s order calls for more federal research and recommendations, only state governments have the legal authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren. The order simply advises states to consider updating their laws to reflect the Trump administration’s approach.

“I think states will ignore this,” Offit said. “I think that bottom line is that we don’t need to look to Donald Trump for our medical advice.”

Trump’s vaccine plan would require manufacturing overhaul

Under Trump’s executive order, federal officials are instructed to develop within 90 days plans for breaking up the MMR shot and spacing out other vaccines.

But pharmaceutical scientists and former regulators say those changes would likely take years and require drugmakers to spend tens of millions of dollars on new studies and manufacturing facilities.

Currently, there are no individual vaccines in the U.S. for measles, mumps or rubella. All the vaccines approved for those viruses by the Food and Drug Administration are combination shots. That three-in-one approach has been the standard in the U.S. since the early 1970s.

Dr. Jesse Goodman, a former FDA vaccine chief, said companies would have to conduct large studies showing new individual shots produced immune system-boosting reactions in children similar to the current versions.

US ambassador condemns settler siege of Palestinian homes in the West Bank

Israeli settlers have besieged three homes in the occupied West Bank for several days, including one owned by a Palestinian American, in what the U.S. ambassador called a “horrific act of terror” on Thursday.

Mike Huckabee’s remarks on X represented an unusually sharp rebuke from the Trump administration of the latest episode in a surge of settler violence in the region.

Starting Sunday, settlers gathered around three houses in the village of Qusra, according to local officials, Palestinian American homeowner Loui Ridi, and Ridi’s brother. At times numbering dozens, the settlers threw stones, attempted to bring down a stone wall nearby, and prevented the occupants from leaving as their food and water dwindled.

Israeli troops have intervened to try to restore order. On Thursday morning, Ridi’s brother, Qusai Abu Rida, who had holed up in the house with his own teenage son to defend it, said they were moved by Israel’s military to another home but still cannot leave the area.

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USAID fallout: In Nepal, when the aid workers stopped coming, the women and babies started dying

One baby at a time, the world is marching toward a grim milestone: Because of global cuts to foreign aid, the Gates Foundation has predicted 2025 will be the first year this century where child deaths will increase.

And while global child mortality data for 2025 won’t be available for several months, health officials are already bracing for a surge in deaths among the world’s youngest and most vulnerable.

The decision by President Donald Trump’s administration to dissolve the United States Agency for International Development — once the world’s largest humanitarian donor — gutted maternal and neonatal care, decimated nutrition programs for millions of pregnant women and children and left scores of birthing centers devoid of equipment, medicine and staff.

The U.S. government has repeatedly insisted that no one — and, particularly, no children — have died because of its funding cuts. But The Associated Press has documented the deaths of women and children from Myanmar to Nigeria.

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Reflecting Pool’s botched repairs threaten to tarnish the National Park Service’s reputation

President Donald Trump’s botched repairs at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool have landed the National Park Service in a political predicament.

The beloved federal agency, its iconic park rangers and other employees have been serving the public while managing controversial demands by the Republican president — from revising exhibits at parks and other sites to the demolition of important structures under its stewardship, such as the White House’s East Wing, to arresting visitors for alleged vandalism at the pool.

Critics say the monthslong Reflecting Pool saga and other demands by Trump risk undermining the integrity of a federal agency that’s long been held in high esteem by the American public.

“Never — not once in decades — have I witnessed such systematic degradation, disrespect and dismantling of the National Park Service as I see today under the thumb of President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum,” said Bill Wade, a former park ranger and superintendent.

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Rubio and Bessent stayed on decoy flight from Turkey as Trump switched planes, official says

The two most senior members of Trump’s Cabinet, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, flew out of last month’s NATO summit in Turkey on what was effectively a decoy plane following an Iranian threat, while Trump was secretly moved to a smaller military jet, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

The official, who was briefed on the situation and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details of presidential travel, said Rubio was aware of the switch and details of the threat behind it but could or would not say why he had stayed on the plane. The official said Bessent was likely aware but did not know for sure.

The official, however, noted that security precautions for the president — especially one who has been the target of several assassination attempts — are more robust than those for even top members of the Cabinet.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the secretaries of State and Treasury follow the vice president and the highest ranking member of each chamber of Congress in the presidential line of succession.

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— Matthew Lee

Kennedy Center board set to vote on whether to move forward with closure

The Kennedy Center’s board is expected to meet Thursday to consider plans for the performing arts venue’s future after a federal judge blocked an earlier move for a two-year closure that would allow for substantial renovations.

Ahead of the meeting, the Kennedy Center’s management said it would present the board with three approaches for consideration.

The options would include a complete closure or a partial closure that would allow “some continued public access and limited programming in spaces unaffected” by the work. A third option would “consider a highly limited series of phased closures to address only the Center’s most serious infrastructure needs while scheduling and maintaining a full slate of programming.”

In blocking earlier plans for closure, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled the board’s March 16 vote backing the move appeared “ill-informed and seemingly preordained.” In moving forward, the board, which is largely made up of President Donald Trump’s allies, may face pressure to prove they’ve thoroughly considered their options.

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is leaving the Trump administration

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the youngest person to hold the role, will leave the Trump administration at the end of the month to spend more time with her young family.

Leavitt, 28, called it a “bittersweet decision” in a social media post Wednesday shortly after President Donald Trump announced she would be stepping down. She recently returned to the White House podium after the birth of her second child, a daughter named Viviana, in May. She also has a 2-year-old son.

“The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary — and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life,” Leavitt wrote.

Trump did not outline plans for who might replace her in the high-profile role.

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The New York Times reported this week that Randall Lane was paid by RJ Shook, whose company, Shook Research, worked with Forbes since 2016 to publish rankings of wealth advisers. The payment was made after Shook sold a majority stake in the company to a private equity firm a year ago.

A internal email dated July 23 and reviewed by The Associated Press confirmed that Lane, who had been editor and chief content officer, no longer worked for the company. It provided no other details of his departure. Lane had worked for Forbes for nearly 16 years and as its top editor since 2017.

“When this undisclosed conflict of interest was brought to our attention, we examined the situation closely and took the appropriate action immediately,” a spokesperson for Forbes said in an email Thursday. She added: “Forbes remains focused on delivering trusted journalism."

A person who works at Forbes and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue told the AP that the staff discovered the apparent reasons behind the firing by reading the Times story. A subsequent email sent out this week said the company could not comment on the matter further.

Former editor quoted as saying he ‘made a mistake’

The Times quoted a person familiar with Lane’s thinking as saying he considered the payment a gift in return for advice he had provided Shook over the years.

"'I made a mistake, and I take responsibility for it," Mr. Lane said in a statement to The Times. I should have disclosed the gift and failing to was a serious error in judgment. I deeply regret that, and I lost the job and team I love because of it."

Lane and a spokesperson for Forbes did not respond to requests for comment.

It's unclear why Shook paid Lane. But the company and Forbes apparently had a close relationship. On its website, for example, Shook Research lists 12 rankings of wealth advisers and management teams in partnership with Forbes.

Also unclear is why Lane thought disclosing the payment would have solved the ethical issues it may have raised. Traditional newsrooms typically forbid journalists from accepting payments from sources or business partners to avoid conflicts of interest — or even the appearance of conflict.

Forbes' statement of editorial values and standards says that the company "prohibit(s) all staff members and contributors from accepting compensation, privileges or favors of any kind from people, companies or groups featured in their coverage.

“Any real or perceived conflicts of interest or relationships at all (financial, professional, legal actions, personal or otherwise) must be avoided and/or discussed with the appropriate managing editor. If approved, it must be explicitly disclosed in the story to readers to maintain their trust,” it reads. “Any attempt to evade or failure to honor these solemn responsibilities is a serious offense and is subject to review and swift disciplinary action.”

Public trust in media is flagging

The Times report comes at a low moment for public trust in the media. A majority of Americans — 57% — said they have low confidence in journalists to act in the best interests of the public, according to a Pew Research Center analysis in February.

Forbes was founded in 1917 and developed into an influential biweekly account of corporate America, putting giants like Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett on its cover.

Lane was apparently aware of trust issues in the news business. In 2024, he published a column titled, “How Forbes Delivers Journalism You Can Trust.”

“Thomas Jefferson famously noted that we get the government we deserve,” he wrote. “That’s true of our media too.”

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Associated Press journalist Hannah Schoenbaum contributed to this report.

White families make up the largest share of participants so far, as do those considered low-income, the comptroller’s office noted in a report released earlier this month. The report did not say how many students previously attended private school or received home schooling, but new data shows that 70%  of families who have joined or have pending invites to the program fall 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. 

The number of participants increased to 101,600 by Aug. 13, Huffines said. More than 100,000 students remain on the waitlist.

The numbers continue to change as families accept or decline their invitations, according to the comptroller’s office. More than 20,700 families have declined invites so far, most of whom previously had children in public school. 

State officials invited 15,000 families to the program this week, all of whom earn between $66,000 to $165,000 per year for a family of four.

State officials expect to have more complete data by early September, after hearing back from waitlisted families who received offers because others declined or did not confirm enrollment. First-year numbers could also shift during the school year if students drop out of the program.

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.

Participating parents with a child in private school 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.

The average per-student award is between $7,500 and $8,000, according to the comptroller’s office. Those numbers could fluctuate as participation changes. 

Fewer than 30 students with disabilities received the full $30,000 award. 

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).

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, according to the Aug. 1 report. 

In that earlier data, 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.

Blanche's speech inside the storied Great Hall at Justice Department headquarters represented an effort to reassure lawyers and law enforcement officials on the heels of a tumultuous confirmation battle that exposed deep concerns about the direction of the agency under Republican President Donald Trump.

Blanche vowed to uphold the rule of law “without fear or favor,” and told staff he would welcome their ideas and encourage disagreement. Without mentioning specific moves that have raised alarms from critics that Blanche is still functioning as Trump’s personal lawyer, the attorney general acknowledged he would “not get every decision right.”

“Everything that I do will not be the right path or the right decision,” said Blanche, who served as Trump's criminal defense lawyer before entering the department last year as deputy attorney general. “No one does that, but I do promise you this: I promise you that I will work as hard as any of you. I promise that I’ll listen to you. That I will listen to the ideas that you have, or adjustments that we need to make, and if we need to make them, I will make them.”

Blanche is assuming control of the Justice Department at a turbulent time, with mass firings and resignations having hollowed out the workforce and a slew of politically charged investigations drawing concerns that the agency is being used as a weapon to target the president's perceived foes.

He was confirmed by the Senate early Saturday by the narrowest of margins, opposed by two Republicans who expressed concerns about what they described as the politicization of the Justice Department under Trump.

Blanche told the workforce he is proud of the department's work under the second Trump administration to tackle violent crime, illegal drug trafficking and violent gangs and cartels.

"It’s easy to focus on the negative or the news story that is critical of something we’re doing or something that we’ve done, or questions something that we're doing or something that we've done," Blanche said. “But do not forget that we have accomplished a tremendous amount of good, positive work in the past year and a half.”

Justice Connection, a network of alums, said in a statement that “Blanche’s platitudes will only resonate if his actions start matching his words." The group noted that the department under Blanche's leadership has pushed out employees who opposed decisions in high-profile cases or who were deemed insufficiently loyal to the administration's agenda.

“Thousands more have left because leadership has consistently violated the principles Blanche articulated: prosecuting defendants based only on the facts and the law; holding those who attack law enforcement accountable; and respecting the courts,” the group said.

The 2026-27 NBA schedule was released Thursday, setting the dates for the two former NBA Finals MVPs to return to face the teams that traded them this summer.

The schedules for opening night and Christmas had already been unveiled earlier this week, so those two games were among the most intriguing matchups not yet known. Brown, who was dealt from the Celtics to the rival Philadelphia 76ers in a stunning move, will play his first game back in Boston on Jan. 21.

Antetokounmpo was expected to be traded by Milwaukee this offseason — at one point speculation was that he might be swapped for Brown — and was eventually dealt to Miami. The Heat will travel to face the Bucks for the first time on Jan. 28.

Both of those games, which will be on Thursday nights, will stream on Prime Video.

Other details about the schedule:

From start to finish

The season will open Oct. 20 with a tripleheader, highlighted by LeBron James, Brown and the 76ers visiting the Knicks, who will receive their rings after winning the franchise's first championship since 1973.

The regular season ends April 11. All-Star weekend is set for Feb. 19-21 in Phoenix.

Busy nights and nights off

Every team will play on Monday, Nov. 2, and there will then be no games the following night, which is Election Day in the U.S. The league is leaving that first Tuesday in November as an open day in hopes that fans and members of the NBA community will participate in the voting process.

No teams will play on Saturday, April 10, the second-to-last day of the regular season. Every team is then in action on the final day, with all the games matching Eastern Conference teams and the one interconference matchup scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. EDT. The games involving West teams are set for 8:30 p.m.

Where to watch the games

There will be 90 regular-season games televised nationally on ABC or NBC, up from 79 last season. Every team will be scheduled to appear on national TV at least twice.

Throughout the season, games will stream on Peacock on Monday nights, be shown on NBC and Peacock on Tuesdays, be televised by ESPN on Wednesdays, and stream on Prime Video on Fridays.

Saturday night primetime games on ABC begin Dec. 12 with the Knicks visiting the Heat, while NBC's “Sunday Night Basketball” returns Jan. 24 with Oklahoma City visiting Golden State.

Prime Video will begin streaming Thursday night doubleheaders in January and some Saturday afternoon games starting Feb. 6 with Portland at Memphis, when Ja Morant returns to face the Grizzlies for the first time.

A lot of TV time

The NBA champion Knicks have the most appearances on ABC with six, while the Lakers, 76ers, San Antonio Spurs and Minnesota Timberwolves all are featured on ESPN eight times.

The Knicks, Spurs, 76ers, Thunder, Warriors, Nuggets, Lakers and Houston all get the maximum 11 appearances on NBC.

Back-to-backs and schedule breaks

Teams will average 14.2 back-to-backs this season, the lowest total since the NBA Cup was added to the schedule, and no team will have more than 16. No team will play eight games in 12 nights, or 18 in 30.

There are 59 back-to-backs involving at least 750 miles of travel, down from 74 last season.

No team will be scheduled to play the night before games in the NBA Cup, or if they are in nationally televised games on Christmas Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Sunday nights on NBC or Saturday nights on ABC.

Milestone moments

If Kevin Durant averages 26 points, as he did in his first season in Houston, he could move past Kobe Bryant into fourth place on the career scoring list sometime around Jan. 16, when the Rockets would be at the midpoint of their schedule.

Rick Carlisle is set to become the eighth man to coach 2,000 NBA games on March 8, when the Indiana Pacers play their 65th game of the season.

___

See AP’s full NBA coverage here

“I can confirm what’s already public: lab testing showed the substance in the baggies was not meth,” Reitz, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, said in a statement to the Tribune.

Reitz didn’t say what substance was actually in the plastic bags the FBI found in the van driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, the 52-year-old Mexican shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on July 7.

On July 14, a week after Salgado Araujo’s killing, the FBI suggested there could be meth inside the van when it sought a search warrant to test “crystal-like substances.”

The search warrant affidavit was made public the day after it was filed, a move that critics saw as unusually fast and aimed at staining the victim’s and witnesses’ names, but the test results still haven’t been released a month later.

Reitz’s office didn’t respond to questions about whether the test results will be made public, citing the ongoing investigation into the shooting. A spokesperson for the FBI’s Houston office said they “continue to decline commenting on an open investigation.”

U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office and a lawyer representing Salgado Araujo’s brother have insisted the substance in the bags was salt that the men mixed with water and lemon to stay hydrated while working construction during the hot Texas summers.

“They made the announcement (about the search warrant) with full intention to cause harm, period. They could have done the test before the announcement, but normally within one or two days you already know if it’s drugs or not,” said attorney Raed Gonzalez, who is representing two of the witnesses, José Trinidad Rojas Pliego and Daniel Tirado Pantoja, for their habeas corpus petitions challenging their detention.

“If they arrest a client of mine right now with something that looks like marijuana, it’s immediately sent for analysis and we have the result the next day because they have to book him,” Gonzalez added. “You have it that fast, within one or two days.”

Reitz said that “there was never a ‘suggestion’ of narcotics. We had probable cause, which is exactly why we test substances law enforcement believes may be illegal. That’s the process working as designed.”

Reitz added that there’s nothing unusual about federal officials quickly making information like the search warrant affidavit public “when the public deserves transparency.”

The FBI crime lab is one of the largest and most sophisticated in the country, if not the most, and a drug test is a “fairly straightforward” procedure, said Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who became a professor of policing and public safety at the University of South Carolina.

“When it’s in the government’s interest to get an answer quickly, they can get an answer quickly,” he said. “But the opposite is also true: with the right couple of phone calls, somebody can slow-walk something.”

If a drug test is high priority, Stoughton said, a drug test can take a few days to a week. For lower priority tests, he added, “it may take significantly longer than that.”

“I think we see it in multiple administrations and sometimes with state and local police agencies, where there is a reluctance to release information that they think might make them look bad or that might contradict a narrative that they are trying to establish,” Stoughton said. “One of the hard-earned lessons in policing at every level is that it is much better to be upfront with information, even if that information seems bad for you, than it is to try and hide information.”

Early in the morning of July 7, Salgado Araujo picked up his brother Víctor and their fellow workers, Rojas Pliego and Tirado Pantoja, and headed to a construction job in his van. A little before 7 a.m., two unmarked ICE vehicles without emergency lights or sirens started following them through Magnolia Park, a heavily Latino Houston neighborhood.

ICE argued in a statement that Salgado Araujo rammed their vehicles trying to flee and the officers shot in self-defense. The other men in the van later said Salgado Araujo never tried to hit the officers after and instead ICE vehicles struck them from behind and the side.

“When we look at other things this administration has done towards victims and witnesses, it’s to attempt to tarnish their name and put doubt in the public’s mind about their intentions and their good moral character,” said Ruby Powers, the attorney for Víctor Salgado Araujo.

Only Rojas Pliego has been released. Víctor Salgado Araujo and Tirado Pantoja remain in ICE detention centers.

“We moved on,” Powers added. “They tried to do something. They were unsuccessful because my client and those in the van were of good moral character, they were good, hard-working individuals, just trying to go to work.”

Jaquelin Flores was taken into custody Wednesday and released from the Bexar County jail on a $100,000 bond the same day, jail records show.

San Antonio police responded to the two-vehicle crash around 11 a.m. on Aug. 3 at the intersection of Hardy Oak Boulevard and Sable Canyon.

Upon arrival, officers found two drivers injured and a T-bone crash involving two SUVs.

One driver, identified as Flores, suffered minor injuries and was taken to a local hospital.

The other driver, identified as 64-year-old Valerie Keeney, was pronounced dead at the scene, San Antonio police said.

After further investigation, officers determined that Keeney attempted to turn left onto Hardy Oak Boulevard southbound when she was hit by Flores, who was traveling northbound on the same street, the affidavit said.

The collision caused Keeney to be trapped in her vehicle before she later died from her injuries.

Further investigation and witness statements revealed that Flores didn’t possess a driver’s license at the time of the crash and was driving twice over the posted speed limit, the affidavit states.

Authorities retrieved data from Flores’ airbag control module, which showed she was traveling 87 mph before the fatal collision, the affidavit said.

Flores’ next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 10, according to jail records.

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Burnet and Webb middle schools received a fifth consecutive failing accountability rating from the Texas Education Agency, the Austin school district announced Thursday, triggering a state law that directs Education Commissioner Mike Morath to either close the schools or appoint a board of managers to replace the elected school board.

Meanwhile, Dobie Middle School broke its streak of four consecutive failing ratings by earning a D, pausing the school’s accountability clock and avoiding the immediate threat of triggering the state intervention law for the campus.

Overall, the Austin school district received a B grade, an improvement from last year’s rating, district leaders announced Thursday. The ratings are preliminary until districts have a chance to appeal, the education agency reviews those appeals and finalizes campus grades in December.

Thursday’s announcement, which comes a day before TEA publicly releases accountability ratings statewide, moves Austin ISD one step closer to potential state intervention after months of district efforts to avoid it. The district has until Sept. 8 to appeal the data that led to the ratings.

District leaders will review data across schools to determine which ratings, if any, they would appeal, Superintendent Matias Segura said in an interview. Segura said he has not been in communication with TEA about whether the agency has plans to take over the district.

The A-F accountability system measures student achievement, academic growth and college and how well the school prepared students for life after high school. Under Texas law, five consecutive failing ratings mandates the education commissioner close the campus or take over the district by replacing the elected school board with a board of managers.

“I understand there is an anxiousness and concern in the community,” Segura said. “We are going to be here tomorrow, the teachers are going to show up, we are going to do the work to ensure their student gets what they need, regardless of what that looks like for that specific family, for that specific school. AISD will continue to be here; we have been here for 145 years.”

Two dozen Austin ISD schools, including Burnet, Dobie and Webb, were under state-mandated improvement plans last school year due to repeated failing ratings. But only those three middle schools were one failing rating away from triggering the state intervention law. District leaders closed another middle school, Paredes, in July after warning the school board the campus could receive a fourth consecutive failing rating for 2025-26 based on its testing performance last spring. That rating was confirmed Thursday.

Segura declined to speculate on the state education agency’s next steps for Austin ISD, but said the district is focused on doing the work the agency expects to improve student outcomes. Change takes time, he said.

Monthslong effort to avoid intervention falls short

At the end of the 2025-26 school year, Austin ISD closed 10 schools, seven of which were on state-mandated improvement plans. But the district could not close Dobie, Webb or Burnet during the school year to avoid state intervention. A TEA rule prohibits districts from closing a campus during a school year in which it could receive a fifth consecutive failing rating. To avoid another failing accountability rating, the district would have needed to close the schools before the 2025-26 school year began.

Austin ISD leaders spent months attempting to avoid state intervention after Segura told trustees in January that beginning- and middle-of-the-year testing data showed academic progress at Dobie, Webb and Burnet, but likely not enough improvement to avoid additional unacceptable ratings, potentially triggering a state takeover.

In the spring, board members voted to hand operational control of the three schools to Texas Council for International Studies, a nonprofit and the only organization that bid to manage the schools, hoping the partnership would qualify for a two-year pause on accountability ratings.

TEA later denied that request, saying the nonprofit did not meet the state’s requirements.

District leaders initially said they would submit additional evidence supporting the organization’s track record, but Austin ISD abandoned the partnership in July, just weeks after it formally began. As an explanation for the change, district leaders said the schools had shown enough academic progress for the district to resume operating the campuses itself.

Preliminary STAAR results released in June suggested the three schools were improving, but not enough to lift most students to grade-level performance. TEA considers students who approach, meet and exceed grade level expectations to be passing.

Burnet and Dobie posted notable gains in reading and math, helping improve their accountability scores. Webb also improved but continued to lag academically, with only about 15% of students meeting or exceeding grade-level expectations in reading and just under 10% doing so in math.

How Austin ISD schools performed

According to the state’s report, across Austin ISD:

• 61 schools open in 2025-26 received received an A or B rating
• 31 campuses open in 2025-26 got a D or F rating
• 8 schools broke their chain of consecutive unacceptable ratings
• 35 campuses increased a letter grade

Last year, a dozen Austin ISD schools faced three consecutive unacceptable ratings. Following a combination of academic improvement and school consolidations, only two of those schools – Linder and Pecan Springs elementaries – will receive a fourth unacceptable rating this year.

Segura said he brought campus leaders with a history of improving campuses to those schools and feels confident the schools will improve.

State law requires schools that receive one to two failing ratings to develop targeted improvement plans. After a third failing rating, schools must implement a state-approved turnaround plan, which can include replacing school leadership and operating with largely a new staff.

What happens next?

Austin ISD leaders have until Sept. 8 to appeal the ratings if they believe the agency made an error. Segura said district leaders would examine the preliminary data to determine what, if anything, would be appealed. The agency would then have 90 days to review the appeals and the campus grades would become final in early December.

“These are not negligible increases in As and Bs or even performance; these are significant,” Segura told the Current. “At the same time, the area that has been an immense focus for the district is middle schools, and certainly with Burnet, Webb and Dobie we took an aggressive intervention of restarting the campus. We made adjustments over the course of the year and we didn’t see the growth that we would have expected or hoped to have seen.”

With Burnet and Webb now receiving a preliminary fifth consecutive failing rating, Austin ISD will cross the legal threshold for state intervention if those ratings become final. The education commissioner would then determine whether to appoint a board of managers to govern the district or instead close the campuses while placing the district under state oversight with an appointed conservator.

Segura said he spent time at Burnet, Webb and Dobie this summer, and there will be two new campus leaders at the schools, adding the district was in a better position to support students based on what administrators saw last year.

TEA has taken different approaches in previous interventions.

In Houston ISD, state education leaders took over the school district, replacing the elected school board with a board of managers and superintendent. The district saw higher standardized test scores but also enrollment losses of more than 13,000 students.

Earlier this year, the agency intervened in Wichita Falls ISD by approving the transfer of students from a chronically-failing middle school to another campus, which was to be operated by Third Future Schools, appointing a conservator and closing the school that triggered the state intervention.The founder of Third Future Schools is the state-appointed superintendent of Houston ISD.

Segura said as the district progresses through the fall semester, he will work with the school board to determine what is best for the schools, including exploring a path similar to that taken by Wichita Falls. “Nothing is off the table, but, again, we are not there yet,” Segura said.

The agency is expected to notify Austin ISD later this year of its decision and timeline for any intervention, though it has not said when that announcement will come.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns said that President Donald Trump's administration failed to prove an ongoing violation of federal civil rights laws. The judge said the lawsuit, filed in March, mostly focuses on incidents that took place in the 2023-24 academic year, with a few from March 2025.

The cases were “too isolated and episodic” to prove a persistent civil rights violation at the Ivy League campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the judge said.

“We disagree with the ruling and are assessing next steps,” said Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice. Harvard did not immediately provide a comment on the decision.

The lawsuit accused Harvard of failing to protect Jewish students during pro-Palestinian demonstrations that roiled the campus after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. The Trump administration argued Harvard officials did nothing as Jewish students were “harassed, physically assaulted, stalked, and spat upon.”

In a statement after the lawsuit was filed, Harvard said it “cares deeply about members of our Jewish and Israeli community and remains committed to ensuring they are embraced, respected, and can thrive on our campus.”

Harvard President Alan M. Garber says the university formed a task force to combat antisemitism. The university also hired a new provost and new deans and reformed its discipline policies to make them “more consistent, fair and effective,” Garber has said.

The government's case sought to recover billions of dollars in federal research grants awarded to Harvard since October 2023. Trump officials argued they had a right to recoup the money under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal law barring discrimination based on race or national origin.

The lawsuit is among several actions the government has taken against Harvard since the Ivy League university refused a list of demands made by the White House after Trump, a Republican, returned to office last year. Trump officials have separately sought to cut Harvard's research funding and limit its ability to enroll foreign students and U.S. military members.

In a separate legal case last year, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reverse more than $2.6 billion in federal funding cuts to Harvard. That decision found that the White House put unconstitutional conditions on federal funding, using antisemitism as a “smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault” on universities.

Despite their bitter dispute, Harvard and the Trump administration have held some negotiations, and Trump himself said the two sides had been close to reaching an agreement. But when the Justice Department filed this civil rights lawsuit in March, it pointed to an extraordinary impasse. When colleges are found in violation of federal civil rights law, they almost always reach compliance through voluntary agreements.

The man died in Buta, the capital of Bas-Uele, after traveling there from Isiro in Haut-Uele province, said Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

He was a motorcycle-taxi driver who had sought treatment at several hospitals before he died, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, head of Congo’s National Institute ​for Biomedical Research, said. His colleagues tried to forcibly take his dead body, prompting police intervention and concerns that more people may have been exposed to the virus, Muyembe added.

The outbreak in eastern Congo, considered the fastest-growing one yet, is on track to surpass the deadliest one in history, which erupted over a decade ago and killed over 11,000 people, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for the current outbreak.

It has killed over 2,100 people out of more than 4,500 cases, according to the latest government figures. This death toll has been reached almost three times faster than in the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa — the worst in history.

The outbreak is unfolding in some of the most challenging conditions imaginable, with strikes by some unpaid health workers, threats by rebel groups, anger from long-traumatized communities and misinformation asserting that Ebola isn’t real.

Bas-Uele is a vast province in northeastern Congo that borders the Central African Republic, where there is recurring armed violence that has forced thousands to flee and take refuge in the province. Access can be difficult due to bad and poorly connected roads as well as limited communication networks, and there are frequent population movements related to gold mining and displacement from conflict.

As of Thursday, six out of 26 of Congo’s provinces have been impacted. About 90% of all cases and 80% of deaths are concentrated in Ituri province, the WHO said Wednesday.

Mercy Corps, an aid group, warned Thursday that Ebola cases have been reported along a major travel route about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Congo's border with South Sudan, expressing concern over the outbreak's “widening footprint.” No cases have been confirmed in South Sudan so far.

Unpaid health workers' strikes and low contact tracing hamper response

Meanwhile, health workers at the Nizi Treatment Center in Ituri province, one of the most affected in the area, went on strike Thursday, leading to the temporary closure of the center after they said they have not been paid for three months.

Kaseya on Thursday called on the Congolese government to pay the outstanding salaries.

“We need to pay health workers,” he told reporters. “This is the responsibility of the government, not partners. And they told us that money is available.”

The real scope of the outbreak remains unknown. It was declared on May 15, but the WHO now says sequencing showed it began months earlier, in February.

Health authorities have said between 60% and 70% of new cases are recorded outside contacts being monitored, and that the disease is spreading at an “alarming” rate. Contact tracing helps break chains of transmission by finding exposed people early and reacting quickly if they show symptoms.

“We are chasing the virus; the virus is ahead of us,” the WHO regional director for Africa, Dr. Mohamed Yakub Janabi, said this week.

On Thursday, Kaseya from Africa CDC said “the concept of contact tracing in DRC has become useless.”

Trials for treatments and vaccines are underway

Ebola is rare but highly contagious and can be contracted from bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen, and from contaminated surfaces and materials such as bedding and clothing. The disease it causes is severe and often fatal.

Clinical trials of two possible treatments for this type of Ebola began last month in Ituri, the most affected of the five provinces in Congo where cases have been reported.

Two vaccines developed specifically for the Bundibugyo virus are now being tested in people for the first time, the WHO said Wednesday.

WHO also plans to test whether an existing Ebola vaccine could protect people against the virus after studies in animals showed promising results.

Kaseya said on Thursday that the Africa CDC supports the use of Ervebo, a vaccine authorized against the Zaire Ebola strain in provinces impacted by Bundibugyo virus. He said some studies show some cross-protection from the available vaccines.

“We are in a gray area,” he said. “And when you are in a gray area, you have to make strong decisions to stop seeing people dying."

___

Associated Press reporters Constant Same Bagalwa in Bunia, Congo, Justin Kabumba in Goma, Congo and Jean-Yves Kamale in Kinshasa contributed.

Ovidio Chojolan, 68, was last seen at 2 a.m. Wednesday, according to DPS, in the 5500 block of Harefield Drive.

DPS said Chojolan was last seen wearing a light blue T-shirt with “Florida” on it and blue jeans. He is 5 feet, 3 inches tall.

Authorities asked anyone who sees Chojolan to call 911.

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Academy museum director and president Amy Homma said in a statement that the honorees,’ “extraordinary careers exemplify the creativity, innovation, and excellence that continues to move the industry forward.”

The event’s host committee includes Questlove, Judd Apatow, Teyana Taylor, Ludwig Göransson, Seth Rogen and Demi Moore. Co-chairs are Robert Rodriguez, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw.

The gala raises money to support the museum, from its exhibitions to its public screenings. Theron and Carpenter will be participating in several of those public programs — Theron for a conversation with the museum’s teen council and a screening of “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and Carpenter for three nights of screenings of his films, including “Halloween,” which ties in to the museum’s new exhibition entitled The Horror Show.

Last year’s edition honoring Bruce Springsteen, Penélope Cruz, Bowen Yang and filmmaker Walter Salles raised over $12 million.

About 8 million people in the southern African country of 22 million were registered to vote at more than 13,500 polling stations in the one-day election. Voters were also choosing members of Parliament and local government councilors. The Electoral Commission of Zambia said results were expected Monday.

Voters bundled in thick jackets had queued in long lines before dawn outside polling stations across Lusaka, some huddling around makeshift fires as election officials prepared for voting.

European Union observers monitored voting at one polling station in Lusaka. Separately, a local election observer said poor voter direction, confusion over voter rolls and crowd management issues caused delays and frustration at some polling stations.

Mathias Ngoma, in his 70s, said he has voted in every election he could because “it’s the only voice I have.”

“I braved the cold to choose leaders I am hoping will make things better in our constituency,” he said.

Competing visions for Zambia’s future

The election is widely seen as a referendum on Hichilema' s handling of the economy. Elected in 2021, he is seeking a second term after restructuring Zambia’s massive foreign debt, stabilizing the economy and attracting investment.

Hichilema, one of 14 candidates, cast his ballot shortly after midday in Lusaka’s Kabulonga suburb. He described the election as a choice between continuing his government’s reforms or reversing course.

“This election is really about the people of Zambia and their future — progress as opposed to regression,” he told reporters.

Brian Mundubile, considered by analysts to be the strongest opposition candidate, cast his vote in the Olympia area. He assured Zambians that their “second independence” was imminent and encouraged them to cast their ballots peacefully.

Mundubile, who leads an alliance of opposition parties, has campaigned on promises to lower the cost of living, improve agriculture and restore democratic freedoms while accusing Hichilema’s government of undermining democratic institutions.

“This is a revolution,” he said after voting. “The will of the Zambian people will certainly prevail in this election.”

Many still struggle despite recent economic growth

Many Zambians say they don’t feel the benefits of recent economic growth as unemployment, food prices and an unstable electricity supply continue to strain household budgets.

Meki Mulota, 40, an entrepreneur, said she wanted better conditions for entrepreneurs.

“The cost of living has been high,” she said. “I want to see a government that will create an environment where entrepreneurs can sustain their businesses.”

Christopher Banda said he backed Hichilema because he believed the country was on the right track.

“I’m voting for stability,” he said. “There’s been a high cost of living ... but I think we’re heading in the right trajectory.”

A presidential candidate must win more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff.

Zambian copper production draws international interest

The election is being closely watched abroad because Zambia is a major producer of copper and is seeking to sharply increase production of the metal, which is critical to electric vehicles, renewable energy and power grids.

China is Zambia’s largest foreign investor and has extensive mining interests in the country, while the United States has sought a greater role as Washington seeks to diversify its critical-mineral suppliers and reduce its reliance on China.

Hichilema has courted investment from both China and Western partners, including the U.S., as he seeks to increase annual copper production to 3 million metric tons by 2031.

Security concerns shadow the vote

Security and political tensions rose in the final days of the campaign. Police deployed additional officers and warned against violence, disruptions at polling stations, and the circulation of false results.

Opposition parties and rights groups, including Amnesty International, accused Hichilema’s government of shrinking democratic space and using state institutions to target critics and political rivals, allegations the government rejects.

Hichilema spent four months in jail on treason charges as an opposition leader under former President Edgar Lungu, whom he defeated in 2021.

Lungu remained an influential political figure until his death in South Africa last year. A prolonged dispute between his family and the government over his funeral and burial added to tensions ahead of the election.

Zambia is regarded as one of southern Africa’s more stable democracies, with a history of peaceful transfers of power. Hichilema’s 2021 victory marked the country’s third transfer of power to an opposition candidate since multiparty democracy returned in 1991.

___

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

His former sponsor should be along for the ride.

Take a look at pit road on NASCAR's brightest day and don't be surprised to see celebrities from the kitchen to the stage rooting on Johnson.

Even with the white flag about to drop on Johnson's racing career, he's still one of stock car racing's biggest stars — and by Daytona, he should have a spot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to prove it.

“I'm going out swinging,” Johnson said with a laugh.

Maybe new Legacy Motor Club investor and Phillies slugger Bryce Harper can offer some tips.

The 50-year-old Johnson is busy in the boardroom these days looking for investors and growing his race team as the majority owner of Legacy. Almost as busy as he was on the track, when he was one of three drivers to win seven NASCAR Cup Series championships, earning a spot in the Hall of Fame.

Johnson is expected to make his 703rd and final — for real, this time — Cup start in February's Daytona 500.

Until then, the two-time Daytona 500 champion is spending his time sharpening Legacy's future.

Johnson growing into ownership role

Johnson used to spend his race weekends signing countless autographs in the garage. The fan requests are still there, for sure, only now his signature is needed more on the dotted line for deals including trying to back long-time sponsor Lowe’s to the 48 — a number Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman surrendered for the Daytona 500. Johnson also soon hopes to announce Legacy’s third driver for the 2027 season.

“I’ve approved press releases, rollout plans, all the elements have all been approved,” Johnson said. “It’s just a matter of slotting them all in.”

Johnson added some big-time winners to his race team last month as part of a strategic ownership group that includes championship athletes, Grammy Award winners, entrepreneurs, investors, motorsport greats and cultural leaders.

The Legacy investors include six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon, four-time IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti, a two-time National League MVP in Harper, Indianapolis 500 winner Tony Kanaan, former U.S. Open champion Andy Roddick, Grammy Award winner Darius Rucker, celebrity chef Guy Fieri, and six-time MLB All-Star Chase Utley.

“Jimmie's a good friend of mine and I like what he's doing,” Utley said. “It's interesting and it's going to be a good experience.”

Johnson said his star-studded friend group are true investors who are equitable partners in Legacy. More celebrity investors are expected to be announced later this year.

“Sure, I did well racing,” Johnson said. “But I don't have an enterprise like Penske or Hendrick to activate and utilize and drive that success year over year.”

Johnson became the majority owner of Legacy under a restructuring ahead of last season in which investment adviser Knighthead Capital Management bought into the Cup Series team.

Johnson has about enough investors in Legacy to fill a Daytona 500 grid.

“I knew at some point I'd probably want an investor, but I didn't know what that would look like,” Johnson said. “There was a lot of thought around other franchises and leagues, how you create profitability. The stick-and-ball sport and the way they do it makes a lot of sense. It's just a different way to generate the income to win races and championships. From there, to bring investors on, you need a pathway to profitability.”

The roadmap for Legacy turning a profit took a bit of a detour when the organization decided to add a third charter team for next season.

“It's over the horizon,” Johnson said. “A very short horizon. With the strategic ownership group like this, the IP internally, the assets they can activate with and help with, it only helps our case there.”

Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek are expected to return with Riley Herbst widely expected to join Legacy in 2027.

Jones is 20th and Nemechek is 28th in the Cup points standings. The drivers are winless and have a combined three top-five finishes as Legacy has yet to break through into a franchise that can at least compete for checkered flags.

“Some days look good,” Johnson said. “some days don't.”

Johnson dedicated to turning Legacy into winner

Johnson only raced in Cup this season at the Daytona 500 and the debut race at Naval Base Coronado.

He has a few races on deck in other racing series, just as much for fun and without the competitive pressures of NASCAR.

“I've been slowly weaning myself off,” Johnson said. “Now that I've found something that's keeping me so busy and so invigorated in the sport, I'm still competing, it's the race within the race, I am fully ready and also very excited for that day and the build up for it and all the great collaborations that will be announced shortly.”

Johnson has won 83 career races in his NASCAR career and a record five consecutive series titles. He is the only racer to be selected The Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year.

Johnson and his team sent a submission for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he was selected for one for next year.

“I sat and watched on YouTube and they announced my name and I was like, ‘holy smokes! It worked.’ So wild,” Johnson said.

Johnson is aggressively pushing for the Star to be unveiled on the Tuesday of Daytona 500 week.

Johnson found his comfort zone at Legacy

Johnson's last full-time season in NASCAR was 2020 and he spent the ensuing years chasing success in IndyCar. He even moved his family to England all while dealing with the aftermath of a family tragedy.

Johnson never had a podium finish in two years in IndyCar and wrecked out of his only Indianapolis 500 in 2022.

“That was really intentional for me go there and have fun and do it,” Johnson said. “As the two years went by, I was kind of shocked that I didn't ... I was having tons of fun, but I wasn't fulfilled. I was like, ‘what the hell is this?’ The opportunity with (Legacy) came about and I wasn't sure where it would go or how fulfilling it would be. While thinking through the two years of IndyCar, and slowing down my Cup career, what does it look like post-driving? What do I want to do?”

Johnson went on to compete in endurance races and worked in broadcasting. There was only one true calling for him and it was back at the race courses — even if not always behind the wheel — at Daytona and Dover and Darlington.

“I was going to end up back in NASCAR,” Johnson said. “I had no idea it was going to turn into this.”

He's ready for one final time — and one more win — at Daytona.

“Let's blow this thing up,” Johnson said. “Why not?”

___

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

“When you see those red lights flashing, it means stop,” said Tesilia Soliz, the Northside Independent School District’s director of transportation.

Northside ISD Chief of Police Richard Palomo said the district plans to increase traffic enforcement as campuses reopen.

“We will be enforcing traffic laws. We do have units that run radars,” Palomo said.

District officials say drivers must stop before approaching a bus that is loading or unloading students when the stop signs are extended.

Palomo also reminded drivers that pedestrians and students in crosswalks have the right of way.

Drivers should also keep their distance behind buses. Soliz encouraged drivers to stay at least 10 feet back so bus drivers can see vehicles in their mirrors.

On divided highways, the rules change. Palomo said drivers traveling on the opposite side of a road with a median do not have to stop for a bus. However, if the road is not divided, traffic in both directions must stop until the bus moves.

Texas’ standard active school zone speed limit is 20 mph. Palomo said drivers who illegally pass a stopped school bus with flashing red lights can face fines of up to $1,250. Repeat violations can carry harsher penalties.

“If you have multiple offenses for disregarding the stop bus sign, you’re gonna possibly lose your license,” Palomo said.

Northside ISD buses are also equipped with cameras that can help document violations. Soliz said the district has eight cameras on buses — four inside and four outside — along with audio and video recording.

More Back to School coverage on KSAT:

• Ingram ISD students return to class as flood repairs continue
• IDEA Public Schools welcomes 18K students on first day
• Viewers share back-to-school photos on KSAT Connect

The Labor Department reported Thursday that 209,000 people filed jobless claims last week, up from a revised 200,000 the week before and higher than the 205,000 forecasters had expected. The four-week average of applications, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, was unchanged at 199,000.

The overall number of people collecting employment benefits the week that ended Aug. 1 dropped by 22,000 to 1.78 million.

Claims for jobless benefits are a proxy for layoffs, and they've been at a historically low range of around 200,000 to 230,000 a week for the past year, suggesting that Americans who have jobs enjoy unusual job security. The U.S. unemployment rate is low at 4.1%, as the economy has proven resilient despite a spike in energy prices caused by the fighting with Iran.

"The labor market has yet to show any sign of wear and tear from the surge in oil prices since the start of the war with Iran and the global energy supply shock,'' Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a commentary.

The story is less encouraging for those trying to break into the job market and for those who lost their jobs and are looking for new work. Companies, scarred by worker shortages that followed the end of COVID-19 lockups four to five years ago, are reluctant to let go of staff; but they aren't eager to take on new workers. Economists regularly refer to a "no hire, no fire'' job market.

Last month, in fact, companies, government agencies and nonprofits together cut 23,000 jobs instead of increasing them, the Labor Department reported last week. So far this year, employers are adding 61,000 jobs a month. That is an improvement on the 9,700 they averaged last year — the weakest hiring outside a recession since 2002. The lingering effects of high interest rates and President Donald Trump's erratic trade policies discouraged companies from hiring in 2025.

Still, hiring this year remains well below the 166,00 monthly jobs created, on average, in 2023 and 2024, let alone the 491,000 a month recorded during the 2021-2022 hiring boom that followed pandemic lockdowns.

The report specifically highlights that China responded to new tariffs in 2018 by sending their goods to other nations ranging from Mexico to Malaysia for packaging and limited assembly — a practice known as transshipping. That pattern made it look like U.S. imports from China had dropped, but enabled Beijing to continue growing its manufacturing sector in ways that could challenge U.S. factories and employment.

Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser, told reporters on a conference call that China is laundering its exports through more than 40 countries, though he claimed that the issues raised in the report were really more about other nations enabling the avoidance of tariffs.

“For years, the great transshipment scam has let communist China launder its exports,” Navarro said.

The report comes ahead of a planned September visit by Chinese Leader Xi Jinping, who President Donald Trump described in flattering terms during his own visit to Beijing in May.

The Chinese government has described its relationship with the U.S. as one of “strategic stability,” yet its government policies that support exports of manufactured goods have destabilized the auto, metals and electronics sectors in America, Europe, Japan and elsewhere.

Navarro said that other nations such as India could also transship to avoid new tariffs and said that new trade frameworks pursued by the Trump administration are going to contain provisions that ensure trade partners that engage in the practice will be penalized.

The Trump administration has levied high tariffs on much of the world in hopes of protecting U.S. manufacturers, hitting allies and rivals alike with import taxes. At the same time, those tariffs have created new inflationary pressures at home.

The report includes a range of estimates for the scale of transshipments to avoid tariffs, citing government and private sector numbers to estimate roughly $34.2 billion to $303 billion of goods transshipped each year. It used a central figure of $75 billion worth of goods being transshipped to estimate how much in tax revenues have been lost.

To address the challenge, Navarro said that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has started to use artificial intelligence in a prototype program to stop transshipments. Navarro said that when an importer has been found to have falsified the origins of a good, its imports can be retroactively tariffed going back roughly a year.

The president’s tariffs during his second term have faced an array of legal challenges, with the Supreme Court overturning some of them in February. America continues to import more than it exports to the rest of the world, but the trade imbalance so far this year at $371 billion is running about $189 billion lower that it did during the same period last year.

The confirmed human case follows a series of positive mosquito trap samples collected across the county this season, the county said in a social media post. Eight mosquito trap samples have now tested positive for the virus.

Hays County Health Department officials are urging residents to take the following precautions:

• Use an EPA-registered insect repellent when outdoors
• Wear long, loose and light-colored clothes
• Remove or treat standing water around homes or workplaces to reduce mosquito breeding grounds

Approximately 80% of people infected with West Nile Virus experience no symptoms, health officials said. However, others may develop fever, headache, body aches, rash or other flu-like symptoms.

People age 50 and older, as well as those with weakened immune systems, are considered at greater risk of developing severe illness, the county said.

The Hays County Health Department and Hays County Development Services said they will continue human health and mosquito surveillance throughout mosquito season.

More recent news coverage on KSAT:

• Guadalupe Co. sheriff’s deputies shoot, kill man accused of menacing woman, GCSO says
• Lake Travis High School football player dies after medical emergency at practice, superintendent says

Today on Texas Eats NOW:

MOREA ITALIAN STEAKHOUSE

101 Club Dr, Floresville, TX 78114

Morea Italian Steakhouse in Floresville blends premium Texas steaks with classic Italian cuisine in a casual yet refined setting. Located near local recreational destinations, the restaurant serves Rosewood Texas Prime cuts, house-made pastas, seafood dishes, and creative appetizers. Menu highlights include the Plate Maserati, an 8-ounce prime beef dish topped with Gorgonzola truffle sauce, brisket pappardelle, lamb rigatoni, burrata ravioli, and lemon shrimp risotto.

Guests can also enjoy fried mozzarella, wild mushroom and Parmesan rice balls, burrata and tomato boards, and flash-fried Brussels sprouts with hot honey. A full bar features craft cocktails, margaritas, old fashioneds, and sangria, while desserts such as tiramisu provide a sweet finish. With elegant lighting, attentive service, and indoor and patio seating, Morea Italian Steakhouse offers an elevated dining experience with a Texas twist.

GRISTMILL RIVER RESTAURANT & BAR

1287 Gruene Rd, New Braunfels, TX 78130

Gristmill River Restaurant & Bar in historic Gruene serves hearty Texas comfort food from the scenic ruins of an 1878 cotton gin overlooking the Guadalupe River. The longtime New Braunfels destination is known for generous portions and classic dishes, including hand-breaded chicken fried steak, fire-roasted chicken, baby back ribs, burgers, and fresh fish. Appetizers include colossal onion rings, homemade spicy queso, spinach-artichoke dip, chicken poblano quesadillas, and bacon-wrapped jalapeño Texas Torpedoes.

The restaurant’s full bar features specialty margaritas, frozen fruit drinks, and local beers, while desserts include classic pecan pie. Its scenic setting, Texas-inspired menu, and relaxed atmosphere make Gristmill a popular destination for visitors exploring Gruene. Patrons can enjoy their meals while taking in views of the Guadalupe River and the historic surroundings of one of the area’s most recognizable dining spots.

WAFFLELICIOUS

2188 TX-46 Ste 109, New Braunfels, TX 78132

Wafflelicious in New Braunfels puts a creative spin on breakfast and lunch with sweet and savory heart-shaped waffles, loaded waffle sandwiches, classic breakfast plates, fresh pastries, and specialty coffee drinks. The menu features indulgent options such as the Berry Dream, Banana Nut Crunch, S’mores, and Apple Strudel waffles, along with savory favorites including the Southern Chicken Waffle Sandwich, Waffle Benedict, and American Breakfast.

Diners can also build their own waffles or choose from croissants, danishes, chicken salad sandwiches, and specialty lattes such as the Longhorn Latte. With a relaxed coffee-shop atmosphere and table plug-ins for working or casual gatherings, Wafflelicious offers a comfortable spot to enjoy an oversized breakfast, a sweet treat, or a cup of specialty coffee.

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

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Officers were dispatched just before 9:30 p.m. to the 11100 block of Baywood Drive, which is located near the intersection of Northwest Military Highway and Lockhill Selma Road.

SAPD said the man was riding a bicycle on Silver Oaks. At some point, police said a male and a female approached him, pushed him off his bike and stabbed him several times.

The victim was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries to his upper body, SAPD said.

According to police, the suspects fled the scene with the victim’s bike and backpack.

Police said its investigation remains ongoing.

Read also:

• BCSO: Confession over jail phone call leads to murder charge for suspect in NE Bexar County shooting

Officers responded to the shooting around 5 a.m. in the 13200 block of Blanco Road, which is located near Wurzbach Parkway.

According to an SAPD preliminary report, one of the males was shot in the torso area, while the other was shot in the lower body.

A sergeant at the scene said one of the males suffered non-life-threatening injuries to his knee. The other male suffered possible life-threatening injuries.

SAPD did not have any information on the shooter, though officers were investigating the remote area.

One of the males is in his 20s, while the other is a juvenile, according to the sergeant.

SAPD said its investigation is ongoing.

Read also:

• Man stabbed multiple times during fight on North Side, police say

The beloved federal agency, its iconic park rangers and other employees have been navigating a new reality under Trump, from orders to revise exhibits at parks and other sites to the demolition of important structures under its stewardship, such as the White House’s East Wing, to arresting visitors for alleged vandalism at the pool.

Critics say the monthslong Reflecting Pool saga and other demands by Trump risk undermining the integrity of a federal agency that has long been held in high esteem by the American public.

“Never — not once in decades — have I witnessed such systematic degradation, disrespect and dismantling of the National Park Service as I see today under the thumb of President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum,” said Bill Wade, a former park ranger and superintendent.

Wade, who now serves as executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers, wrote an op-ed for The Denver Post lamenting what he called the Trump administration's “assault on the people, the mission and the values that have made the National Park Service one of America’s most valued institutions.”

The park service has been at the center of some of Trump's most contentious actions during his second term. An executive order targeted funding and demanded reviews at national parks and other sites that Trump said advanced “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology,” resulting in changes to some exhibits on slavery or climate change.

The president has also ordered sweeping changes to historical monuments and buildings in Washington that fall under NPS' purview, including the creation of a White House ballroom and a 250-foot-tall (76-meter-tall) memorial arch. The agency meanwhile has lost at least one-quarter of its permanent workforce since Trump began his second term, through layoffs, forced retirements and resignations.

Park service employees “are being politicized and drawn into the absurdities and corruption of this administration” on a regular basis, said California Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. He cited the pool project, the proposed arch and the executive order on exhibit materials.

The ongoing political assault on the agency “is unlike anything we’ve seen in this country, and it makes life miserable at agencies like the National Park Service,” Huffman said.

Reflecting Pool saga continues

Trump launched repairs at the Reflecting Pool earlier this year, hoping to address longstanding problems at the iconic site ahead of the America 250 celebrations. But the $16 million project faced immediate problems, including peeling blue sealant and a fierce return of green algae.

Trump blamed the sealant issues on vandalism without providing evidence, and felony charges were brought against a former Olympic canoeist, David Hearn, after he was accused of vandalizing the pool.

The U.S. Park Police, a unit of the National Park Service, arrested Hearn, who denied wrongdoing and said he briefly touched a chunk of the coating.

Charges against Hearn were dropped on July 31 after prosecutors acknowledged that damage was caused by a bungled installation rather than vandalism.

The advice and counsel of career officials and rangers — instantly recognizable by their signature flat hats and green-and-gray uniforms — has been ignored or pushed aside as Trump and Burgum make decisions regarding the failed pool repair, according to an Interior Department employee who was not authorized to discuss internal discussions and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“It’s tragic,” said Ed Stierli, vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, another advocacy group. “The whole thing is a master class in how not to go about a public rehabilitation project.”

In the days since the dismissal of the charges, Trump has continued to lean on NPS in his repeated claims that vandals damaged the pool’s lining.

“A National Park Service career employee, a highly credible witness, saw David Hearn ... in broad daylight vandalize the Reflecting Pool by ‘violently’ ripping and tugging at the Pool’s somewhat delicate coating,” Trump posted Aug. 9 on his Truth Social site. Hearn's legal team said Trump “is continuing to attack an innocent man.”

Stierli, of the parks conservation group, called Trump’s reference to the unnamed park employee an example of the awkward position agency workers now face under Trump and Burgum, who has publicly backed Trump’s claims about vandalism at the pool.

“I think the public understands that unfortunately, you have the president of the United States directly driving decisions, both here in Washington and around the country,” Stierli said. The park service — and especially its career staff — “has very little control over this,” he added.

The White House and the Interior Department did not directly respond to requests for comment on the park service. The White House defended the pool project, saying Trump “promised to make D.C. safe and beautiful, and he’s delivering."

“For years, the Reflecting Pool sat neglected, plagued with algae and leaking millions of gallons of water,” the White House said in a statement. "Fixing it was common sense.”

Park service morale is at its lowest point, a former official says

Wade, the former park superintendent, called the pool repair “a comedy of errors” and “a continuation of the incompetence” shown by the Trump administration.

“Most people realize the NPS is under the gun and can’t do much about it, even though they’d like to,″ he said, adding that morale at the agency is at the lowest point he can remember.

Edicts from Washington have made clear that speaking honestly about what is going on could cost staffers their jobs, Wade said. “There’s a very strong fear among employees at NPS,″ he said in an interview. “It’s very frustrating for them, as you can imagine.”

Trump’s proposed memorial arch has faced some pushback. A recent report by park service staff warned that the proposed gilded arch could disrupt the historical significance of dozens of sites around its planned location near the Lincoln Memorial.

The arch, which last month received initial approval from a key federal commission, would impact the “integrity” of dozens of historical properties because it would change “character-defining visual and spatial relationships” between them, the report said.

Americans view the National Park Service favorably

The park service is popular with Americans. About three-quarters of U.S. adults — including similar shares of Democrats and Republicans — have a favorable opinion of the agency, according to Pew Research Center polling from 2025. Only about 1 in 10 have a negative impression, and about 15% are unsure.

A Washington Post/Ipsos poll from July found that about two-thirds of Americans say they are “dissatisfied” or “upset” about Trump’s Washington area projects, including construction of a new ballroom at the White House, painting the Reflecting Pool and building his triumphal arch. Republicans are more likely to be “enthusiastic” or “satisfied” with the projects.

About one-quarter of U.S. adults say Trump’s goal is to “make Washington more beautiful,” while about half say he has a “different goal.” In an open-ended question, many respondents speculated that Trump wants to glorify himself or leave his mark.

The pool and other recent controversies including the exhibit reviews jeopardize the agency's credibility, Wade said.

“Whether interpreting the Civil War, discussing climate science or describing the complex stories of Indigenous people, rangers have sought to present evidence, not political ideology,'' he said. ”That is now being lost.”

___

Associated Press writer Linley Sanders contributed to this story.

Western officials have previously warned that Russia stepped up a campaign of targeted killings since President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, saying they have disrupted several plots across Europe. But Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said this incident was unprecedented.

The suspect, who was allegedly recruited by Russia's secret services, was detained by Polish authorities on Aug. 7. He will be held in custody for three months, the Warsaw police said in a statement.

The American Ukrainian citizen “was uncomfortable for the Putin regime,” Tusk said in a news conference, without elaborating.

The operation was carried out in cooperation with U.S. services, said Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s minister overseeing intelligence services. He said the targeted victim was a U.S. citizen “of Ukrainian origin.” Officials did not immediately provide further details.

The Russian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the reports but said it had no additional information.

Western countries believe Russia seeks to undermine Ukraine's allies

Russia has long been accused of targeting its enemies abroad, including by using rare poisons. But intelligence officials previously told The Associated Press that Russia’s security services are now more brazen in their choice of targets, going after Russian activists and foreign supporters of Ukraine as well as military defectors.

“We must assume that the Putin regime will try to eliminate people who are inconvenient for various reasons, in various places around the world,” Tusk said on Thursday. He said that Poland and others must be prepared to counter such actions.

Western officials see the campaign as connected to Russia’s broader efforts to undermine European countries that support Ukraine. The AP has mapped about 200 acts of sabotage, arson and other disruption across Europe since the start of the war that officials have linked to Russia. President Vladimir Putin told the AP in June that Russia is not waging a sabotage campaign against Europe.

In 2006, British authorities accused Russia of being behind the killing of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London with radioactive polonium. The U.K. also blames Russia for the attempted killing of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018 with the nerve agent Novichok.

German authorities said Russia organized the 2019 killing of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a former Chechen rebel commander who was shot in a Berlin park by Vadim Krasikov, a hitman who was later greeted by Putin after he was exchanged in a spy swap.

In June, a Russian artist who was critical of Putin was shot and killed at close range near his home in eastern Poland. Tusk said at the time that the killing of Robert Kuzovkov, known by the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, had the hallmarks of a political assassination. He suggested it was possible Russia was behind it but Polish officials have not yet attributed it to Moscow.

Last year French officials disrupted a plot which they believe was aimed at killing Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian exile who lives under police protection and works to help military defectors flee Putin’s war. Lithuanian officials also disrupted a plot last year to kill a Lithuanian supporter of Ukraine and another against a Russian activist. Officials in Germany have similarly broken up two plots: one to target the head of a German weapons company supplying Ukraine, the other against a Ukrainian military official.

Polish authorities arrested a man in 2024 in what they said was a plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That year, a Russian helicopter pilot who defected was killed in Spain — with Russian operatives the prime suspects.

“This campaign is not by accident or chance,” a senior European intelligence official previously told the AP. “There is political authorization.”

___

Burrows reported from London. Stefanie Dazio in Berlin and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

EDINBURG — At 50 years old, Abel Gonzalez says he’s happy to be involved in his eight-year dream career of filmmaking, something he sees as fostering the budding film industry in the Rio Grande Valley. But, he still has some anxieties.

He’s worried that a family member — who’s a U.S. citizen — will be targeted by immigration officials because he speaks minimal English. He’s concerned that rural parts of the Valley are not adequately represented politically, and that environmental concerns over pesticides and chemicals in those areas receive little attention.

He’s also frustrated over stagnant wages. He said businesses often don’t want to pay competitive wages for services because they believe they can find someone just a few miles south in Mexico to provide the service for a cheaper price.

Gonzalez believes in voting as an important way for communities to make their voices heard about their concerns, but said underrepresentation continues to be a problem. He doesn’t see that changing anytime soon.

“We’ve been under Republican governorship for so long,” he said. “It’s like a big tanker truck that you can’t just turn around. You just have to move slowly.”

His outlook reflects that of the average Valley resident. While on average, South Texans have a positive view on their lives; their overall life evaluation has fallen near to where it was in 2009 and are experiencing higher levels of negative emotions than historical trends, according to new survey data.

Between 2009 and 2018, life evaluation in the Rio Grande Valley peaked in 2014 before declining overall, according to an analysis by Blue Zones, a think tank that studies longevity and quality of life. That decline was concentrated among Hispanic residents, while life evaluation increased among non-Hispanics.

While the survey does not list reasons for declines in life evaluation, health status is listed as one of the biggest factors in determining life satisfaction. So are people and community.

It’s possible the downturn could be driven by concerns like those expressed by Gonzalez — heightened immigration enforcement and wages — according to one political scientist in the Rio Grande Valley.

That dissatisfaction is bad news for both major political parties, which are heavily focused on winning voters in South Texas. The valley is home to three of the most contested congressional elections. Voters are less likely to engage in the political process if they have a low quality of life, said Álvaro Corral, a political scientist at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Feeling blue

Mollie Wallace, 31, says she’s happy overall, but she overcame many challenges to get here.

She’s been diagnosed with depression, ADHD and, at 19 years old, developed Bell’s palsy, a sudden weakness in the muscles on one side of the face. She’s also lost loved ones to suicide, and her mother to complications related to alcoholism.

It’s been quite the journey, but Wallace, an occupational therapist, is in a stable place now thanks to the support she receives from her dad and sister as well as the help she receives from her therapist and being on antidepressants.

“I feel lucky to be here,” she said.

But not everyone in the Valley is able to get the help they need.

About 30% of Valley residents don’t have health insurance, one of the highest uninsured rates in the country, and about 24% of people live below the poverty line, which is more than double the national rate.

Because of the need in the Valley, Blue Zones was invited to look into how it could help communities in the region by Methodist Healthcare Ministries, a faith-based nonprofit based in San Antonio.

Blue Zones helps communities establish programs to help residents live happier and longer lives. Coined by journalist Dan Buettner, the term “blue zone” became the name of the research firm, which aims to equip communities across the world.

As part of that process in the Valley, Blue Zone researchers met with people and organizations in the region to understand whether the area had the ability and willingness to implement Blue Zone strategies for improvement.

“We know that our model doesn’t work if we come and do the work to a community,” said Dan Buettner Jr., chief development officer for Blue Zones and Buettner’s son. “It’s got to be a continuation of what they’re doing.”

Part of the initial assessment is data collected via a survey by Gallup, one of the oldest and most respected public opinion polling firms in the U.S., and analyzed by Oxford University.

The data measured how people feel about their lives and what contributed to their happiness.

An analysis of the survey drew on Gallup survey data from 2009 to 2018 collected from Valley residents aged 18 and older. That was then compared to new data that Gallup collected for 2026 — 1,921 old surveys and 588 new surveys — to examine how views about their lives have changed.

Valley residents were asked to rate their life satisfaction on a scale from zero to 10. Based on responses, average well-being in the Valley between 2009 to 2018 was 7.3, above the average well-being in Texas which was 7.18.

In 2026, that dipped for Valley residents to 7.09. There was no 2026 rating for Texas overall.

The decrease in life evaluation wasn’t universal in the region. For the Hispanic population, which makes up about 92% of the population in the Valley, life satisfaction went from 7.3 between 2009 and 2018 to 6.9 in 2026.

Non-Hispanic people experienced the opposite. Their life satisfaction increased from 7.27 to 7.48.

Life evaluation differed across income levels, as well. People who earned higher incomes reported a higher life satisfaction.

Average life satisfaction in the Valley was at its lowest in 2009, with a rating of 7.0. That rose gradually over time before peaking in 2014 with a rating of 7.6. Life evaluation went down until 2016 when it reached an average rating of 7.2 and slightly increased in 2017 with a 7.35 rating.

The survey also asked how often people experienced positive and negative emotions.

Overall, fewer people reported experiencing positive emotions on a daily basis in 2026 compared to the time period between 2009 and 2018, while people experiencing daily negative emotions increased. That was the case among Hispanic and non-Hispanic people alike, though Hispanic people had a bigger jump in the percentage of people experiencing negative emotions daily — 38% to 54% — compared to non-Hispanics — 28% to 33%.

Wallace, the occupational therapist, is not Hispanic, but immigration policies and how they are affecting the community has become a stress point for her too.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been pushing forward on plans to erect border barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. In the Valley, CBP is building a 30-foot wall along the river levee inside the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, separating the visitor’s center from the trail. Environmental groups also worry the wall would restrict the movement of wildlife.

Considered to be the jewel of the national wildlife refuge system, Santa Ana was also a refuge for Wallace — a safe place where she felt she could hide when she was dealing with Bell’s palsy.

She’s also anxious about how patients are impacted by ICE raids. Colleagues told her their patients are sometimes scared to open their doors, worried that an ICE agent is on the other side.

“How could you be happy if you’re worried about where you or your child’s next meal is coming from, or if someone’s gonna come and take you from your home, or your children from your home?” Wallace said.

Potential disengagement

Corral, the UTRGV political scientist, believes economic factors like inflation as well as the immigration crackdown, were likely factors in the decline in life evaluation among Hispanic people in the Valley.

“I think it could very well be how severe folks have felt things have turned against them,” Corral said.

That downturn could have consequences in how people engage in government and elections, he said.

The Valley has historically had low voter turnout, which Corral said could be because voting is low on their list of priorities.

“People are really busy just surviving,” he said. “Thorough engagement in politics, at a midterm elections level, is almost like a luxury good.”

Republicans hope to maintain the strong gains among Hispanic voters that helped win all four Valley counties for Trump in 2024. The GOP is particularly focused on flipping the 28th and 34th Congressional Districts, which are currently held by U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, and Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat from McAllen.

Meanwhile, Democrats are attempting to win back the 15th Congressional District, which is currently represented by Monica De La Cruz, a Republican from Edinburg. De La Cruz won the seat for the GOP in 2022 after the district was redrawn in 2021 to favor Republicans.

If candidates want to spur voter turnout despite general discontent, Corral cautioned against any instinct to play on people’s negative emotions. That could lead to a general disaffection with politics.

“I would be most concerned that the rise in negative emotions would probably dampen political engagement rather than benefiting any one particular party per se,” Corral said.

What is happiness?

To understand what drives well-being in the Valley, Oxford University analyzed answers to survey questions relating to workplace, health status, personal safety, community and people, and health behaviors.

Among Valley residents, the biggest driver of well-being is health status, which makes up 57% of importance. This includes whether health problems prevent people from doing things people their age would normally do, whether poor health kept them from doing their usual activities during the last 30 days, their Body Mass Index, whether they’ve been told by a medical professional that they have depression, and how they would rate their own health in general.

Second was community and people, which made up 21.5% of importance. The third most important factor is the workplace, which made up 11%, followed by health behaviors and personal safety with 6% and 5%, respectively.

The importance of each factor was shown to vary across age groups. For example, among residents 18 to 30 years old, health status made up 15% of importance while community and people was the biggest factor, making up 62.3% of importance.

But health took up a larger piece of the pie across older generations — for people between 31 and 59 years old, health made up 62% of importance and 51% for people 60 and older.

By identifying drivers of well-being in the Valley, Blue Zones aims to identify ways to improve well-being and quality of life by working with civic organizations, schools, restaurants, grocery stores, as well as local governments to encourage healthier practices.

With the initial assessment completed, Blue Zones will need to secure funding to begin putting into place improvement plans across the various communities in the Valley, including Edinburg, McAllen, Weslaco, Harlingen and Brownsville.

The group will develop custom blueprints for each community that will include looking at Gallup’s well-being measurements and tracking risk factors for disease.

They will track how many grocery stores, schools and employers are becoming Blue Zone-approved and how many policies are put in place related to trails, parks and food systems.

Among the biggest challenges in the Valley is that the area has among the highest rates of diabetes in the country and healthcare costs are a huge economic drag, said Buettner, the Blue Zone leader.

The strength of the Valley is its family identity, which Buettner said was part of the building blocks for what they hope to accomplish.

“There’s these really strong, trusted nodes and networks that, if we can tap into that, we can tap into the actual culture and start normalizing a culture of healthy behaviors,” he said.

The end goal is more good years for people based on addressing economic development, workforce, population health and reducing chronic disease.

“It’s a full story of community self-determination, led by well-being as the north star metric,” he said.

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

Agents with DPS’ Criminal Investigations Division arrived Wednesday morning at the offices of Calfas Law Group, located in the 100 block of Broadway near East Houston Street.

Affidavits for his arrest show Calfas, 56, is facing solicitation of prostitution and human trafficking charges.

According to one affidavit, Calfas allegedly coerced a woman to engage in sexual conduct by promising legal help for her jailed brother. The affidavit cites recorded jail phone calls and interviews that investigators say support the allegations.

Investigators also allege Calfas ultimately didn’t provide the legal representation he promised.

A second warrant alleges Calfas offered to pay a fee for sex with a woman.

According to the affidavit, investigators reviewed a screen-recorded Snapchat video showing a sexual encounter. Afterward, the affidavit says, the man in the video is seen handing over what investigators say appeared to be cash.

KSAT reached out to Calfas for comment and is still waiting to hear back. Calfas’ bond is set at $110,000.

According to jail records, Calfas was released from the Bexar County Adult Detention Center just before midnight on Thursday.

Contact the Texas Department of Public Safety at 210-531-2284 with any relevant information on Calfas.

DPS said its investigation is ongoing.

More news coverage on KSAT:

• String of vehicle break-ins at Northeast Baptist Hospital has employees concerned
• BCSO: Confession over jail phone call leads to murder charge for suspect in NE Bexar County shooting
• SAPD: Man killed after being pinned between 2 trucks at East Side truck rental agency identified

“Coyote vs. Acme” was finished. Director Dave Green, inspired by “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” had completed the editing on the Looney Tunes blend of cartoon and live action. The whole project, which takes an Ian Frazier “Shouts and Murmurs” column from The New Yorker as its source material, was an audacious comic gambit that seemed to be paying off.

Hopes were high. Audience test scores were good. But days before Forte, who stars as Wile E. Coyote’s attorney, could see “Coyote vs. Acme,” Warner Bros. canceled it. Not just the screening — the movie. The studio hadn’t delayed it or sent it to streaming. They were canning it altogether.

“I just thought: ‘Well, they’re canceling the movie. It’s gotta be bad,’” Forte recalls.

Forte and his wife, suspecting the movie must have turned out poorly, joined the cast and crew to say goodbye to the film no one else was going to see.

“That was when the real emotions started,” Forte says. “It was everything I wished the movie could have been and more. It was so special, which made it so frustrating and so devastating. The confusion was amped up, then frustration, then just searing anger.

“Then it made even less sense,” he adds. “We all looked around, like, ‘What’s happening here?’”

The abrupt termination of “Coyote vs. Acme” sent shockwaves through Hollywood. Everyone in the movie business is accustomed to sudden, painful twists of fate. But the wholesale elimination of a finished film faster than you can say “Meep! Meep!” was something new.

David Zaslav, chief executive of Warner Bros., was intent on pivoting away from the straight-to-HBO Max projects of his predecessor. The expected marketing spend — roughly $30-40 million — for releasing “Coyote vs. Acme” wasn’t worth it to the studio. It was better, the studio said, to take a tax write-off on the $70 million production. Along with two other releases — “Batgirl” and “Scoob! Holiday Haunt” — “Coyote vs. Acme” was put in mothballs.

But nearly three years after that “funeral screening,” the movie is, like its ever-undaunted protagonist, back from the dead. After an outcry, Warner Bros. put “Coyote vs. Acme” up for sale. Ketchup Entertainment, an independent distributor that last year released the Looney Tunes movie “The Day the Earth Blew Up,” picked it up for about $50 million. On Aug. 28, “Coyote vs. Acme” will finally see the light of day.

It’s been a dizzying turn of events for everyone involved. Eric Bauza, who voices Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and others in the film, didn’t really believe it until he saw “Obsession” at his local cinema.

“Upon exiting the theater, there in a little marquee box was the poster for ‘Coyote vs. Acme,’” Bauza says. “It hit me: This is going to be seen by people.”

In a recent interview, Green was still in disbelief.

“I must be dreaming,” said Green. “It’s a total surprise I’m sitting here talking to you today.”

Wile E. Coyote has his day in court

The filmmakers and their new distributor have leaned into the project’s tortured history, promoting it as “the film ACME didn’t want you to see.” More than that, “Coyote vs. Acme” now has a newfound meta quality. The premise of the film is that Coyote, after suffering years of defective products, takes Acme to court. Like the drama surrounding the film, it's an underdog victimized by a big corporation.

“I couldn’t help but look at the movie in a completely new way because there are meta crossovers between the story and what the movie had come to represent,” Green says. “It almost felt like we had written the movie after the news had broken.”

When “Coyote vs. Acme” was canceled, its fate became a rallying cry. Filmmakers like Christopher Miller, Phil Lord, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert championed it as too good to disappear. Even politicians, like Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, urged the Justice Department to investigate Warner Bros.'s decision.

Bauza, a veteran voice actor, pushed the hashtag #ReleaseCoyoteVsACME on social media. His most dramatic effort, though, was at the Annie Awards in 2024. There, he drew hearty applause for making that case from the podium — in the voice of Daffy Duck.

“He’s the go-to cartoon character above anyone else when it comes to begging and pleading,” Bauza says. “It seemed appropriate.”

So many people came out fighting for the film that Green never felt alone throughout the ordeal.

“I would open my phone one day and see someone dressed in a Wile E. Coyote costume outside of the studio protesting with a sign in the rain — these kinds of things you couldn’t believe,” says Green.

‘The pipeline has changed’

At the same time, the entire episode suggested a dark new chapter in the movie business that has left many involved with “Coyote vs. Acme” shaky. This wasn’t a young filmmaker getting turned down on their first film. It was two years of work on one of Warner Bros.’ most iconic franchises — a movie even produced by DC Studios chief James Gunn.

“I don’t know what their judgment was,” says Bauza. “Did they even know or were they just looking at numbers? It’s tough looking in from the outside, thinking: ‘If that’s how the Looney Tunes are being treated, what about my story?’”

“The pipeline has changed,” he adds. “How we get to the finish line is different.”

“Coyote vs. Acme” was greenlit when studios were trying to find their way through the pandemic and theaters were struggling to stay afloat. But Green’s film now arrives at a much different point in time. Theatrical is thriving thanks in large part to the visions of filmmakers, from Christopher Nolan to Curry Barker.

For Green, that “Coyote vs. Acme” is finally having its day in the court of public opinion is a sign of Hollywood returning to its foundations.

“The film business, as much as it might not feel that way, is led and dictated by artists and filmmakers and actors and writers wanting to create,” says Green. “There will be nothing able to take that want away from creators. As long as we keep creating, there will be a movie business.”

Forte is still struggling to find a happy ending. The movie’s initial cancellation felt, he says, “cruel and heartless.”

“The downside is: Trust no one,” says Forte. “And the positive is: Don’t give up hope. And that’s the one I think I will keep.”

Shippers including FedEx and UPS that acted as customs brokers for imported packages and received tariff refunds from the U.S. government have started to pass on those refunds to the customers that originally paid the tariffs.

The refunds to consumers are the last step in a monthslong process that kicked off in February when the Supreme Court struck down sweeping tariffs implemented by President Donald Trumpin March 2025 under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act on goods from almost every country. The court ordered the government to return the tariffs it collected.

So far, about $100 billion in tariffs have been refunded to companies who paid them under a system set up by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

That doesn't mean Americans will get anywhere close to what they paid in tariffs, since most were paid indirectly. In 2025, the Trump tariffs amounted to an average tax increase of $1,000 per U.S. household, according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C., group that studies taxes.

But some consumers are getting some of what they paid directly back from shippers including UPS, DHL and FedEx. The refunds are being rolled out in phases based on what date they were paid. Shippers have said they'll return the refunds on a rolling basis as they receive them.

Tariff refunds from shippers will be directly refunded to credit cards or bank accounts

Most big overseas retailers paid the tariffs themselves and passed them along to retailers with a line item in their invoice that was part of the total bill, or indirectly by raising prices. But some smaller sellers left the tariff to be paid when it reached the U.S. In those cases, shippers paid the bill and charged the recipient of the package.

FedEx said it has begun the process of issuing $800 million in tariff refunds it received from the government back to the customers that paid them. Customers don’t need to apply to receive their refund, but they can enter tracking numbers for purchased items into a portal on the FedEx website to see whether or not they are due a refund.

UPS said in April it had paid $5 billion in tariffs on behalf of clients and would begin the process of applying to the government for refunds. In the first phase, it applied for $500 million in refunds and said customers should get refunds one to three months after it receives reimbursement from the Treasury.

DHL similarly said that it has filed claims for almost all eligible shipments where it served as the importer of record and is returning the refunds it has received.

“The volume and pace of refunds continue to depend on CBP’s processing of claims,” DHL said in a statement.

Major retailers say they could give back some refunds but mostly will use them to lower prices

Unlike shippers who collected tariffs directly from customers, most big retailers passed on tariffs in indirect ways, changing their product lineups or partly absorbing higher costs, making a consumer refund unlikely.

Amazon executives said last week the company received $600 million in tariff refunds in the second quarter.

In a call with investors, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said the company isn't the importer of record on most of the goods it sells and that it has absorbed some tariff costs. But he said the company has “identified a limited set of circumstances where we can trace that we pass specific import charges on to customers.” In those circumstances, he added, “we will proactively contact affected customers and automatically issue refunds to them.”

Otherwise, he said, Amazon will use tariff refunds to lower prices for customers.

That echoes what other large retailers have said. In May, Cori Barrie, outgoing CEO of Best Buy, the nation’s largest consumer electronics chain, said the retailer is an importer of record of only about 2% to 3% of what it sells and that the company would use any refund it gets to “deliver value back to our customers.”

And Costco CEO Ron Vachris said the company planned to return “in some form” the tariffs that were passed on to consumers.

“How much we return and when depends on a variety of factors, including how much refund money we receive and when it arrives as well as developments in the lawsuit filed against the company regarding the return process,” he said in a quarterly earnings call in May.

Dozens of class-action lawsuits have been filed

Some shoppers are suing to get the tariffs they paid in the form of higher prices back from companies. More than 80 class-action lawsuits have been filed by customers across the country against retailers including Costco, Nike, Amazon, Walmart and others.

The lawsuits will face difficulty because plaintiffs will have to prove they paid for price increases that were specifically tied to the tariffs, according to Lori Leskin, partner and co-chair of law firm Arnold & Porter’s Consumer Products Practice Group. None of the lawsuits have yet been certified as class action, which would mean they apply to all customers.

“It’s going to be very hard for anyone to establish that the price increase they paid was due to tariffs and not some other market force,” she said. “Most of them are just talking about price increases, and to be able to trace a price increase due to a single factor is going to be really difficult given the multifactorial approach that most companies take.”

Notably, Talarico has enjoyed larger leads in recent polling than Democrat Beto O’Rourke ever did in 2018 when he nearly beat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

How to read a poll

The quality of polls and pollsters can be measured by several metrics, including how well their polls have performed in the past and how transparent they are about their methodology.  Here are a few things to pay attention to when navigating different polls.

Partisan sponsors: Polls sponsored by a candidate or party should be taken with a grain of salt, according to the American Association for Public Opinion Research. While nonpartisan polling organizations typically release all of their polling results regardless of who is ahead, candidate-sponsored or party-affiliated surveys can choose to only release results that benefit their campaigns.

Sample size: In general, the more people an election poll surveys the more reliable its results are. As sample sizes increase, the results of a survey are more likely to reflect the real attitudes of those who will vote in an election.

Sample type: Election polls usually survey three kinds of populations: adults, registered voters and those they deem to be “likely voters,” based on their voting history and gauged interest.

Polls that survey adults are able to increase their sample sizes, but can be less reflective of the opinions of those who will actually make it to the polls to vote on Election Day. During an election year, polls using samples of registered voters are common as they are a concrete group and more likely to vote than unregistered adults.

Closer to election day, polls with “likely voter” samples are often considered more representative of those who will actually vote. Different pollsters use different methodologies to determine who is a likely voter, using factors such as past voting behavior and interest in the election.

Sampling method: The methods by which pollsters select who participates in their surveys usually fall into two categories: probability and non-probability samples.

In a probability-based sample, every person of the full population has a chance of being selected for the survey, whereas in a non-probability based sample, such as an internet panel or a self-selected sample, the chance of any one person being selected is unknown. As a result, the samples can be skewed toward characteristics that may not be as reflective of the whole population. 

Although probability based sampling has been the preferred method for many decades, its rising cost has led researchers to turn to non-probability based sampling. The results of some non-probability based surveys have been shown to be comparable to and sometimes more accurate than probability based surveys.

Margin of error: While polls conducted with probability samples allow for the calculation of the margin of error, non-probability polls have no simple way of calculating the same error metric. They must instead use statistical models to produce estimates of their sampling error.

Methodology for our tracker

Where the polls come from

The New York Times collects polls and manages a database of election polling. This tracker pulls data from their collection, and estimates the average of every poll conducted since Paxton won his  Republican runoff election in May. 

Which polls we include

We included every public poll of the Texas U.S. Senate that asked voters to choose who they would vote for if the election occurred that day and included James Talarico and Ken Paxton as options. Polls that ended before the May runoff election are not included in the average, but are listed in the table. 

How the average works

The average is calculated by weighting every poll by three factors: recency, sample size and whether the poll’s sponsor has a partisan affiliation. We then averaged them. 

• Recent polls count more than older ones as they are more reflective of current sentiment. 
• Polls with larger sample sizes count more than those with smaller samples. 
• Polls sponsored by a political party count half as much as ones without a partisan sponsor.

Limits

The average is not a forecast of the election and who will eventually win. Additionally, early in the race, the number of polls that have been released can be relatively low, meaning the average can shift meaningfully when a single new poll is added. As a result, individual outlier polls carry more weight early on.

Disclosure: The New York Times has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

“How can you assure us,” the 71-year-old pressed, “that you won't become another John Fetterman?”

As the crowd in the clubhouse of a manufactured home community for seniors jeered the mention of the contrarian Pennsylvania Democratic senator, Jolly, who once critiqued politicians as an MSNBC pundit, made the case for himself.

“Change is part of my journey,” he responded. “What I can tell you is that the values I speak of — that the economy should work, that government can do a little bit to improve our lives and that everyone should have the right to be protected — those are the guideposts for how I'll serve as governor.”

Doyle, an independent who said she's a registered Democrat mostly to participate in primaries, left impressed.

“I believe him,” she said. “I don't believe many.”

Florida spent a generation as America’s prized political battleground, where the interests of big cities, agricultural towns, freshly arrived retirees and diverse Latino communities collided in elections often decided by fractions of a percentage point.

Jolly is bent on proving those days aren't over.

In the course of a single day last weekend, he rallied a chandeliered ballroom in The Villages, a wealthy Republican-leaning retirement community. Then it was off to the fluorescent lights of the Leesburg clubhouse before ending with a rousing speech to Democrats in Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, which backed a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in 20 years in 2024.

Democrats have collapsed in Florida

President Donald Trump's rise has coincided with a Democratic collapse in Florida. He won here three times, with ever-expanding margins. The 19-percentage-point win by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 cemented a GOP supermajority in the legislature.

Jolly's path to victory could be blocked by both math and money in his likely race against Rep. Byron Donalds, the Trump-backed candidate in Tuesday's Republican primary. Donalds, who would be Florida's first Black governor, has raised more than $100 million compared to Jolly's $10 million.

Donalds has cast Jolly as an out-of-touch liberal, blanketing the state this week with an ad featuring Jolly referring to “gender-affirming care” and backing communities painting rainbow crosswalks to show support for LGBTQ people. Jolly countered that Donalds is ignoring pressing economic issues.

In an interview over an Outback Steakhouse lunch while his wife and two young children busied themselves with coloring, Jolly acknowledged “there’s not going to be the political will” to reverse the state’s ban on transgender girls and women participating on female teams at public schools and universities.

He said he didn't think governors should decide who plays in what sports even as he described himself as a “girl dad” and noted “I don’t think we should have biologically born men playing in competitive sports."

“But look,” he added, “if a 10- or 12-year-old soccer league in the community has a coed team, I don’t think the governor should be throwing a flag on the field.”

Republicans face tests of their own

For all the headwinds confronting Jolly, Republicans may encounter their own turbulence.

The culture wars that have raged under DeSantis, including a feud with Disney and fights over gender and sexual orientation, have left some exhausted. Karen Kuhn, a 72-year-old resident at The Villages, described herself as in “despair.”

Democrats have won a string of special elections from Miami to Palm Beach and Tampa, adding to their optimism. Former GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo said Latinos who voted for Trump in 2024 might not support Republicans again, in part because of the administration's immigration enforcement tactics.

“I definitely can see a scenario where it’s a closer race, where it’s a competitive race,” said Curbelo, who narrowly lost his reelection bid in 2018, the last wave election year for Democrats.

A race with implications for 2028

Jolly is telling that to any Democrat who will listen, including those with potential presidential ambitions such as Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gavin Newsom of California, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. If Florida can change, he argues, the national political landscape would change with it.

“All of a sudden the road to the White House looks dramatically different,” Jolly said. “It reshapes the House of Representatives. The structural change from winning Florida is a generational opportunity for Democrats.”

It’s a point echoed by other Democrats, including state Rep. Emily Gregory, who flipped the Palm Beach district home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.

“To abandon Florida was deeply, deeply unwise,” she said. “I hope that investment is coming back because it is a purple state and I feel very confident going into November."

Nikki Fried, the Florida Democratic Party chair, acknowledged “the bottom fell out” for Democrats. She has spent the past several years rebuilding the operation. Democrats charged with winning back state legislative and congressional seats are prioritizing some Florida races this year.

But Beshear, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, isn't making a financial commitment yet.

“David’s working really hard," he said in an interview. “He’s a good candidate, and we’re watching it closely.”

Donalds' campaign remains confident. His communications director, Gates McGavick, said: “Florida voters will reject radical liberal David Jolly because he will make life more expensive.”

“Byron Donalds will make life in Florida more affordable,” he said. “Our campaign will make that case to voters every single day.”

A ‘Bush 41’ Republican's path to becoming a Democrat

Jolly is an unlikely figure cajoling Democrats to think about their future.

He first gained national attention in 2014 as the GOP winner of a Tampa Bay congressional seat that was seen as a bellwether. In a Democratic Party that emphasizes diversity, Jolly regularly refers to himself as a “53-year-old white former Republican with salt-and-pepper hair.” His time in Congress runs counter to voters elevating fresher voices this year.

During stump speeches, he says he was a “Bush 41” Republican. He left the GOP in 2018, spending several years as an independent before registering as a Democrat in 2025.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, who challenged Jolly until suspending his campaign in June and announcing he had prostate cancer, acknowledged Florida Democrats have to appeal to independents. But he also said “people don’t want a chameleon.”

“That's the big challenge that he's had, is convincing people that he has stepped away from the Republican policies,” Demings said.

Others were more forgiving.

Sylvia Rieger, a 70-year-old resident at The Villages, said Jolly’s evolution showed “moxie.”

Steven Slyter, an 81-year-old retired handwriting expert, said it was “courageous” for Jolly to leave his party. “He made a decision about what he stands for,” Slyter said. “I like that.”

Florida's last Democratic candidate for governor, Charlie Crist, was also a former Republican. After his drubbing by DeSantis, several Democrats said Jolly was campaigning more effectively.

Facing minimal primary competition, Jolly has largely avoided debates over the party's ideological future. He's won support from progressives including Rep. Maxwell Frost while shoring up his centrist credentials by picking former Rep. Gwen Graham, the daughter of longtime Sen. Bob Graham, as his running mate.

Some Jolly supporters are hoping that his poly-party background will be an asset.

Jeff Adelman is running for a nonpartisan seat on the Coral Springs City Commission in Broward County. As he left a recent meeting of the Coral Springs Parkland Democratic Club, he described Jolly as a potentially unique fit for the state.

“We live in Florida,” he said. “I don't think you're going to get somebody like Bernie Sanders to run for governor in the state of Florida."

The ticket that won the jackpot Wednesday night was purchased at a Hy-Vee station in Quincy, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) west of the state capital of Springfield along the Missouri border, Illinois Lottery officials said. The winning numbers were 4-26-66-67-69 with the Powerball number of 9.

It wasn't immediately clear if the winner has come forward yet.

The prize comes in the form of either an annuity of $1 billion paid over 29 years or a lump-sum payment of $450.5 million. Winners almost always take the lump sum.

It was the first Powerball jackpot won since May 2, when the top prize was $20 million, and the first since ticket sales began in the United Kingdom last month. At $2 per play, the odds of winning the jackpot are one in 292 million.

The $1.04 billion grand prize was the eighth-largest in Powerball history, game organizers said. Another lottery game, Mega Millions has also had a $1 billion jackpot winner.

“Congratulations to our newest Powerball jackpot winner in Illinois,” Stephen Durrell, chair of the Powerball Product Group and executive director of the Kansas Lottery, said in a statement. “For more than three decades, Powerball has shown that a winning ticket can be sold anywhere the game is played, giving every $2 ticket the chance to change not only a winner’s life, but generations to come."

Four tickets sold for Wednesday's drawing — in Arizona, California, Florida and North Carolina — hit five of the numbers but missed the Powerball number. They were worth $1 million apiece. A ticket sold in Massachusetts also matched all the numbers except the Powerball number, but won $2 million because of the “Power Play” multiplier option costing an extra $1 per play.

More than 3 million tickets won lesser cash prizes.

The Powerball jackpot resets to $20 million for the next drawing on Saturday.

The record lottery jackpot still stands at just over $2 billion, won with a Powerball ticket purchased in California in 2022.

Police said the blast at Europe’s biggest port happened late Thursday morning and that a crime scene has been set up to try to establish what caused it. In a post on social media, they said the explosion “appears to be a workplace accident for the time being,” without elaborating.

At the scene, Rotterdam police spokesperson Daan Valkenburg told The Associated Press that no definitive conclusions had been drawn and that “we are keeping all possibilities open.”

The explosion occurred at a refinery and fuel terminal operated by Gunvor Energy in an industrial section of the sprawling port. Dutch broadcaster NOS said that a maintenance team had been working on a section of pipes there.

Rotterdam's emergency services coordinator also reported a major power failure in another part of the port and said that a transformer had caught fire under unexplained circumstances. Several companies halted their operations and evacuated workers.

By mid-afternoon, power was fully restored to the area, where a number of oil and gas companies are based. Emergency services later ruled out any link between the blackout and the explosion.

The Labor Department’s producer price index — which captures inflation before it reaches consumers — rose 4.7% in July from a year ago, down from a much larger 5.5% increase in June. On a monthly basis, wholesale prices were unchanged from June to July, after they ticked down 0.1% the previous month.

The figures follows the government’s consumer price inflation report, released Wednesday, which also showed a modest cooling last month. Still, consumer prices have risen faster than wages for the past four months, underscoring the challenges many Americans have affording necessities such as rent and utilities. If prices continue to outpace wages, many consumers may be forced to dial back their spending in the coming months.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core wholesale inflation dropped to 4.2% in July compared with a year earlier, down from 4.7% in June. On a monthly basis, core prices 0.2%, down from 0.4% from May to June.

After falling in early July, gas prices then rose later that month and in early August, threatening to push inflation back up when August figures are reported next month.

“The soft (producer prices) reading for July points to reduced inflationary pressure for businesses in coming months,” said Ben Ayers, senior economist at Nationwide. “While the renewed rise in fuel costs is concerning, input costs beyond energy are cooling.”

Last month’s cooling gives Federal Reserve officials more leeway to avoid a rate hike when it meets next in September. Fed officials are debating whether they should raise their key interest rate to combat inflation, or keep it unchanged in hopes that inflation continues to cool on its own.

Wholesale prices can offer an early look at where consumer inflation might be headed. Economists also watch it because some of its components, notably healthcare and financial services, flow into the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge — the personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, index. That price index will be released in about two weeks.

The PCE index uses data from the consumer price index as well. With both those reports now released, economists forecast that when the Fed's preferred gauge is issued Aug. 26, it will show yearly core inflation likely remained unchanged in July, at about 3.3%, unlike both the consumer and producer price indexes, which have slowed a bit. That could raise concerns among some Fed officials that inflation is too far above the central bank's target of 2% and showing little sign of easing.

Fed officials are considering whether to hike rates after leaving them unchanged so far this year. Last week, the government said employers actually cut jobs in July, a sign of economic weakness that could discourage the central bank from raising borrowing costs.

Putin visited a fish plant, a hospital and a school on Iturup, one of the volcanic chain's southern islands. He also briefly spoke to local residents and met with the governor of Russia's Sakhalin region, Valery Limarenko.

Japan asserts territorial rights to the four southernmost islands of the chain, which it calls the Northern Territories. The Soviet Union took them from Japan in the final days of World War II, and the dispute kept the countries from signing a peace treaty formally ending their hostilities.

Decades of diplomatic efforts to negotiate a settlement haven’t produced any visible results. Moscow over the years has also bolstered its military presence on the Kurils in moves that appeared to underscore its firm stance in the dispute.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said his country “strongly protests” Putin's visit to Iturup, which Japan calls Etorofu.

“The Northern Territories, including Etorofu (Iturup) Island, are Japan’s inherent territory both historically and from the perspective of international law,” Motegi said in a statement.

He summoned Russian Ambassador Nikolay Nozdrev to the ministry in Tokyo and lodged a strong protest over the visit, requesting that he "promptly report the message back to Moscow,” the minister told reporters afterward.

Later Thursday, the Russian Embassy in Japan called Tokyo's protest “unfounded” and said Nozdrev had explained that “the southern Kuril Islands are an integral part of the Russian Federation and became part of it following World War II on legitimate international grounds.”

Putin's travels are “sovereign decisions of the Russian leadership and can't be subject to discussion with foreign states," the statement added.

Japan also protested in 2021 when Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin visited Iturup.

Putin in recent days has visited several regions in Siberia and the Far East. Before coming to Iturup, he stopped on Sakhalin Island to attend the final part of drills by Russia's Pacific Fleet.

Speaking aboard a warship that was participating in the naval exercises, Putin said Wednesday that the current status of the Kuril Islands “is enshrined in international documents as a reality that arose following the outcome of World War II.”

“But even here, Russia was prepared to seek a solution with the goal of concluding a peace treaty with Japan,” he said.

Putin said that in the past, Moscow “had developed constructive relations with a number of Japanese leaders, including the tragically deceased former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who did much to bring Japan and Russia closer together, to align our positions.”

Japan imposed sanctions on Russia after it sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and “listed Russia as a source of primary threats,” a change in that constructive relationship, he added.

Russia remains ready “to cooperate with all its neighbors, including Japan and other states in the region,” Putin said.

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Putin’s visit is “incompatible with the Japanese position on the Northern Territories” and is “absolutely unacceptable.”

She said the visit was a further blow to the already-strained ties between the two countries over Ukraine, and that Moscow should understand the consequences.

“We must say this visit has further hardened Japanese public sentiment toward Russia and has made it more difficult to restore bilateral relations in the medium to long term,” she said. “We hope the Russian side fully understands the seriousness of this.”

One of the reasons Japan has made the effort to maintain ties with Russia is to allow former Japanese residents to return to the islands and pay tribute at their graves as a humanitarian consideration.

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president and prime minister who now serves as deputy chair of the country's Security Council, responded to Takaichi's remarks on X by saying, “This chatter won't change a thing.”

The Kuril Islands “were, are, and will remain Russian land,” Medvedev, who himself visited the Kuril Islands four times as president and prime minister, wrote. “Anyone who fails to understand this will face the monstrous consequences of their delusion.”

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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed.