The 80-year-old Lula, who is running for reelection in October, said online gambling has caused “a massive tragedy” for millions of families who have seen household debt soar.

“If it is up to me, we close them,” Lula said in an interview to website ICL Noticias. "I am deeply worried about the indebtedness of the Brazilian people. If these platforms cause harm, why don’t we end them? We are discussing this very seriously.“

The Brazilian president added that any move would require approval of lawmakers, many of which allies of betting companies.

Sports betting was made legal in Brazil in 2018 in a bill signed by then President Michel Temer. Lula's left-leaning administration introduced regulations to betting companies in 2025 after blocking several of them the year before.

Now, it seeks to impose higher tariffs to these companies from the current 12% of their income.

Betting companies have advocated for regulations aiming at a more reliable market, but argued any tax increases could make local companies struggle to settle in Brazil as offshore sites would continue to tap into the Brazilian market without paying for licenses, among other requirements.

Figures published in March by a Brazilian commerce and services confederation show more than 80% of the country's families have some debt to address, the highest figure since 2010. Market analysts have credited some of those figures to the country's booming online betting industry.

Many Brazilian religious groups and social activists regularly have criticized betting companies for their role, as gambling in any other form is not legal in Brazil. Betting companies sponsor almost every one of the country's popular soccer clubs in the first and second divisions.

Current and former soccer players, including Vinícius Júnior, Ronaldo Nazário and Roberto Rivellino, are among the poster boys for local and foreign brands.

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

Minutes of the Fed's March 17-18 meeting, released Wednesday, showed that “some” of the central bank's 19 policymakers on its rate-setting committee supported changing their post-meeting statement to reflect the potential for a future rate hike. That is an an increase from “several” in January. The Fed doesn't disclose precise numbers of how many officials supported each position, but in Fed jargon, ‘some’ is considered more than ‘several.’

And “many” of the officials pointed to the risk that higher oil and gas prices could keep inflation elevated for “longer than expected, which could call for rate increases" to push inflation back down.

For about 18 months, the Fed has leaned toward cutting rates, and in its meetings has alternated between cuts and no change to rates. The slow shift toward considering potential hikes marks a major change from that trend. At the beginning of this year, financial markets expected several rate reductions. Now investors don’t expect a cut until late 2027, future prices show.

Ultimately, the Fed kept its key rate unchanged at its March meeting at about 3.6%. It has stood pat in its first two meetings this year after cutting its rate three times at the end of 2025. Chair Jerome Powell, at a news conference after the meeting, downplayed projections by officials that the Fed could reduce its rate once this year.

Another reduction depended on underlying inflation cooling steadily this year, Powell said. "If we don’t see that progress then you won’t see the rate cut,” he said then.

The minutes, released three weeks after the meeting, underscore the Fed's dilemma as it seeks to fill its congressional mandates of low inflation and maximum employment. Fed officials acknowledged that the Iran conflict could also force households to cut back spending to offset higher gas prices, according to the minutes, which would slow growth and raise unemployment.

The central bank typically raises rates to cool the economy and combat inflation, while it would cut them to bolster growth and hiring. Navigating this “two-sided” risk of higher unemployment and higher inflation poses a difficult challenge for the Fed.

On Friday, the first signs of the impact the gas price spike is having on inflation will emerge, as the government is scheduled to release the March inflation report. Economists forecast it will show a huge 0.9% increase in March from February, with prices rising 3.4% compared to a year earlier. In February, inflation was just 2.4%. The Fed targets a 2% inflation rate, and officials will likely be unnerved by a steady increase.

Earlier this week, Beth Hammack, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said that estimates by her bank show inflation will likely rise even higher this month. “Inflation has been running above our target for more than five years now,” she added in an interview, voicing a common concern among many policymakers, and a further increase would mean it is “moving in the wrong direction.”

Rex Heuermann, 62, entered the pleas in a courtroom packed with reporters, police and victims’ relatives, some of whom wept as he detailed his crimes. He will be sentenced in June to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Heuermann's guilty pleas — to three counts of first-degree murder and four of intentional murder — bring finality to a case that bedeviled investigators, tormented victims’ relatives and tantalized a true-crime obsessed public for years. Although he wasn't charged in her death, he also admitted that he killed Karen Vergata in 1996.

Under questioning by Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, Heuermann admitted that he strangled all eight victims and dismembered some of them, that he used burner phones to contact them, and that he wrapped their bodies in burlap before dumping them.

Wearing a black suit coat and white button-down shirt, Heuermann appeared matter-of-fact and unemotional as he answered questions from Tierney and the judge. He never looked back at the packed courtroom gallery, keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead.

The women, many of them sex workers, were killed over a 17-year span and buried in remote locations, including along an isolated beach highway across the bay from where he lived, authorities said.

Prosecutor credits the victims' families and investigators

“This defendant walked among us play acting as a normal suburban dad when in reality, all along, he was obsessively targeting innocent women for death,” Tierney said at a news conference hours after the hearing.

He thanked relatives of the victims, including some standing alongside him, for helping bring their loved ones’ stories to life. And he praised members of the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force, which cracked the case with the help of clues that included DNA lifted from a discarded pizza crust.

“He thought that by killing them, he could silence them forever and get away with murder,” he said. “But he was wrong.”

Killer's ex-wife calls it a ‘difficult time’

Investigators and members of the public packed the hearing. Reporters and camera operators swarmed Heuermann's ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, and their daughter as they entered and left the courthouse.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families," Ellerup said afterward. "Their loss is immeasurable and the focus should be on them at this time and moment. I ask that you give some privacy to my family as they navigate through this very difficult time.”

Ellerup and her daughter, Victoria, had no knowledge of or involvement in the killings, said their lawyer, Robert Macedonio. Ellerup has said she found it very difficult to believe her husband was serial killer, because he never gave off warning signs during their time together.

Asked about Heuermann's admissions, his defense attorney Michael Brown told reporters, “There came a point in this defense where Rex said, ‘I want to plead guilty,'" noting that one of Heuermann’s concerns was sparing the victims’ families and his own family from the ordeal of the case going to trial.

In response to a question about whether Heuermann was sorry, Brown responded, “I would hope so. ... I would expect at sentencing he would have something to say.”

As part of his guilty plea, Heuermann agreed to cooperate fully with the FBI's behavioral analysis unit.

A shocking find

The case began in earnest in 2010 after police found numerous sets of human remains while searching for a missing woman, Shannan Gilbert, along Long Island’s South Shore, setting off a search for a potential serial killer that attracted global interest and spawned a Hollywood movie. Although her relatives disputed the finding, authorities eventually determined that Gilbert drowned, and Brown said Wednesday that Heuermann "had nothing to do with Shannan Gilbert.”

Investigators used DNA analysis and other evidence to identify victims. In some cases, they were able to connect them to remains found elsewhere on Long Island years earlier.

Remains of six victims — Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor and Megan Waterman — were found in the scrub along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. The remains of another victim, Sandra Costilla, were found more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) away in the Hamptons.

Police also identified the remains of Vergata, which were found on Fire Island, more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) west, in 1996, and near Gilgo Beach in 2011.

But despite the attention, including a documentary series and the 2020 Netflix film, “Lost Girls,” the investigation dragged on for more than a decade, punctuated by fleeting leads and dashed hopes.

A fresh look yields results

In 2022, six weeks after a new police commissioner formed the Gilgo Beach task force, detectives identified Heuermann as a suspect by using a vehicle registration database to connect him to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.

Heuermann lived for decades in Massapequa Park, about a 25-minute drive across a causeway spanning South Oyster Bay to the sandy stretch where the women’s remains were found. Some of the victims were believed to have disappeared from that community and their cellphones were found to have pinged towers in the area, authorities said.

After the truck discovery, a grand jury authorized more than 300 subpoenas and search warrants, allowing the task force to dig in to Heuermann’s life.

Detectives collected billing records for burner phones he allegedly used to arrange meetings with the victims, retested DNA found with the bodies and scoured Heuermann’s internet search history, which showed that he had viewed violent torture pornography and exhibited an intense interest in the Gilgo Beach killings and the renewed investigation. Cellphone data showed Heuermann was in contact with some victims just before they disappeared, investigators said.

To obtain Heuermann’s DNA, a task force surveillance team tailed him in Manhattan, where he worked, and watched as he threw the remnants of his lunch — a box of partially eaten pizza crusts — into a sidewalk garbage can.

Investigators rushed in, grabbed the box, and sent it to the crime lab, which matched DNA from the crust to a male hair found on burlap used to restrain one of the victims. He was arrested in July 2023.

After Heuermann’s arrest, detectives spent more than 12 days searching his yard and home, where they found a basement vault that contained 279 weapons. On his computer, investigators said, they found what they described as a “blueprint” for the killings, including a series of checklists with reminders to limit noise, clean the bodies and destroy evidence.

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Associated Press writers Philip Marcelo in New York City, Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, and Julie Walker in Riverhead, New York contributed to this report.

All sides have presented vastly different versions of the terms. Iran said the deal would allow it to formalize its new practice of charging ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said the U.S. would work with Iran to remove buried enriched uranium, though Iran did not confirm that.

Pakistan and others said fighting would pause in Lebanon, which Israel has invaded to fight Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Wednesday that the deal doesn’t cover fighting against Hezbollah. Israeli strikes hit several dense commercial and residential areas in central Beirut Wednesday afternoon without warning, killing dozens and wounding hundreds of people.

The ceasefire may formalize a system of charging fees in the Strait of Hormuz that Iran instituted — and give it a new source of revenue. Iranian attacks and threats deterred many commercial ships from passing through the waterway, through which 20% of all traded oil and natural gas passes in peacetime.

Here is the latest:

Vance will return to US from his visit to Hungary before heading to Pakistan

The vice president’s office gave the update Wednesday as Vance was wrapping up a trip in Budapest.

His office did not offer any details about his planned trip to Islamabad to lead the U.S. negotiating team that included Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Trump expected to raise possibility of US leaving NATO in meeting with Rutte

The president earlier this month said that he was considering withdrawing the U.S. from NATO as he grumbled about the lack of support from members of the alliance in his war of choice against Iran.

The criticism from Trump follows years of complaining that the alliance’s member countries aren’t paying enough for their own defense. Trump is set to host Secretary-General Mark Rutte for talks at the White House later this afternoon.

“It’s something the president has discussed, and I think it’s something the president will be discussing in a couple of hours with Secretary General Rutte,” said Leavitt, when asked if Trump is still considering leaving the 32-member alliance.

Ceasefire is threatened as Israel expands Lebanon strikes and Iran closes strait again

The United States demanded Wednesday that Iran immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz after the Islamic Republic closed the waterway in response to Israeli attacks against the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. Iran’s move cast doubt over whether an already precarious ceasefire to end more than a month of war would hold.

The United States and Iran both claimed victory after reaching the agreement, and world leaders expressed relief, even as more drones and missiles hit Iran and Gulf Arab countries. Israel also intensified its attacks in Lebanon, hitting several commercial and residential areas in Beirut without warning. At least 112 people were killed and hundreds were wounded in one of the deadliest days in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war.

The fresh violence threatened to scuttle what U.S. Vice President JD Vance called a “fragile” deal.

White House defends Trump’s language threatening ‘a whole civilization’

Asked about Trump’s threat to annihilate Iranian civilization, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended it as a “very strong threat that led to results.”

“I think it was a very, very strong threat from the president of the United States that led the Iranian regime to cave to their knees and ask for a ceasefire and agree to reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” Leavitt said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

She said any suggestion that Iran had the moral high ground was “insulting.”

Before a ceasefire was announced, Trump had threatened destruction in Iran if it did not reopen the strait, saying “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

White House shrugs off NATO’s pledge to ensure freedom of navigation through a reopened Strait of Hormuz

Leavitt was asked about NATO allies offering to contribute to keeping the strait open, but said the alliance hasn’t done enough to support U.S. and Israel’s war in Iran.

“They were tested and they failed,” Levitt said, reading from a past Trump quote on NATO.

She added: “NATO turned their backs on the American people over the course of the last six weeks.”

Those comments came as Trump was meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House later Wednesday.

Israel’s airport restarts full operations

Israel’s main airport will resume full operations as of midnight on Wednesday, after the Iran war stranded tens of thousands of people, including both Israelis abroad and tourists inside Israel.

Israel’s airspace has been open but severely limited during the war, limiting flights to once an hour and just 50 people per flight. Israel joins several other countries in the region in reopening its airspace as the ceasefire with Iran appeared to hold.

The White House defends Trump’s threat that ’a whole civilization will die tonight

“His very tough rhetoric and his tough negotiating style is what has led to the result that you are all witnessing today,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, adding that Iran said they wanted a ceasefire because “they no longer could tolerate being bombed.”

Trump’s threats against Iran escalated over the past weeks, culminating in his Tuesday warning that a “whole civilization” could “die” in the lead up to an 8 p.m. deadline, which was later suspended after an agreement was reached.

“The world should take his word very seriously,” Leavitt said.

Vance will lead US delegation to Islamabad for talks with Iran

The White House confirmed that U.S. Vice President JD Vance will lead the U.S. negotiating team in talks with Iran aimed at finding a permanent end to war.

Vance will lead the delegation, which is also expected to include special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, for the talks that are expected to begin Friday in Islamabad, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“Vice President Vance has played a very significant and a key role in this since the very beginning,” Leavitt told reporters during a White House press briefing. “Of course, he’s the president’s right hand man. He is the vice president of the United States. He’s been involved in all of these discussions.”

Flights gradually resume in Bahrain

Bahrain said it is reopening its airspace, the state news agency reported Wednesday evening, citing the country’s civil aviation authority.

Bahrain International Airport has begun gradually resuming flights, the agency said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strikes victorious tone, praises Israel’s resilience even as country remains hobbled from war

“We are ready to return to fighting at any time, our finger is on the trigger,” Netanyahu said in his first address to the country since the start of the ceasefire.

“Iran is weaker than ever, and Israel is stronger than it has ever been,” adding that the “deep friendship with the US has changed the face of the Middle East.”

He said the two wars with Iran in the past year have kept Iran from developing a nuclear weapon program and destroyed both existing missiles as well as Iran’s ability to produce missiles.

Netanyahu said he insisted any ceasefire with Iran not include Hezbollah, and cited Israel’s massive strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday for being the biggest attacks against the militant group since the beeper operation in 2024, when Israel engineered exploding pagers that injured hundreds of Hezbollah leaders.

The White House says Iran presented a ‘new, modified peace plan that it is able to ’align with our own, 15-point proposal

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “the Iranians originally put forward a 10-point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable and completely discarded,” and that it was “literally thrown in the garbage by Trump.”

But, she said, Iranian authorities on Tuesday presented a new plan that will become a workable basis for negotiations to bring the Iran war to an end.

Leavitt said the new version of the Iranian plan can now “align with our own, 15-point proposal” for peace.

Iran closes Strait of Hormuz again in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon, threatening ceasefire

Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz again Wednesday in response to Israeli attacks against the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, casting doubt over whether an already precarious ceasefire to end more than a month of war will hold.

The United States and Iran both claimed victory after reaching the agreement, and world leaders expressed relief, even as more drones and missiles hit Iran and Gulf Arab countries. Israel also intensified its attacks in Lebanon, hitting several commercial and residential areas in Beirut without warning. At least 112 people were killed and hundreds were wounded in one of the deadliest days in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war.

The fresh violence threatened to scuttle what U.S. Vice President JD Vance called a “fragile” deal.

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Iranian foreign minister says Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon must end as part of ceasefire agreement

Abbas Araghchi said in message to the United States that Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon must end as part of ceasefire agreement

Araghchi called insists it is part of the ceasefire agreement with the United States, contrary to what Israel has said.

“The world sees the massacres in Lebanon,” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”

Israel’s military lifts most guidelines for civilians

Israel’s military announced an easing of the guidelines for civilians, including a resumption of school in most of the country starting Thursday.

It will be the first time in more than a month that schools resume in most of Israel. Large gatherings are still limited in northern Israel and areas under threat from Hezbollah.

UN strongly condemns Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon and loss of civilian lives

The United Nations urges all sides to abide by the two-week ceasefire announced by the United States and Iran and halt military action in Lebanon, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters Wednesday.

“Now is the time to pursue talks to resolve outstanding differences and work towards a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution to the conflict,” he said. “There is no military solution to the conflict.”

Haq said U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel continue to be impacted by the fighting.

He noted an exchange of rocket and artillery fire near Al Tiri on Tuesday that injured six peacekeepers, damaged U.N. vehicles and left five soldiers with “acoustic trauma” to their hearing.

Netanyahu delivers televised address to nation

Netanyahu said Israel has achieved “tremendous results.”

“Iran is weaker than ever. Israel is stronger than ever,” Netanyahu said said. He said Israel struck Iran’s missile program and nuclear targets and set back Iran by many years.

The address comes at a time of public criticism over the inconclusive results of the war.

Even if the Strait of Hormuz opens, experts say it it could still take a long time for oil flows to return to normal

“Many shipowners will remain extremely cautious, fearing a sudden resumption of hostilities,” Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, said in a Wednesday note.

He stressed that future escalation cannot be ruled out, “given the significant differences in the parties’ positions.” It could take months for the Strait of Hormuz to resume operations at full capacity, he said, which will continue to keep oil prices high.

Karin Ström, vice president of logistics and supply chain work at Proxima, reiterated that the “fragile political landscape has the potential to change within a matter of hours” and that many vessels may not choose to return immediately, as they seek “greater reassurances about the safety of their cargo and crews.”

As Iran calls ceasefire a win, anti-government voices worry about the day after

Iranians who have been hoping for the Islamic Republic’s overthrow are expressing mixed feelings about the ceasefire, say several Tehran area residents contacted by The Associated Press, who spoke anonymously for their security.

Security forces shot thousands of anti-government protesters in January, prompting Trump’s initial promise to “help” Iranians.

A social media influencer in her forties said she felt “rage, despair” following the ceasefire. “This means that the blood of all those who were killed for freedom will be trampled on,” she said.

Iran’s spiraling economic problems have stoked growing calls for political change. “Everyone is still dissatisfied and prices are rising rapidly, and everyone knows this is because of the Islamic Republic,” said a resident of Karaj, just outside the capital.

—- Amir Hussein-Radjy

Pakistan’s PM Sharif and Erdogan discuss regional peace efforts in phone call

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Wednesday he received a “warm and most cordial” phone call from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who praised Pakistan’s efforts aimed at ending the conflict in the region.

According to a statement from Sharif’s office, the two sides agreed to continue to work in pursuit of lasting peace in the region.

Sharif did not provide further details.

Turkey is among the regional countries that have played a role in securing a ceasefire between the United States and Iran and other parties.

At least 112 killed in Israeli strikes over Lebanon, says health ministry

The latest count for Wednesday includes widespread strikes across central Beirut that came without warning, also wounding at least 837, one of the deadliest days in this latest war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. It is not the final count.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Lebanon during the past month, and over 1 million others have been displaced.

Hezbollah condemns widespread Israeli strikes over Beirut, says it reserves right to retaliate

Hezbollah in a statement condemned Israel’s widespread attacks across the country, including neighborhoods in central Beirut without warning, and said it reserved its “natural and legal right to resist occupation and respond to its attacks.”

The militant group did not claim any attacks on Israel Wednesday after the U.S.-Iran ceasefire went into effect.

Iranian media says Tehran may withdraw from ceasefire if Israel keeps attacking Lebanon

The semi-official Tasnim news agency, which is believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, reported on the potential ceasefire pullout by Tehran, citing what it described as an informed source.

The source said Iran is reviewing the possibility of exiting the ceasefire framework, noting that a halt to fighting on all fronts — including against Lebanon’s “Islamic resistance” — had been accepted by the United States as part of a two-week truce proposal. The source added that, alongside this review, Iran’s armed forces are identifying targets in response to what were described as Israeli attacks on Lebanon earlier Wednesday.

Since this morning, Israel has carried out what the source described as “clear violations of the ceasefire” with attacks on Lebanon.

The source also said that if the United States is unable to restrain its “rabid dog” in the region, Iran would “exceptionally help it do so — by force,” Tasnim reported.

Israel accuses Lebanese leadership of failing to act against Hezbollah

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on X that Lebanon’s leadership had failed to disarm Hezbollah or prevent attacks on Israel, accusing them of criticizing Israeli strikes instead of taking action.

The ministry said Lebanese authorities had not enforced commitments to demilitarize southern Lebanon and warned Israel would act to remove the threat if they do not.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun earlier called Israel’s attacks in central Beirut that killed dozens “barbaric.”

Kuwait says Iranian drones targeted power and water facilities

The country’s interior ministry said in a post on the social platform X that these strikes targeted oil facilities, three power and water desalination plants, resulting in “significant” material damage to generators, distilleries and fuel tanks.

Several fires also broke out at some locations, according to the ministry, which made no mention of whether there were casualties, but said that measures were taken to ensure the safety of workers and secure sites.

Arab League chief accuses Israel of undermining regional peace

Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit condemned Israeli assaults on Lebanon, accusing Israel of “persistently seeking to sabotage” the ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran.

Aboul Gheit said in a statement posted on the social platform X that the “barbaric” Israeli military’s attacks on Lebanon violate international law, adding that Israel “continues to play an obstructive role to any understandings that may contribute to restoring stability” in the region.

He also called for the international community to pressure Israel to immediately halt its attacks on Lebanon.

Trump says Vance may not participate in Iran talks because of security concerns

The president told The New York Post in a brief interview that in-person talks about the Iran ceasefire would happen “very soon,” but he did not appear to offer or confirm details about when and where.

Pakistan is expected to host talks.

“We’ll have Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, JD —maybe JD, I don’t know. There’s a question of safety, security,” Trump said.

Vance’s office has not commented on whether he would participate in talks.

Lebanon’s president strongly condemns Israel for series of strikes

Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, called the simultaneous attacks on Beirut and other areas “barbaric,” accusing Israel of committing a new massacre in the country.

In a message Wednesday, Aoun said Israel holds full responsibility, saying the continued pursuit of aggressive policies “will only lead to further tension and instability at a time when everyone is most in need of de-escalation.”

Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes during rush hour Wednesday that hit multiple residential areas in Beirut and other parts of the country.

Entire buildings were destroyed in neighborhoods in Beirut, while in other parts of the city dust and debris covered entire residential areas. Hours after the strikes, rescue workers continued combing through debris looking for survivors while hospitals were overwhelmed with the wounded, appealing for blood donations.

Customers checking one bag will pay $45 starting on Thursday, while a second will now cost $55, according to Southwest. Some travelers will still receive a free first checked bag, including certain loyalty-tier members, eligible co-branded credit card holders and active-duty military members.

The move was made “as part of an ongoing analysis of the business and against the evolving global backdrop,” the Texas-based carrier said in a statement.

Southwest ended its generous, decades-old policy of allowing passengers to check two bags for free in May 2025, a move that marked a major shift for the carrier after years of marketing the perk as a key differentiator.

The airline now joins a growing list of U.S. carriers that have increased fees since the war in the Middle East began Feb. 28, sending oil prices swinging as fighting near the Strait of Hormuz disrupted global supplies. Threats to the narrow waterway, where roughly a fifth of the world’s oil typically passes, have pushed up prices for jet fuel, which are refined from crude.

Delta Air Lines' higher baggage fees took effect Wednesday. JetBlue and United Airlines also raised their bag fees last week.

Oil prices on Wednesday were plunging toward $95 per barrel after President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran just before a deadline he had set for Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz and allow oil tankers to exit the Persian Gulf. But prices remain well above pre-war levels amid ongoing risks that the conflict could continue.

Adding to the uncertainty, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz again Wednesday in response to Israeli attacks on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, casting doubt on whether the fragile ceasefire will hold.

The average price for a gallon of jet fuel in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York was $4.81 on Tuesday, up from $2.50 the day before the war started, according to Argus Media. The energy market intelligence company’s U.S. Jet Fuel Index tracks average prices across those major hubs.

Outside of the U.S., a number of carriers are responding by adding or increasing fuel surcharges, a tool that U.S. airlines don't typically rely on.

Wembanyama is out after suffering a rib contusion on Monday and Castle is out with right knee soreness, the team announced.

Wembanyama needs to play at least 20 minutes in one more game to reach the league-required minimum of 65 games for award eligibility.

The Spurs have two games left in the regular season after Wednesday night: Friday against the Dallas Mavericks and Sunday against the Denver Nuggets.

The Spurs said they are hopeful Wembanyama and Castle will play Friday.

They both participated in shootaround on Wednesday.

“I can’t tell you too much of how (Wembanyama) looked, but he heals fast,” Spurs veteran Harrison Barnes said.

Wembanyama suffered the injury in the first half of a 115-102 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers. Castle had 17 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds in that game.

Wembanyama had 17 points, five rebounds and three blocks in just under 16 minutes. That time constituted an official game played per the NBA guidelines, which allow two exceptions of 15 to 19:59 minutes to count toward the league-required minimum.

San Antonio (60-19) has clinched the Southwest Division title and is assured of finishing no worse than second in the Western Conference. It trails the conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder (63-16) by three games.

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

Maybe it’s a few minutes, or half an hour. You might be scrolling on your phone, belting out a favorite song or just staring into the distance.

Scroll through TikTok and you’ll find countless videos of people wondering aloud why they're doing the same thing: arriving at work, home, the gym, and then just sitting in their car. Some get there early on purpose. Others stay long after they’ve parked.

The behavior is so common it’s become its own kind of ritual, one people are increasingly recognizing and sharing online.

It turns out, science has a few ideas for why people do this. Whether in a car, on a sidewalk or just outside a door, that temporary pause can act as a buffer between one part of the day and the next. And while there isn't an extensive body of research to back it up, experts say this can be good for you — if you keep a few things in mind.

“A lot of times we’re just going 100 miles an hour,” said Jenny Taitz, a clinical psychologist who runs her own practice in Beverly Hills. “But if we can literally stop, like slow down, take a step back, observe, proceed mindfully, maybe like a few minutes to reset between activities, it kind of gives you an ability to be intentional.”

Parked car breaks serve as an emotional reset

Brief moments alone can help reset emotions when moving from one thing to another — like leaving work stress behind before coming home.

“By taking a brief little break, you can at least take a moment to relax and prepare before moving forward,” said psychologist Anthony Vaccaro with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Vaccaro sits in his parked car for a few minutes after arriving home from work, turning up the speakers to listen to just one more song.

People seek out these breaks to process, recalibrate and shake off the gloom. And doing it in a car make sense because “it's an in-between space,” according to psychologist Thuy-vy Nguyen with Durham University in England and founder of Solitude Lab, which studies how being alone affects and rejuvenates us.

The car is an environment people can have total control over, from the temperature to the music.

What you do in that moment matters

Scientists say taking brief moments to decompress during the workday and after can improve mood, sharpen focus and boost energy levels.

When it comes to breaks in the car, though, whether that pause helps — or hurts — depends on how the time is spent.

“If you’re in your car scrolling and thinking about something that’s upsetting to you or ruminating, you know, in your head spiraling, the parked car is not a reset. It’s the stressor,” said Taitz.

Scrolling on your phone can pull your attention toward what’s happening on the screen, which can in turn make it harder to decompress.

If sitting in a parked car has become a habit, be mindful of how you're spending the time. Take a few moments to slow your breathing, listen to a familiar song or make a simple plan for how you want to show up next — whether that's feeling calmer, more patient or more focused. Even a short pause can shift your state.

“You could change your blood pressure in five minutes,” Taitz said, referring to simple techniques like slowing your breathing or relaxing your body.

Think of it as a pause, not an escape

There’s a difference between a helpful reset and avoidance. If the parked car breaks are making you late for important meetings or dinner with friends, or it feels difficult to get out of the car and confront the rest of the day, they may do more harm than good — or indicate that something more serious is going on.

“It’s really about why you’re doing it, and whether it’s interfering with other aspects of your life. That’s really what’s going to determine whether this is a good or bad behavior for you,” Vaccaro said.

Decompressing in a car can be about more than just shaking off stress. The sheer volume of information people take in every day can make a quiet pause even more essential and rewarding.

“We’re always juggling so much, not taking a lot of time to slow things down,” Taitz said. “Trying to find those moments can allow for things to be happier and more joyful and fulfilling.”

Think of it less like stalling, and more like refueling.

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

The S&P 500 leaped 2.5% after Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran, less than 90 minutes before a deadline Trump had set for it to open the Strait of Hormuz and allow oil tankers to exit the Persian Gulf. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1,257 points, or 2.7%, as of 1:54 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.9% higher following even bigger gains in European and Asian stock markets.

To be sure, stock prices are still below where they were before the war. And oil prices are still significantly higher because the threat remains that the war could continue and keep oil produced in the Persian Gulf area blocked in the Middle East.

Some of the euphoria that launched explosive moves for stock and oil prices early Wednesday faded as the day progressed, and financial markets have been prone to sharp and sudden reversals because of deep uncertainty about what will happen next in the war.

“There is a reason to be optimistic, but it is still too early to tell, because, as you know, after all, it is Trump,” said Takashi Hiroki, chief strategist at MONEX.

So far in the war, Trump has set several deadlines for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, a main thoroughfare for oil to reach customers worldwide from the Persian Gulf, and has threatened big repercussions if Iran doesn’t, only to delay them.

It’s similar to a year ago, when Trump threatened stiff tariffs on imports from other countries on “Liberation Day.” After a couple delays, his administration eventually negotiated lower tariffs with many countries, though they were still higher than from before his second term. That led some investors to allege Trump “always chickens out,” or “TACO,” if financial markets show enough pain.

“Is it just kicking of the can down the road, moving the goalposts, TACO Tuesday, or whatever metaphor we’d like, to only to have tempers flare and bombs drop again?” Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management, asked about the two-week ceasefire with Iran. “Who knows? But it’s good enough for now to elicit a positive response from the markets.”

The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude oil plunged 15.9% to $95.01 after almost dropping to $91 earlier in the morning.

Brent crude, the international standard, tumbled 13.2% to $94.92 per barrel. It had briefly topped $119 when worries about the war with Iran were at their highest, but it's still above its roughly $70 price from before the war.

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline has already topped $4.16 in the United States, according to AAA. That’s up from less than $3 a couple days before the war began in late February. If oil prices stay high for a long time, it would push up the price of nearly everything that’s moved by truck, plane or boat.

The next moves for oil prices will likely depend on how many oil tankers can start exiting the Strait of Hormuz and how easy their passage is. Iran said the deal would allow it to formalize its new practice of charging ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, but the terms were not clear.

In Asia, where countries are more reliant on oil from the Middle East, South Korea’s Kospi stock index surged 6.9%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 leaped 5.4%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 3.1%.

European stock indexes rose nearly as much. Germany’s DAX returned 5.1%, and France’s CAC 40 rallied 4.5%.

On Wall Street, companies with big fuel bills roared back to trim some of the sharp losses taken on worries about oil prices staying high.

United Airlines soared 9.7%, which could count as a decent year for the stock. It cut into its loss for the year that came into the day at 20.1%.

Delta Air Lines climbed 5.5% after it also reported stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Ed Bastian said demand for flights remains strong, and it's making moves to make up for higher fuel bills. Delta on Tuesday became the latest airline to raise its fees for checking bags.

Cruise ship operator Carnival climbed 11.3%.

In the bond market, Treasury yields dropped as hopes built that easing oil prices could let the Federal Reserve resume its cuts to interest rates later this year.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.28% from 4.33% late Tuesday. That’s a notable move for the bond market, and lower Treasury yields give a boost to prices for stocks, bonds and all kinds of other investments. The drop should also ease some of the recent rise in rates for mortgages and other loans taken out by U.S. households and businesses.

When oil prices were screaming higher because of the war, some traders were betting on the possibility that the Fed would have to raise interest rates to keep a lid on inflation. Now, they're seeing a roughly 1-in-3 chance that the Fed could resume its cuts to rates in 2026, according to data from CME Group.

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AP journalists Yuri Kageyama, Matt Ott, Mayuko Ono and Jon Gambrell contributed to this report.

Does Iran using its military to regulate the flow of ships on the Strait of Hormuz mean it still effectively controls the waterway? What about Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium?

Does the ceasefire extend to Israel's attacks on Lebanon? Might Iran press for a huge financial windfall, a lifting of international sanctions and even a drawdown of U.S. forces in the Middle East just to keep things on track?

The answers depend on which side you talk to. The U.S. and Iran, along with their allies, are offering different assessments.

Strait of Hormuz

President Donald Trump posted Tuesday night on his social media site that the ceasefire was subject to Iran agreeing to the “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz,” the waterway leading out of the Persian Gulf through which one-fifth of the world’s oil is transported during peacetime.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday during a media briefing at the Pentagon that the strait was open. Iran announced hours later that the strait was closing again in response to Israel's strikes in Lebanon.

Even if the strait does reopen, Iran says shipping traffic can resume only under its military management. That means Tehran can still make the case it is controlling the strait, and therefore retaining crucial global political and economic leverage, and could also charge ships stiff levies to use it, quickly generating billions in new revenue.

Uranium enrichment

Iran says its peace plan includes Washington’s “acceptance of enrichment” of uranium for Tehran’s nuclear program. But that would undermine a key Trump objective since the start of the war that Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.

Trump offered a different assessment, posting on Wednesday that a peace agreement would entail the U.S. working with Iran to “dig up” enriched uranium. The Trump administration says that material was buried as a result of joint U.S-Israeli strikes in June.

But what the Republican president said was different from what Hegseth said. The Pentagon chief said Tehran will either "give it to us voluntarily” or the U.S. might do “something like” its strikes last summer, when the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear sites.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon

Iran also says that ceasing hostilities in Lebanon, where Israel has dramatically stepped up attacks in recent weeks, will be part of larger peace negotiations.

That was consistent with what Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country is a key moderator in the peace process, said in announcing the ceasefire between Iran ​and the United States on X — that it would extend to Lebanon.

Trump is saying the opposite, telling PBS NewsHour in a brief interview on Wednesday that the ceasefire will not extend to Lebanon.

That lines up with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, which said in a statement that the two-week suspension of strikes in Iran does not include the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Other key points of possible peace plans

When Iran first offered a 10-point peace plan to halt the war on Monday, Trump called it a “very significant step” but also “not good enough.”

But then, about 90 minutes before his Tuesday night deadline to begin wide-scale U.S. attacks on Iran's bridges and power grid, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire and described Iran's proposal as a “workable basis on which to negotiate.”

“Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran,” Trump wrote, explaining why he was backing off his threats for massive attacks on nonmilitary targets.

What exactly has been agreed upon is not clear, however. The White House has not answered questions about what changed between Monday and Tuesday night that saw Trump suddenly warm to the Iranian peace plan.

Complicating matters is the fact that Iran has released a series of 10-point plans to guide negotiations, with many of the versions differing slightly, often seemingly depending on whether they were written in English or Farsi.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council says “the United States has, in principle, ⁠committed to" a series of key points — many of which seem to be nonstarters, considering long-standing U.S. positions.

It says the U.S. is ready to guarantee a lasting peace and no new attacks, a continuation of Iran's control over the strait, acceptance that Iran can enrich uranium and removal of all U.S. economic and other sanctions from Iran. That would include, it says, restrictions on international entities doing business in that country, as well as U.N. Security Council resolutions against the government in Tehran.

The council also says the U.S. has agreed in principle to ending international oversight of Iran's nuclear program, to compensate Iran for war damages, a ceasefire extending to Lebanon and a withdrawal of all U.S. combat forces from the region.

That last one would be nothing short of extraordinary, given that the U.S. has maintained a network of military bases through the Persian Gulf for decades — since the conclusion of the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq. The lifting of all sanctions also seems like an unlikely prospect for the U.S. to agree to.

Asked how such proposals could be considered workable, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said only that “negotiations will continue.”

“The truth is that President Trump and our powerful military got Iran to agree to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and negotiations will continue.” Leavitt said in a statement.

Details are scarce about the US peace proposal

Trump rejected many of those points as “a FRAUD,” posting that the peace plan attributed to the council — and reported on by Iranian state media — was a “false Statement was linked to a Fake News site (from Nigeria).”

Instead, the U.S. has presented its own, 15-point peace plan. U.S. officials have only confirmed broad contours.

“There is only one group of meaningful ‘POINTS’ that are acceptable to the United States, and we will be discussing them behind closed doors during these Negotiations,” Trump posted Wednesday.

The United States and Iran both claimed victory after reaching the agreement, and world leaders expressed relief, even as more drones and missiles hit Iran and Gulf Arab countries. Israel also intensified its attacks in Lebanon, hitting several commercial and residential areas in Beirut without warning. At least 112 people were killed and hundreds were wounded in one of the deadliest days in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war.

The fresh violence threatened to scuttle what U.S. Vice President JD Vance called a “fragile” deal.

“Aggression towards Lebanon is aggression towards Iran,” Gen. Seyed Majid Mousavi, aerospace commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, wrote on X. He warned that Iranian forces were preparing a “heavy response” without revealing details.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insisted that an end to the war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire agreement with the U.S.

“The world sees the massacres in Lebanon,” he said in a post on X. “The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said American and Israeli forces had achieved a “capital V military victory” and that the Iranian military no longer posed a significant threat to U.S. forces or the region. The Iranian military said the country forced Israel and the U.S. to accept its "proposed conditions and surrender.”

Much about the agreement was unclear as the sides presented vastly different visions of the terms.

— Iran said the deal would allow it to formalize its new practice of charging ships passing through the strait, a crucial transit lane for oil. But the details were not clear, nor was it known whether vessels would feel safe using the channel or whether ship traffic had resumed. It also was unclear whether any other country agreed to this condition. The White House said Trump is opposed to tolls for ship passage through the strait.

— Pakistan, which helped to mediate the deal, and others said fighting would pause in Lebanon, where Israel has launched a ground invasion against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group. Israel said it would not, and strikes hit Beirut on Wednesday.

— The fate of Iran's missile and nuclear programs — the elimination of which were major objectives for the U.S. and Israel in going to war — also remained unclear. Trump said the U.S. would work with Iran to remove buried enriched uranium, though Iran did not confirm that.

In the streets of Tehran, pro-government demonstrators screamed: “Death to America, death to Israel, death to compromisers!” after the ceasefire announcement and burned American and Israeli flags.

The chants underscored the anger animating hard-liners, who have been preparing for what many assumed would be an apocalyptic battle with the United States. Trump warned Tuesday that “a whole civilization will die tonight,” if a deal was not reached.

Ceasefire terms are murky

Trump initially said Iran proposed a “workable” 10-point plan that could help end the war the U.S. and Israel launched on Feb. 28. But when a version in Farsi emerged that indicated Iran would be allowed to continue enriching uranium — which is key to building a nuclear weapon — Trump called it fraudulent without elaborating.

Vance later said the deal was being misrepresented within Iran, though he did not offer details. The White House said Vance would lead the American negotiating team in talks in Pakistan aimed at finding a permanent end to the war.

Iran’s demands for ending the war include a withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, the lifting of sanctions and the release of its frozen assets.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s personal envoy arrived in Iran for talks on “the way forward.”

Pakistan said talks to seek a permanent end to the war could begin in Islamabad as soon as Friday.

Israel backed the U.S. ceasefire with Iran, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the deal does not cover fighting against Hezbollah. Trump told the “PBS News Hour” that Lebanon was not included in the ceasefire deal “because of Hezbollah.”

Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Israel will continue to “utilize every operational opportunity” to strike Hezbollah. The Israeli military said it struck more than 100 targets within 10 minutes Wednesday across Lebanon, the largest wave of strikes since March 1.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the Israeli attacks as “barbaric.” Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit accused Israel of “persistently seeking to sabotage” the Iran ceasefire deal.

Hezbollah has not confirmed if it will abide by the ceasefire, though the group has said it was open to giving mediators a chance to secure an agreement. An official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said the group would not stop firing at Israel unless Israel agreed to do the same.

Iran and Oman will collect shipping fees in Strait of Hormuz

While Iran could not match the sophistication of U.S. and Israeli weaponry or their dominance in the air, its ability to control the Strait of Hormuz proved a tremendous strategic advantage. Iranian attacks and threats deterred many commercial ships from passing through the waterway, through which 20% of all traded oil and natural gas passes in peacetime.

That roiled the world economy and raised the pressure on Trump both at home and abroad to find a way out of the standoff.

The ceasefire may formalize a system of charging fees in the strait that Iran instituted — and give it a new source of revenue.

The plan allows for both Iran and Oman to charge ships, according to a regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss negotiations they were directly involved in. The official said Iran would use the money it raised for reconstruction.

That would upend decades of precedent treating the strait as an international waterway that was free to transit and will likely not be acceptable to the Gulf Arab states, which also need to rebuild after repeated Iranian attacks targeting their oil fields.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said passage through the strait would be allowed under Iranian military management, further clouding the picture of who would be allowed to transit the waterway.

News of the ceasefire sent stock markets surging worldwide, and oil prices plunged back toward $90 per barrel.

Iran’s nuclear and missile threats survive

U.S.-Israeli strikes have battered Iran and its leadership, but they have not entirely eliminated the threats posed by Tehran's nuclear program, its ballistic missiles or its support for regional proxies, like Hezbollah. The U.S. and Israel said addressing those threats was a key justification for going to war.

Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. would work with Iran to “dig up and remove” enriched uranium that was buried under joint U.S-Israeli strikes in June. He added that none of the material had been touched since. Any retrieval is expected to be an intensive undertaking.

There was no confirmation from Iran.

Hegseth told a Pentagon briefing Wednesday that the U.S. would do “something like” last June's joint strikes with Israel on Iranian nuclear sites if the country refuses to surrender its enriched uranium voluntarily.

Tehran insisted for years that its nuclear program was peaceful, although it enriched uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels.

Iran referred to its nuclear program differently in two versions of the ceasefire plan that it released. The version in Farsi included the phrase “acceptance of enrichment” for its nuclear program. That phrase was missing in English versions shared by Iranian diplomats with journalists.

Airstrikes reported after ceasefire announcement

Shortly after the ceasefire announcement, Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all issued warnings about incoming missiles from Iran. That fire stopped for a time, then hostilities appeared to restart.

An oil refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island came under attack, according to Iranian state television. The state broadcaster reported that no one was hurt but did not say who launched the attack. The island is home to one of the terminals that Iran uses to export oil and gas.

A short time later, the United Arab Emirates’ air defenses fired at an incoming Iranian missile barrage. Kuwait said Wednesday three power and water desalination plants were badly damaged after 28 Iranian drones were launched at the country. Saudi Arabia said it intercepted nine drones.

More than 1,900 people had been killed in Iran as of late March, but the government has not updated the war’s toll for days.

In Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, more than 1,500 people have been killed, and 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel, and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Magdy from Cairo and Metz from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Edie Lederer at the United Nations, Natalie Melzer in Jerusalem, Abby Sewell and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Mike Catalini in Trenton, N.J., and Michelle L. Price, Aamer Madhani and Joshua Bloak in Washington contributed to this report.

The show, titled “The Secretary Kennedy Podcast,” will launch next week and feature Kennedy in conversation with doctors, scientists and agency staff, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials told the AP ahead of the launch. In the teaser video, in a slick HHS-branded studio with ominous music playing in the background, Kennedy bills it as a new way to expose corruption and lies that have made Americans sick.

“We’re going to name the names of the forces that obstruct the paths to public health,” Kennedy says in the 90-second clip.

The new communication effort from HHS comes as the department has faced a bevy of recent setbacks, including widespread criticism of its vaccine policy changes, a federal ruling last month blocking several of those moves, and resistance from key Republican senators that has kept President Donald Trump’s surgeon general pick from taking office. In that way, it could be seen as part of a broader rebranding strategy as the agency redirects away from vaccine efforts and toward a less contentious agenda on healthy food ahead of November’s midterm elections.

But the show, which has been in the works since early in the second Trump administration, also reflects Kennedy returning to a format where he has long felt at ease. An anti-vaccine crusader and attorney before he entered office, he previously hosted his own podcast and has appeared on dozens to share his perspectives in longform interviews, as recently as this week.

Tyler Burger, HHS digital communications manager and the producer of the new podcast, said while Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary has a podcast, officials believe Kennedy's will be the first to be hosted by a sitting cabinet secretary.

“We’re kind of bringing podcasting into the government as an official form and arm of our messaging,” Burger said. He said the set for the show was pieced together largely with items the agency already had, and has the capacity for a total of four people to sit in conversation together.

“This is part of our larger strategy to bring the Make America Healthy Again message to as wide an audience as we can,” said Liam Nahill, HHS digital director.

Because podcasts are now commonly made not only on audio but video, they are regularly clipped and shared across social media platforms, giving them “massive” reach, according to Melina Much, a postdoctoral fellow for NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics.

Much said podcasts also tend to be more intimate, conversational and friendly than a traditional interview, allowing administration officials to promote themselves without facing as much pushback.

While Kennedy's teaser focuses on uncovering lies, HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said it will aim to cover affordability and other topics that polls show are salient for American voters ahead of the midterms.

“Americans are united on the need to urgently address chronic disease, improve nutrition, strengthen food quality, and lower health costs," he said. "The Secretary Kennedy Podcast will cover all those issues.”

“(His wife Meredith) got this great picture of me and Bennett walking into the clubhouse with me with my green jacket and holding his hand. But, I mean, he has no idea what it means,” Scheffler said. "This place signifies so much for me in my golf journey, and that’s something I’d love to be able to share with my kids. We’ll see how that goes as they age.

“Right now I just — if I’m wearing it near him, I’m just hoping he doesn’t ruin it or anything like that.”

Scheffler has two kids — one for each of his Masters titles. He's the favorite in this week's tournament, as he tends to be for all majors these days, but his family life has been more exciting than his golf recently. The Scheffler who tore through the 2025 season, winning six times in a 4 1/2-month span, hasn't arrived yet this year.

It was business as usual when Scheffler won his first tournament of the year at The American Express in January. He followed that up by closing strong for top-five finishes at Phoenix and Pebble Beach, but since then he's been outside the top 10 in three straight events — and outside the top 20 in the last two of those.

A slump by his standards? Well, it's hard to call it that because Scheffler hasn't played at all since The Players Championship in the middle of last month. He withdrew from the Houston Open because his wife was expecting their second child, and little Remy was born March 27.

The word “rested” isn't often used by parents of newborns, but being away from the course may leave Scheffler refreshed.

“I’m getting plenty of sleep. My wife’s a trouper,” Scheffler said. “Remy is so young right now, they sleep a lot of the day. I think he’s used to being in the womb at this point. Yeah, I’ve been able to get a decent amount of sleep.”

It was hard to tell which of the kids was more of a hit at Wednesday's family-friendly Par 3 Contest — Remy being carried by Meredith in a baby wrap or Bennett knocking the ball around with a blue toy club.

Bennett was born just before the PGA Championship in 2024. That major proved to be a wild experience for Scheffler at Valhalla. He was arrested before the second round for not following police instruction — a felony charge and three misdemeanors were later dropped — but made it back from jail in time to shoot 66 that day on his way to finishing tied for eighth.

His obstacles this week are likely to be on the course. Scheffler will try to become the first player since Adam Scott in 2013 to win at Augusta National after having three weeks off.

If there's been a problem for Scheffler this year, it's been his starts. In his past five tournaments, he's played the first round in a combined 3 over par while shooting 56 under the rest of the way.

Of course, all that might feel like ancient history to Scheffler after he's been otherwise occupied in recent weeks. A major like the Masters doesn't offer much of a chance to ease back into competition mode, but it does have its advantages.

“Augusta keeps going above and beyond to make things special and easy for us as players. Especially the practice rounds,” Scheffler said. “The practice rounds are very peaceful. There’s no phones. There’s no people asking for selfies in the middle of the round. It’s very calm out there, and people follow the rules here.”

Scheffler will play with Robert MacIntyre and Gary Woodland in the first two rounds. He was a 6-1 favorite per BetMGM Sportsbook on Wednesday morning. That's similar to his +550 odds before the previous major — the British Open in July, which he won — but not as short at the +275 price on him leading up to last year's U.S. Open.

“Game feels like it’s in a good spot,” Scheffler said. “I got some rest the last few weeks at home. So I feel rested and ready to go this week.”

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

Katib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia group, kidnapped 49-year-old Shelly Kittleson off a Baghdad street corner on March 31. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that Kittleson had been released.

Two officials within the militia, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, told The Associated Press that in exchange for freeing Kittleson, several members of the group who had previously been detained by Iraqi authorities would be released.

Kittleson's mother, Barb Kittleson, said she’s not sure how much U.S. officials want her to say, but that she’s relieved her daughter has been released. She said she went to her local library in Mount Horeb, a village of about 7,000 people in southern Wisconsin, and used a computer there to email her daughter that she hopes she returns to the U.S. and that she's made up her bedroom.

Shelly Kittleson left Wisconsin in 1995 at age 19 for Italy, where she went to school and worked as a nanny. Over the years she has earned a reputation as a determined and gutsy reporter, working from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East for news outlets including Al-Monitor.

Barb Kittleson said that her husband, Bob, died of pancreatic cancer in 2024 and that she hasn't seen her daughter since 2002, when she visited her while touring Italy. Asked if she misses Shelly, she nodded her head yes.

She said she doesn’t know if her daughter will get her message, noting that U.S. officials are trying to limit contact with her for a week and that she doesn’t know if her daughter's captors took her phone and computer.

Kataib Hezbollah has been accused of kidnapping other foreigners.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton graduate student with Israeli and Russian citizenship, disappeared in Baghdad in 2023. After she was freed and handed over to U.S. authorities in September 2025, she said she had been held by Kataib Hezbollah, which never officially claimed responsibility.

Iran-backed militias in Iraq have also launched regular attacks on U.S. facilities in the country since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

But Sheinbaum — a scientist and climate expert — notably avoided the term hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” a drilling method used to extract oil and natural gas from deep underground bedrock using a highly pressurized liquid. Instead, she framed the initiative as a quest for “sustainable” extraction, emphasizing that environmental impacts would be minimized to the greatest extent possible.

The technical feasibility of “sustainable fracking” is a subject of significant debate among environmental scientists and energy experts. But Sheinbaum said a technical committee will spend two months evaluating less harmful methods, such as utilizing nonpotable water and reducing chemical additives. The committee will also assess the potential costs of these mitigations, she said.

“All the gas we import comes from a type of extraction that has environmental impacts” and is “100 meters from the Mexican border,” she noted, alluding to fracking projects in Texas.

Mexico is the world’s single largest buyer of U.S. gas.

While noting that natural gas import contracts with the U.S. remain secure and the bilateral relationship is strong, she argued that increasing energy sovereignty is a responsible necessity. “Is more gas needed? Yes. Can all gas be replaced? Hardly,” she added.

Since assuming power in October 2024, Sheinbaum has pledged to expand renewable energy while maintaining firm support for the state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos. On Wednesday, she defended this stance by arguing that fossil fuels remain an essential component of Mexico’s energy landscape.

Sheinbaum said the priority is to reduce external energy dependence in turbulent times and avoid situations like the one experienced in Europe with the shortage of Russian gas during the war in Ukraine or the one caused by the current war in the Middle East.

Wednesday's proposal — which is certain to spark controversy — comes amid a surge in infrastructure projects designed to increase U.S. gas imports. These developments aim to satisfy Mexico’s rising domestic electricity demand while positioning the country as a hub for re-exporting gas to Asian and European markets.

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

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made the remarks in the keynote address at a conference hosted by the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that rejects mainstream climate science and what it calls “climate alarmism.” Zeldin told the gathering that repeal of the 2009 “endangerment finding” reversed decades of unthinking adherence to liberal politicians and environmental groups about the dangers of climate change.

“Today is a moment to celebrate. It is a day to celebrate vindication,″ said Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York who is widely believed to be under consideration for a possible promotion to attorney general, following Pam Bondi’s forced departure last week.

The EPA earlier this year revoked the endangerment finding, a scientific conclusion that for 16 years was the central basis for regulating planet-warming emissions from power plants, vehicles and other sources. The Trump administration argued the finding hurts industry and the economy and claimed the Obama and Biden administrations twisted science to determine that greenhouse gases are a public health risk.

Heartland on ‘front lines’ against endangerment finding

Zeldin's prominent appearance at a conference hosted by a group deeply skeptical of the established science around climate change reflected the vast reversal that President Donald Trump's administration has carried out of traditional policies meant to protect the environment. The EPA has rolled back dozens of air and water protections and has said it does not have legal authority to regulate climate change.

“You were right there on the front lines against there being an endangerment finding in 2009,” Zeldin told the Heartland conference.

Environmentalists denounced Zeldin's appearance before the conservative group, accusing him of “rallying climate deniers” at a time when climate change is creating greater risks of extreme weather, including stronger hurricanes, more dangerous floods and more intense wildfires.

Zeldin’s speech “promotes disinformation” and amounts to doing the bidding of Heartland’s secretive donors, said Joe Bonfiglio, U.S. director of the Environmental Defense Fund.

“The Heartland Institute is not a serious scientific organization. It’s a disinformation factory,” Bonfiglio said. Having the EPA administrator serve as their opening act isn’t just embarrassing — it’s a signal of how completely the Trump administration has abandoned its obligation to protect the public from pollution.”

An EPA spokeswoman brushed off the criticism, saying “the era of EPA as a vehicle for radical ideology is over.”

Zeldin speaks before a “wide variety of ideologically different groups and individuals to promote the agenda of the Trump EPA,” spokesman Carolyn Holran said.

Zeldin has returned the agency’s focus to fulfill its statutory obligations to protect human health and the environment, “backed by gold standard science, not doomsday models designed to scare the public into compliance,” she said in an email.

Heartland, based in Illinois, describes itself as a “free-market think tank” and says a key goal is to “challenge the narrative that the world faces a climate crisis” driven by the burning of fossil fuels. The organization does not disclose its funder list but has received financial support from oil and gas interests.

James Taylor, the group's president, hailed Zeldin’s speech and called Zeldin “the greatest EPA administrator ever.”

The 2009 endangerment finding determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. The Obama-era finding is the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.

The repeal eliminates all greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks and could unleash a broader undoing of climate regulations on stationary sources such as power plants and oil and gas facilities, experts say. Legal challenges have been filed by nearly two dozen states, along with cities and public health and environmental groups.

Critic calls Zeldin speech ‘surreal’

Bonfiglio, of EDF, called it “surreal” that the head of the EPA would appear before a “fringe of the conservative right” and “ask for his flowers.” He called the speech tone-deaf and even insulting to Americans, given the rising costs of gasoline and other energy and more frequent occurrences of extreme weather such as a gigantic heat dome that baked the Southwest last month and smashed March heat records in 14 states.

The Heartland Institute and its supporters “don't want you to look out the window,” Bonfiglio said in an interview. “They actually need you to not look out the window in order to defend their positions. A core to their belief is that climate change is not a threat.”

The dramatic shift in tenor came as intermediaries led by Pakistan worked feverishly to head off a further escalation. Even China, Iran's biggest trading partner and America's most significant economic competitor, quietly pulled strings to find a path toward a ceasefire, according to two officials briefed on the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East,” Trump said in a social media post Tuesday announcing the temporary ceasefire. It came about 90 minutes before his deadline for Tehran to open the critical Strait of Hormuz or see its power plants and other critical infrastructure obliterated.

The president was to meet at the White House with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Wednesday, with the emerging plan to reopen the strait expected to be at the center of their talks. Trump has been angry that NATO member countries ignored his call to help reopen the vital waterway as gas prices soared during the war.

As the deadline neared, Democratic lawmakers decried Trump's threat to wipe away an entire civilization as “a moral failure." Pope Leo XIV warned that strikes against civilian infrastructure would violate international law and said the Republican president's comments were “truly unacceptable.”

In the end, Trump may have backed down because of a simple truth: Escalation could risk involving the United States in the sort of “forever war” that had bedeviled his predecessors in the White House and that he had vowed he would keep the U.S. out of if voters elected him again.

Controlling the strait would have been long and costly

As Trump boasted about U.S. and Israeli military success over the past six weeks, he appeared to be working from the premise that he could bomb Iran into capitulation.

Starting with the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening salvos, he seemed to discount that the Iranian leadership could opt for a long and bloody war.

The Islamic Republic over the past 47 years has shown it is willing to dig in, even when it appears to America to be working against its own self-interest.

The clerical leadership held Americans hostage for 444 days, from late 1979 to early 1981, at the cost of the country’s international standing. The mullahs allowed the Iran-Iraq war to go on for years, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. Iran stood by Hamas after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ultimately defanged the Iran-backed group in Gaza as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, and created the conditions that led to the collapse of Bashar Assad's government in Syria, an authoritarian rule supported by Tehran.

Iran's leadership exuded confidence that it could bog down the world's superpower in a costly and extended conflict even if it might not defeat the U.S. military.

Defense analysts largely agreed that the U.S. military could quickly take control of the narrow Persian Gulf waterway between Iran and Oman through which roughly 20% of the world's oil flows on any given day. But maintaining security over the strait would require a high-risk, resource-intensive operation that could be a yearslong American commitment.

Ben Connable, executive director of the nonprofit Battle Research Group, said securing the strait would require the U.S. military to maintain control of about 600 kilometers (373 miles) of Iranian territory, from Kish Island in the west to Bandar Abbas in the east, in order to stop Iran from firing missiles at passing ships. It is a mission that Connable said would likely require three U.S. infantry divisions, roughly 30,000 to 45,000 troops.

“This would be an indefinite operation — so, you know, think: be ready to do this for 20 years,” said Connable, a retired Marine Corps intelligence officer. “We didn't think we were going to be in Afghanistan for 20 years. We didn’t think we’re going to have to be in Vietnam as long as we were, or Iraq.”

The two-week ceasefire includes allowing both Iran and Oman to charge fees on ships transiting through Hormuz, a regional official said. The official said Iran would use the money it raised for reconstruction.

The world had considered the passage an international waterway and never paid tolls before. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said after the ceasefire was announced that Trump was effectively delivering “a history-changing win for Iran.”

Trump has a pattern of backing down from maximalist demands

Trump has repeatedly made maximalist demands throughout the first 15 months of his second White House term only to dial them back.

The president backed off many of the sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs he first announced in April 2025 after they caused markets to go haywire. During a January meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump insisted that he wanted the U.S. to take control of Greenland — only to switch course and abandon his threat to impose widespread tariffs on Europe to press his case.

The ceasefire announcement came after Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif urged Trump to extend his deadline to allow diplomacy to advance.

Two weeks has become Trump’s favorite interval to buy himself time when making major decisions on major policy issues. Last summer, the White House said he would decide about launching an initial bombing campaign against Iran within two weeks, only to have the president order airstrikes that he said “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program before that interval was up.

Vance played a bigger role close to the deadline

Trump’s deadline was nearing with no resolution in sight when Vice President JD Vance, who has long pushed for restraint in U.S. military intervention overseas, got roped into the conversation, according to an official from one of the mediating countries who was briefed on the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive diplomatic discussions.

Vance, who was traveling in Hungary in support of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán before upcoming elections, said Wednesday that the agreement with Iran was “a fragile truce.”

“I think if they negotiate in good faith, we will be able to find a deal. That’s a big if. And ultimately, it’s up to the Iranians how they negotiate. I hope they make the right decision,” he said.

The vice president did not address speculation about whether he would travel to Pakistan to participate in talks with Iran.

Vance’s office has not commented on that, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said Trump would be making the call. In a New York Post interview Wednesday, Trump said his envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner would be involved in talks, but that “there’s a question of safety, security” when it comes to Vance’s possible role.

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Amiri reported from New York. Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price in Washington, Justin Spike in Budapest and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.

Jasveen Sangha will be the third defendant sentenced of the five people who have pleaded guilty in connection with the 2023 overdose of the 54-year-old actor. His role as Chandler Bing on NBC's “Friends” in the 1990s and 2000s made him one of the biggest television stars of his era.

Sangha is the only one whose plea deal included an acknowledgment of causing Perry’s death, and is likely to get the stiffest sentence of the group by far.

Prosecutors are asking a federal judge in Los Angeles to sentence the 42-year-old Sangha to 15 years in prison. They cast her in court filings as a “Ketamine Queen” who had an elaborate drug operation catering to high-end clients to give herself a jet-setting lifestyle.

Sangha's attorneys said in their sentencing filing that the time she has spent in jail since her August 2024 indictment should be sufficient, and prosecutors' math on federal sentencing guidelines is “factually wrong.” They point to her lack of a previous criminal record and exemplary behavior as an inmate, as well as the unlikelihood she would return to a life of drug dealing.

Members of Perry’s family are expected to speak in court before the sentencing.

He was found dead in the hot tub at his Los Angeles home. The medical examiner ruled that ketamine, typically used as a surgical anesthetic, was the primary cause of death.

Perry, who had lifelong struggles with addiction, had been using the drug through his regular doctor as a legal off-label treatment for depression. But he wanted more than the doctor would give him. That at first led him to Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who admitted to illegally selling Perry ketamine and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison after prosecutors asked for three years. And it later led Perry to Sangha, who sold him 25 vials of ketamine, including the fatal dose, for $6,000 in cash four days before his death, prosecutors said.

Another doctor, who admitted to providing Plasencia the ketamine he sold to Perry, was sentenced to eight months of home detention. Perry's assistant and his friend, who admitted acting as the actor's middlemen, are awaiting sentencing.

U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett has said she is seeking to calibrate how she sentences each of the five defendants to make sense as a whole.

In September, shortly before a scheduled trial, Sangha pleaded guilty to one count of using her home for drug distribution, three counts of distribution of ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. She also admitted to selling drugs to another man, 33-year-old Cody McLaury, who had no connection to Perry, before his overdose death in 2019.

The prosecution said that despite Sangha's plea, she continued drug dealing, showing her lack of remorse.

Their sentencing filing says that in 2020, when she learned that the ketamine she sold McLaury contributed to his death, “She didn’t care and kept selling.” In 2023, the filing says that when she learned she sold Perry the drugs that caused his death, “Her reaction was the same: she didn’t care and kept selling.”

A dual U.S.-U.K. citizen, Sangha moved from England to the U.S. at age 3, and when she was around age 10, her family settled in Southern California.

She didn't know her father but has said her grandfather and stepfather were essential male influences in her life. Both recently died and it has had a “profound effect” on her, the defense said.

She is very close to her mother and grandmother, who would provide her with stability if she were released, her lawyers said.

Sangha has a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Irvine, and a master's degree from Hult International Business School in England.

The defense used her biography to show she's an educated and otherwise upstanding citizen who made an aberrant mistake when she fell into selling drugs.

The prosecution said her life circumstances show she didn't act out of desperation, and that she freely chose to deal drugs to finance the posh lifestyle she wanted.

Sangha's lawyers said she has been a model inmate in jail, maintaining sobriety and organizing and leading Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

Jessica Collins, a spokeswoman for the House Oversight Committee, said Wednesday the department signaled that Bondi, who was ousted by President Donald Trump last week, will not appear for the deposition April 14 “since she is no longer attorney general and was subpoenaed in her capacity as attorney general.” The committee will contact Bondi’s personal counsel to discuss the next steps about scheduling the interview, she said.

Bondi has faced scrutiny for how the Justice Department handled what are known as the Epstein files, and the Republican-led committee subpoenaed her in a bipartisan vote last month. The department's release of millions of case files on Epstein, the late financier who sexually abused underage girls, contained multiple errors and ran behind a deadline set by Congress.

After Trump announced Bondi's ouster from his Cabinet on April 2, Bondi said on social media that over the next month she would be “working tirelessly to transition the office." But Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has been elevated to the top job, on at least an acting basis, and is performing the duties of the department’s top official. The Justice Department's website on Wednesday still listed Bondi as attorney general.

Meanwhile, some Republicans who had joined Democrats to subpoena Bondi said they would insist on having her appear before the committee.

Rep. Nancy Mace, who initiated the motion to compel her appearance, said on social media Wednesday that “Bondi cannot escape accountability simply because she no longer holds the office of Attorney General.”

Mace, R-SC., added that the motion was done “by name, not by title” and that “we expect her to appear as soon as a new date is set.”

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, also said he would push to enforce the subpoena and threatened to press for contempt of Congress charges if she does not appear.

In a statement, he said, “Now that Pam Bondi has been fired, she’s trying to get out of her legal obligation to testify before the Oversight Committee about the Epstein files and the White House cover-up."

The committee's head, Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, enforced subpoenas on Bill and Hillary Clinton this year, making the ex-president and ex-secretary of state, respectively, among the highest-ranking former government officials ever to be subpoenaed by Congress.

Rio state military fire department said the blaze was under control and largely confined to the venue’s fabric roof. There have been no reported injuries, and the interior of the building — including the Olympic Museum — remained untouched.

Rio Mayor Eduardo Cavaliere told journalists that a small portion of the city's 1,000-item Olympic museum, which lies inside the velodrome, was affected but that it could be fixed with only minor repairs.

“The structure of the velodrome itself is preserved and the track has not been hit at all,” Cavaliere said.

While the cause of this latest incident is currently under investigation, the facility has a history of roof fires. Two similar blazes occurred in 2017, both caused by falling paper sky lanterns.

Since hosting track cycling during the 2016 Summer Games, the Velodrome has served as a primary training base for Brazil’s national cycling and weightlifting teams.

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

Not only was it the hottest March on record for the U.S., but the amount it was above normal beat any other month in history for the Lower 48 states. March’s average temperature of 50.85 degrees Fahrenheit (10.47 degrees Celsius) was 9.35 F (5.19 C) above the 20th century normal for March. That easily passed the old record of 8.9 F (4.9 C) set in March 2012 as the most abnormally hot month on record — regardless of the month of the year — according to records released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The average maximum temperature for March was especially high at 11.4 F (6.3 C) above the 20th century average and was almost a degree warmer than the average daytime high for April, NOAA said.

Six of the nation’s top 10 most abnormally hot months have been in the last 10 years. This February, which was 6.57 F (3.65 C) above 20th century normal, was the tenth highest above normal.

“What we experienced in March across the United States was unprecedented,” said Climate Central meteorologist Shel Winkley. “One reason that’s so concerning is just the sheer volume of records, all-time records that were set and broken during that time period. But also this is coming on the heels of what was the worst snow year. And the hottest winter of record. So we’re seeing this continuation of extraordinary heat that took place during the winter months, continuing into the spring months as well. That’s where it’s really concerning, it’s just the duration of this heat.”

More than 19,800 daily temperature records were broken for heat across the country, according to meteorologist Guy Walton, who analyzes NOAA data.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

U.S. President Donald Trump told PBS News Hour that Lebanon was not included in the deal because of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. When asked about Israel’s latest strikes, he said, “That’s a separate skirmish.” Israel had said the agreement does not extend to its war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah, although mediator Pakistan said it does.

The fleeting sense of relief among Lebanese after the ceasefire announcement turned into panic with what Israel’s military called its largest coordinated strike in the current war, hitting more than 100 Hezbollah targets within 10 minutes in Beirut, southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Black smoke towered over several parts of the seaside capital, where a huge number of people displaced by war have taken shelter. Explosions interrupted the honking of traffic on what had been a bustling, blue-sky afternoon. Ambulances raced toward open flames. Apartment buildings were struck.

Associated Press journalists saw charred bodies in vehicles and on the ground at one of Beirut’s busiest intersections in the central Corniche al Mazraa neighborhood, a mixed commercial and residential area. Using forklifts, rescue workers removed smoldering debris and sifted through ruins for survivors.

There was no sign of Hezbollah launching strikes against Israel in the first couple of hours after the attacks.

In response to the attacks on Lebanon, Iran later Wednesday said it will once again halt the movement of oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the country's state-run media reported.

A deadly midday barrage

Central Beirut has been targeted before, but not by so many strikes at once and in the middle of the day. Israel had rarely struck central Beirut since the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war on March 2 but has regularly struck southern and eastern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Lebanon's Minister of Social Affairs, Haneed Sayed, in an interview with The Associated Press condemned Israel’s wide range of strikes, calling it a “very dangerous turning point.”

“These hits are now at the heart of Beirut … Half of the sheltered (internally displaced people) are in Beirut in this area,” she said, adding that she had just driven by areas hit.

She said Lebanon's government is ready to enter into negotiations with Israel for an end to hostilities, an offer that the Lebanese president previously made. Israel has not responded. “There are calls and efforts being made as we speak," Sayed said.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in a statement accused Israel of escalating at a moment when Lebanese officials were seeking to negotiate a solution, and of hitting civilian areas in “utter disregard for the principles of international law and international humanitarian law — principles it has, in any case, never respected.”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called the Israeli attacks “barbaric.” Lebanon's health ministry said that along with the 112 killed, at least 837 were wounded, warning that this is not the final count.

Israel's military said it had targeted missile launchers, command centers and intelligence infrastructure. It accused Hezbollah fighters of trying to “blend into” non-Shiite Muslim areas beyond their traditional strongholds.

Residents and local officials denied that the buildings hit were military sites.

“Look at these crimes,” said Mohammed Balouza, a member of Beirut’s municipal council, at the scene of a strike in Corniche al Mazraa. An apartment building behind a popular shop selling nuts and dried fruit had been hit. “This is a residential area. There is nothing (military) here.”

An Israeli warning and a defiant Hezbollah

As the smoke rose Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem that “his turn will come.” In 2024, Israel killed Hezbollah's previous leader, Hassan Nasrallah, with an airstrike.

Katz called Wednesday's strikes the largest blow against Hezbollah since the attack that caused pagers used by hundreds of its members to explode almost simultaneously in September 2024.

Before the new strikes, a Hezbollah official told the AP that the group was giving a chance for mediators to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon, but “we have not announced our adherence to the ceasefire since the Israelis are not adhering to it.” He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.

The Hezbollah official said the group will not accept a return to the pre-March 2 status quo, when Israel carried out near-daily strikes in Lebanon despite a ceasefire being nominally in place since the last full-blown Israel-Hezbollah war ended in November 2024.

“We will not accept for the Israelis to continue behaving as they did before this war with regards to attacks,” he said.

Hezbollah had fired missiles across the border days after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, sparking a regional war. Israel responded with widespread bombardment of Lebanon and a ground invasion.

The Israeli military chief of staff, Lt Gen. Eyal Zamir, said the attacks are to protect Israel’s northern residents, who have come under heavy fire.

Since the war started and before Wednesday's attacks, Israeli airstrikes killed more than 1,530 people in Lebanon, including more than 100 women and 130 children. The Israeli military has said it has killed hundreds of Hezbollah fighters. More than 1 million people have been displaced in Lebanon.

Early Wednesday, after the Iran ceasefire was announced and before Israel struck, many displaced people sleeping in tents on the streets of Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon had begun packing their belongings in preparation to return home.

Families at a sprawling displacement camp on Beirut’s waterfront later expressed confusion and despair.

“We can’t take this anymore, sleeping in a tent, not showering, the uncertainty,” said Fadi Zaydan, 35. He and his parents had prepared to head back to the southern city of Nabatieh. Instead, they decided to wait things out in Sidon, a bit closer to home.

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Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre and AP journalists Hussein Mallah and Fadi Tawil in Beirut, Michelle Price in Washington and Melanie Lidman in Eilat, Israel, contributed to this report.

Rodrigo will do double duty as host and musical guest on May 2, marking her hosting debut and third time as musical guest, ahead of her new album, “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love.”

Damon, promoting Christopher Nolan's “The Odyssey,” will host the following week for the third time on May 9. Noah Kahan will perform as that show's musical guest, for the second time.

Ferrell, who leads Netflix's upcoming “The Hawk,” will host the 51st season finale on May 16 — his sixth time hosting. His musical guest will be McCartney, who will take the stage as musical guest for the fifth time.

Colman Domingo and musical guest Anitta are on tap this Saturday.

The NBC sketch comedy show airs at 11:30 p.m. Eastern and streams live on Peacock.

We are still cool and clear this morning with a lot of sunshine headed our way this afternoon. Eventually, during the afternoon, abundant sunshine will make our air temperatures feel a bit warmer than the actual values.

It is so cold this morning that we have a few cold-weather alerts, certainly not spring-like. A Freeze Warning is in effect until 9 AM.

Along with the cold weather, it is quite dry! Our dew points have taken a drastic turn, now falling into the teens and single digits. This is bringing about fire weather concerns as winds reach into the 20-25 MPH range. Any fire that starts has the potential to spread quickly in these conditions.

Our forecast finally changes a bit with moisture back in the picture late Friday night and into early Saturday morning. This is because of our next cold front that swings through. Even though the front brings rain showers, it will not allow for a dip in temperatures as we head into the 80s this weekend! Enjoy the sunshine today!

“I will tell you guys, James Pearce is not here," Stefanski said. “We've been in constant communication with his representation."

Pearce was arrested near Miami on Feb. 7 after an incident involving his former girlfriend, WNBA player Rickea Jackson.

He faces three felony charges, including aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, fleeing and eluding police and resisting an officer with violence, in addition to a misdemeanor stalking charge.

The new Falcons coach emphasized that the training program is voluntary and that he wouldn't be sharing additional details about which players reported.

“It’s a voluntary program, so that’s up to each individual player to make those decisions,” Stefanski said. "I would also add that we’ve had great discussions with his (Pearce's) representation. I don’t want to get into the specifics of that.”

One of the players in attendance is running back Bijan Robinson, who earned AP first-team All-Pro honors after amassing 2,298 yards from scrimmage and 11 total touchdowns during the 2025-26 season.

The running back said he has not spoken with Pearce since his arrest.

“If he does come back, if he’s here in this building, I’m going to make sure that he’s all the way focused, all the way ready to go, make sure his mind is in the right place, so he can be at his best on and off the field,” Robinson said.

Pearce's status with the Falcons has been in question since the arrest. The Falcons' front office and coaching staff, which is largely full of new faces this season, has remained tight-lipped during the active investigation.

“Obviously, we’re aware of the most recent articles and things that have come out regarding James Pearce,” Falcons GM Ian Cunningham said in March. “Those are concerning, right, to say the least, but outside of that, I’ll just keep it just very similar to what we said at the combine. We’re not going to comment on an open legal matter here moving forward.”

Pearce led the Falcons with 10.5 sacks in 2025. He also had 26 total tackles, five pass deflections, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. The Falcons’ pass rush saw significant improvement with Pearce in the lineup in 2025, setting a team record with 57 sacks, 26 more than the year before.

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

The enforcement effort will span from Greene County to the North Carolina state line, covering approximately 156 miles. Patrol areas include Greene, Albemarle, Nelson, Amherst, Campbell and Pittsylvania counties, as well as the city of Lynchburg.

State police will work in partnership with local law enforcement agencies throughout the corridor to increase patrols and promote safe driving.

After a blast of guitar feedback, 22-year-old Kurt Cobain politely announced to the crowd at the small club called Dreamerz: “Hello, we're Nirvana. We're from Seattle.” With that, the band, then a quartet, launched into the riff-heavy first song, “School.”

Jacobs surreptitiously recorded the performance, documenting the fledgling band in raw, fiery form more than two years before Nirvana's global breakthrough with the album “Nevermind.”

Jacobs went on to record more than 10,000 concerts, with increasingly sophisticated equipment, over four decades in Chicago and other cities. Now a group of devoted volunteers in the U.S. and Europe is methodically cataloging, digitizing and uploading them one by one.

The growing Aadam Jacobs Collection is an internet treasure trove for music lovers, especially for fans of indie and punk rock during the 1980s through the early 2000s, when the scene blossomed and became mainstream. The collection features early-in-their-career performances from alternative and experimental artists like R.E.M., The Cure, The Pixies, The Replacements, Depeche Mode, Stereolab, Sonic Youth and Björk.

There's also a smattering of hip-hop, including a 1988 concert by rap pioneers Boogie Down Productions. Devotees of Phish were thrilled to discover that a previously uncirculated 1990 show by the jam band is included. And there are hundreds of sets by smaller artists who are unlikely to be known to even fans with the most obscure tastes.

All of it is slowly becoming available for streaming and free download at the nonprofit online repository Internet Archive, including that nascent Nirvana show recording, with the audio from Jacobs' cassette recorder cleaned up.

Jacobs' first recording was in 1984

By the time Jacobs sneaked his tape recorder into that Nirvana gig, he had been recording concerts for five years already. As a teen discovering music, Jacobs began taping songs off the radio.

“And I eventually met a fellow who said, ‘You can just take a tape recorder into a show with you, just sneak it in, record the show.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s cool.’ So I got started,” Jacobs, now 59, recalled.

He doesn't remember offhand what that first concert was in 1984, but he taped it with a tiny Dictaphone-type device that he borrowed from his grandmother. A short time later, he bought the Sony Walkman-style tape recorder. When that broke, he briefly used his home console cassette machine stuffed in a backpack that a generous sound man let him plug in.

“I was using, at times, pretty lackluster equipment, simply because I had no money to buy anything better,” he said. Later, he moved on to digital audio tape, or DAT, and, as technology progressed, to solid-state digital recorders.

Jacobs doesn't consider himself obsessive or, as many call him, an archivist. He says he's just a music fan. He figured if he was going to attend a few concerts a week anyway, why not document them? In the early years, he contended with contentious club owners who tried to prevent him from taping. But they eventually relented as he became a fixture in the music scene, and many began letting the “taper guy” in for free.

Author Bob Mehr, who wrote about Jacobs in 2004 for the Chicago Reader, calls him one of the city's cultural institutions.

“He's a character. I think you have to be, to do what he does,” Mehr said. “But I think he proved over time that his intentions were really pure.”

After a local filmmaker made a documentary about Jacobs in 2023, a volunteer with the Internet Archive reached out to suggest his collection be preserved. “Before all the tapes started not working because of time, just disintegrating, I finally said yes,” he said.

Boxes stuffed with tapes

Once a month, Brian Emerick makes the trip from the Chicago suburbs to Jacobs' house in the city to pick up 10 or 20 boxes each stuffed with 50 or 100 tapes. Emerick's job is to transfer — in real time — the analog recordings to digital files that can be sent to other volunteers who mix and master the shows for upload to the archive. Emerick has a room devoted to his setup of outdated cassette and DAT decks.

“So many of the machines I find are broken. They’re trashed. And so I learned how to fix those, get them running again,” said Emerick. “Currently, I have 10 working cassette decks, and I run those all simultaneously.”

Emerick estimates he's digitized at least 5,500 tapes since late 2024 and that it will take another few years to complete the project. The digital files are claimed by a dozen or so volunteer-engineers in the U.S, U.K. and Germany who provide the metadata and clean up the audio. Among them is Neil deMause in Brooklyn, who said he's constantly impressed by the audio fidelity of the original tapes, especially considering Jacobs was using “weird RadioShack mics” and other primitive equipment.

“Especially after the first couple years, he's got it so dialed in that some of these recordings, on, like, crappy little cassette tapes from the early 90s, sound incredible,” deMause said.

Emerick pointed to a 1984 James Brown concert as a gem he discovered in the stacks.

Often, the hardest job is figuring out song titles. Occasionally, Jacobs kept helpful notes, but the volunteers frequently spend days consulting each other, searching and even reaching out to artists to make sure the setlists are accurately documented.

Jacobs said the majority of the artists he recorded are pleased to have their work preserved. As for copyright concerns, he's happy to remove recordings if requested, but added that only one or two musicians so far have asked that their material be taken down.

“I think that the general consensus is, it’s easier to say I’m sorry than to ask for permission,” he said. The Internet Archive declined to comment for this story. David Nimmer, a longtime copyright attorney who also teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that under anti-bootlegging laws, the artists technically own the original compositions and live recordings. But since neither Jacobs nor the archive are profiting from the endeavor, lawsuits seem unlikely.

The Replacements, a foundational punk-alternative band, were so happy with Jacobs’ tape of a 1986 show that they mixed some of it in with a soundboard recording. They released it in 2023 as a live album as part of a box set produced by Mehr.

Jacobs stopped recording a few years ago as worsening health problems sapped his desire to go out and see concerts. But he still enjoys experiencing live music he finds online, much of it recorded by a new generation of fans.

“Since everybody’s got a cellphone, anybody can record a concert,” he said.

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This story was updated to correct the spelling of Jacobs in one instance.

The par-3 16th is famous for Woods hitting that pitch that made a U-turn at the top of the slope, hung on the edge of the cup and dropped during his 2005 victory. No eyes were on the beautiful Redbud shrub with its vibrant pink blooms.

The par-3 12th hole is associated with its name on the scorecard, “Golden Bell,” a yellow bloom native to Asia. Ask just about any player at the Masters if they've ever seen a Golden Bell and it's doubtful. It blooms in late winter. The Masters is golf's rite of spring.

“I’ve played the 12th enough. I’m sure I’ve seen one somewhere,” Rory McIlroy said.

Pebble Beach is the felicitous meeting of land and sea. Augusta National is the greatest garden in golf, because that's what it was before Bobby Jones went looking for land to build his golf course and found the 365-acre Fruitland Nurseries.

“Perfect! And to think this ground has been lying here all these years waiting for someone to come along and lay a golf course on it,” Jones said when he first laid eyes on the property.

He took out an option for $70,000.

Augusta National doesn't speak in numbers — from the size of the gallery to how fast the greens are running on the Stimpmeter — but the course is believe to have some 80,000 flowering plants and trees on its immaculate landscape.

The flora is such an integral part of Augusta National that each hole is named for a tree or a shrub that can be found on that hole.

“I know azalea is one of them,” Dustin Johnson said.

Good guess. It took him a few seconds to associate “Azalea” with the iconic par-5 13th, which has approximately 1,600 azalea bushes, many of them surrounding the back of the green.

Remarkably, Johnson knew the seventh hole was named, “Pampas,” a grass bush native to Argentina that grows about 12 feet high and blooms in late summer. The hole used to be 340 yards with no bunkers. Now it's 450 yards, straight and narrow and tough.

“Perfect name,” Johnson said, “because it is an ass of a hole.”

Johnson also knew there was a dogwood or two on the scorecard without knowing exactly where (Pink Dogwood for No. 2, White Dogwood for No. 11). And there's no shame in that.

Two-time champion Scottie Scheffler — the No. 1 player in the world, and with a degree from Texas in finance, not horticulture — paused under the live oak next to the clubhouse when asked how many plants he could name associated with each hole.

“Magnolia for 5?” he asked. He hit one of his purest shots on the fifth hole when he won in 2022. He didn't have to venture into the magnolia trees behind the tree.

He also named Azalea and Golden Bell — “I got more than I thought,” he said — but whiffed on Holly, the red-berry bushes found on both sides of the 18th tee.

McIlroy, the defending champion, has a greater appreciation of history and heritage than most golfers. He didn't think he could get the names on all 18 holes before rattling off Firethorn (15), Azalea, Golden Bell, Pink Dogwood ... and then he stumbled.

“White Dogwood, 10?” he said.

No. The 10th hole is Camelia, another one that typically blooms well before the Masters.

The beauty of Augusta National cannot be overstated, and its history of flora is rich. Fruitland Nurseries dates to 1858, a partnership between a Belgian baron named Louis Berckmans and his son, Prosper. They imported trees and plants from all over the world. The nursery ceased operations in 1918 after they died. What remained were a long row of magnolias that had been planted before the Civil War, and the azalea bush that Prosper Berckmans popularized.

A word about the famous azaleas at Augusta National.

No, the club's horticulture staff does not pack them in ice to keep the blooms from bursting before the Masters. There have been the occasional “green” Masters without many blooms, and that almost was the case this year. The blooms are fading but still colorful.

The staff will get to work two days after the Masters is over, fertilizing and pruning. And it takes great care — the azalea bushes are pruned by hand, a project that can take three months.

There is one palm tree at Augusta National, just to the right of the green on the par-3 fourth. The name of the hole later was changed from Palm to Flowering Crabapple with its red, pink and white blooms (they usually pop right after the Masters).

That tripped up Chris Gotterup, one of the 22 newcomers to the Masters this year.

“Is every hole named after a flower?" Gotterup said Monday. “Because we were playing 4 today. Is palm a flower?”

It all weaves together in a magnificent landscape, a deceptive beauty as the backdrop to intense pressure trying to win one of golf's grandest prizes. Jones might have summed it up best.

"Never was the iron gauntlet of challenge more skillfully concealed in velvet.”

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

The Texas Rangers are also helping look into allegations of neglect, according to the Texas Department of Safety, although the scope of the state’s elite investigations unit was not immediately clear.

The investigations underscore the hurdles facing Camp Mystic as it pushes ahead with reopening plans over the outrage of the families of the 25 girls and two teenage counselors who died in the July 4 floods. More than 850 families have signed up to return to the Christian, all-girls camp this summer if it is allowed to reopen a portion of the camp that did not flood.

The Department of State Health Services said that since February, the agency has received “hundreds of complaints regarding Camp Mystic’s operations in the summer of 2025” alleging violations of state laws governing youth camps. The agency said it asked for help from state police.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said the Texas Rangers joined an “investigation regarding complaints of neglect” during the flood. Neither agency released details. The camp did not evacuate and was hit hard when the river rose from 14 feet (4.2 meters) to 29.5 feet (9 meters) within 60 minutes before dawn.

A letter sent Tuesday from the health agency to the camp owners informed them of the agency’s investigation, but made no mention of the Texas Rangers being involved.

Lawyers for the families of the girls who were killed and the Camp Mystic owners did not immediately respond to email messages requesting comment.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called the Texas Rangers’ involvement a “criminal investigation” and said the state should not grant the camp a license to reopen until that probe and another one by state lawmakers are complete.

“I urge you to prioritize safety and do everything in your power to ensure Camp Mystic and/or their operators are not allowed to operate until the facts are in,” Patrick wrote in a letter Tuesday to the head of the health agency.

In a statement Wednesday, Camp Mystic said it has cooperated with “every investigative request we have received," including with lawmakers. The camp said it worked closely with the Texas Rangers immediately after the floods and would continue to do so.

“We look forward to cooperating with the Texas Rangers and supporting them in their efforts to gain a thorough and accurate understanding of what happened on the South Fork of the Guadalupe River during the early hours of July 4,” the camp said.

Lawyers for the families of the victims did not immediately respond to email messages seeking comment.

Families of several of the girls who died have sued the camp’s operators, arguing that camp officials failed to take necessary steps to protect the campers as life-threatening floodwaters approached. A district judge last month ordered the camp owners to preserve damaged cabins and other parts of the grounds in the flooded area as the lawsuits proceed.

The body of one of the campers killed, 8-year-old Cile Steward, has not yet been recovered. DPS officials said the search for the girl continues.

Richard Eastland, one of the camp owners, was also killed. All told, the destructive flooding killed at least 136 people along a several-mile stretch of the river, raising questions about how things went so terribly wrong.

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This story has been corrected to show that Richard Eastland, not Edward Eastland, was killed in the flooding.

As Fayette Area Historical Initiative (FAHI) Executive Director Charisse Hairston stands before a painting, she beams with pride while describing the rich history captured in the gentle strokes of a paintbrush. The artwork features four figures who made a significant impact on Martinsville and Henry County: Dr. Dana Baldwin, Sgt. Floyd Hairston, Tuskegee Airman Lt. Col. Armour G. McDaniel, and retired Gen. Dennis L. Via.

“I’m very proud of this and such a talented painter just to be able to take these grainy pictures and to take the vision that I had and then come out with something just so beautiful,” said Hairston.

The painting is more than just art; it’s a living canvas honoring some of Martinsville-Henry County’s most prominent historical figures, both past and present. The piece is now on display at the Fayette Area Historical Initiative in Martinsville.

“I wanted FAHI to have a piece, just that we could reference,” Hairston said. “You know, the way we wanted to honor Virginia 250.”

The painting’s artist, Clevester Woods, hopes the work resonates with everyone who sees it.

“It gives a benefit to everybody to let everybody know that everybody is somebody, and these men fought hard and gave their lives for the cause,” Woods said.

The painting depicts World War I veteran Dr. Dana Baldwin, who, after returning to Martinsville, opened several businesses and a hospital for African Americans during the Jim Crow era.

“He was one of the first doctors from Virginia to enlist in the med corps of World War I,” Hairston explained.

Sergeant Floyd Hairston, a Buffalo Soldier and local shop owner, is also featured. He was known for staying true to his military roots.

“His great niece was telling this story about how he had this flag in front of his store, and he would salute that flag every morning and every night,” Hairston said.

Lieutenant Colonel Armour McDaniel, a teacher turned Tuskegee Airman, is depicted as well. His story was featured in the 2012 movie “Red Tails.”

“The most familiar part you can remember is that he was the one who bailed out of his plane during that Ramitelli mission, became a prisoner of war,” Hairston said.

General Dennis Via, Virginia’s first four-star general and a Henry County native, is also included.

The painting contains four symbols, each representing one of the trailblazers: the rod of Asclepius for medicine, a buffalo, an airplane, and four stars. Some symbols are immediately recognizable, while others require a closer look.

“The flag kind of goes into a wave, and if you notice General Via is at the arch of that wave, and it’s like he’s looking back to say thank you to those who paved the way for him,” Hairston noted.

Hairston said the decision to focus the painting on military figures was clear.

“You can have freedom. You can win a war and get freedom, but if you don’t have anyone to defend that freedom, then you can easily lose it.”

Woods said the project weighed heavily on him, knowing the importance of what he was creating.

“I’ve painted hundreds of paintings, but I don’t know of any of the paintings I’ve done that put as much pressure on me as this painting has. I wanted to get it right because I knew a lot of people would be looking at this, and a lot of prominent people.”

The piece took Woods six months to create. He had to go to several sources to research the four men, including working with his brother, a retired Navy captain.

“We stayed on the phone countless hours shuffling through the pictures, trying to dissect the pins and all the ribbons and things they had on their uniforms,” Woods said.

The long hours culminated in a painting now on permanent display at the FAHI Museum in Martinsville, ensuring that the legacy of these four men, and their contributions to Martinsville and the nation, will not be forgotten.

Want to discover more stories that make Virginia unique? Visit the Patchwork 250 page to explore the full quilt of our region’s history, one patch at a time.

Trump had suggested the U.S. may consider leaving the trans-Atlantic alliance after NATO member countries ignored his call to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping waterway, as Iran effectively shut it and sent gas prices soaring.

The Republican president's meeting with Rutte, with whom he had a warm relationship, comes as the U.S. and Iran late Tuesday agreed to a two-week ceasefire that includes the reopening of the strait. The nascent ceasefire was struck after Trump said he would strike Iran's power plants and bridges, threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight."

The plan to reopen the strait is still cloudy and is expected to be a central focus of the Wednesday afternoon meeting with Rutte. The White House said the meeting was expected to be behind closed doors. In the Trump administration, though, that can change at the last minute, and meetings can be opened to the press.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio met separately with Rutte on Wednesday morning at the State Department ahead of the White House talks.

In a statement, the State Department said Rubio and Rutte had discussed the war with Iran, along with U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war and “increasing coordination and burden shifting with NATO allies.”

Congress in 2023 passed a law that prevents any U.S. president from pulling out of NATO without its approval. Trump has been a longtime critic of NATO and in his first term had suggested he had the authority on his own to leave the alliance, which was founded in 1949 to counter the Cold War threat posed to European security by the Soviet Union.

The crux of the commitment its 32 member countries make is a mutual defense agreement in which an attack on one is considered an attack on them all. The only time it has been activated was in 2001, to support the United States in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Despite that, Trump has complained during his war of choice with Iran that NATO has shown it will not be there for the U.S.

Ahead of the meeting, Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, issued a statement Tuesday night in support of the alliance, noting that, “Following the September 11th attacks, NATO allies sent their young servicemembers to fight and die alongside America’s own in Afghanistan and Iraq.” McConnell, who sits on a committee overseeing defense spending, urged Trump to be “clear and consistent” and said it's not in America's interest to “spend more time nursing grudges with allies who share our interests than deterring adversaries who threaten us.”

If Rutte's meeting does not alleviate Trump's frustrations, it's unclear if the Trump administration would challenge the law barring a president from pulling out of NATO. When the law passed, it was championed by Trump's current secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who at the time was a senator from Florida.

The alliance was already rattled over the past year as Trump returned to power and reduced U.S. military support for Ukraine in the war against Russia and threatened to seize Greenland from ally Denmark.

But Trump's badgering of NATO intensified after the Iran war began at the end of February, with the president insisting that securing the Strait of Hormuz was not America's job but the responsibility of countries that depend on the flow of oil through it.

“Go to the strait and just take it,” Trump said last week.

Trump was also angered as NATO allies Spain and France forbade or restricted use of their airspace or joint military facilities for the U.S. in the Iran war. They and other nations, however, agreed to help with an international coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz when the conflict ends.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has been a particular source of Trump's frustration, was set to travel on Wednesday to the Gulf to support the ceasefire. The U.K. has been working on developing a post-conflict security plan for the strait, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.

Trump has previously threatened to leave NATO and often said that he would abandon allies who don’t spend enough on their military budgets. Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, in his recent memoir, said he feared that Trump might walk away from the alliance in 2018, during his first term as president.

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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

Rothman was fired on Tuesday night in a unanimous vote by the board of regents following a roughly 30-minute closed-door discussion. Regents have not given a reason for firing Rothman, who was in the job for just under four years.

“Absolutely I was blindsided,” Rothman told the AP. He said he has still not been given a reason for his firing.

“I really don’t know,” Rothman said. “I asked for reasons why. They were not able to articulate any.”

But Rothman, who came to the job in 2022 after serving as chair and CEO of a Milwaukee-based law firm with more than 1,000 attorneys, said he is unlikely to file a lawsuit over his firing.

“We’ll have to see how circumstances develop,” Rothman said. “I don’t think it’s likely that I would go in that direction. That’s not who I am.”

The AP was the first to report on April 2 that the regents had asked Rothman, 66, to retire or resign or face being fired. Rothman said on Wednesday that he considered retiring, but since regents gave him no reason, he decided against it.

Regent President Amy Bogost said in a statement before the firing that the decision was “about the future” of the 13-university system, including the flagship Madison campus, that educates about 165,000 students.

“The Universities of Wisconsin must be led with a clear vision that both protects and strengthens our flagship, supports our comprehensive universities and ensures we are meeting the evolving needs of our students, workforce and communities across all 72 counties,” Bogost said.

She did not immediately return a message on Wednesday seeking comment.

Rothman did not criticize any regent by name, but he did express frustration generally with the board.

“For a board to be functional, it needs to be able to provide clarity to the management team,” he said. “Not 18 different voices with different opinions and pet projects. There has to be board leadership that is able to consolidate that, build a consensus and provide clear direction.”

Rothman said his performance objectives were not even discussed in his last review in August, which he said was “astonishing.”

Rothman spent his time as president lobbying Republican legislators to increase state aid for the system in the face of federal cuts, navigating free speech issues surrounding pro-Palestinian protests, and grappling with declining enrollment that has forced eight branch campuses to close. Overall enrollment across the system has remained steady under his leadership.

Rothman brokered a deal with Republicans in 2023 that called for freezing diversity hires and creating a position at UW-Madison focused on conservative thought in exchange for the Legislature releasing money for UW employee raises and tens of millions of dollars for construction projects across the system.

Rothman said Wednesday he didn't know if any of those particular issues contributed to his being fired, but conceded they could have.

“When you come in to affect change and you try to move an organization forward, you have to make difficult decisions,” Rothman said. “And when you make difficult decisions, you can upset some people."

Sen. Patrick Testin, the Republican president of the Wisconsin state Senate, called Rothman’s firing a “blatant partisan hatchet job.”

The state Senate’s committee that oversees higher education scheduled a hearing for Thursday for 10 regents whose appointments by Evers have yet to be confirmed. Testin called for the Senate to reject all 10, which would mean they could no longer serve as regents.

Rothman said he wasn’t going to speculate on why he was cut loose.

“I am disappointed with the board’s action, but I’m not angry,” he said. “This is not about retribution. I’m concerned about the future of the Universities of Wisconsin.”

By giving the “core” designation to those players, their teams have exclusive negotiating rights which comes with a guaranteed one-year deal at the new supermax salary. That's more than five-times above the top salary they could earn in the last CBA.

Players can negotiate different terms to help their teams sign other players to fit under the new salary cap that's expected to be around $7 million.

Other players giving the “core” designation include Indiana's Kelsey Mitchell, Dallas' Arike Ogunbowale, Atlanta's Allisha Gray, Chicago's Ariel Atkins and Seattle's Ezi Magbegor.

Expansion franchises Portland and Toronto extended franchise tag offers to players. The Fire selected Bridget Carleton with the first pick in the draft last week and offered her the tag. The Tempo did the same for Marina Mabrey, who they took with the sixth pick.

The franchise tag is a way for a team to prevent a player from leaving in free agency without getting anything in return for them. The teams and players can also negotiate doing a sign-and-trade agreement for those players.

Starting in 2027, players can only be given the core designation twice and it can only be if they have less than seven years of experience in the league.

Teams were also able to send out reserved and restricted qualifying offers to players during this designation period, which began Monday. Negotiations will go from Wednesday to Friday with players able to start signing Saturday.

Training camp is scheduled to begin on April 19 with the first preseason games on April 25.

The start of free agency was delayed until this month because of a prolonged negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement that didn't get agreed to and ratified until late March. The long form contract is still being executed by both sides.

More than 80% of the league’s veteran players are free agents this year, as players had signed deals that expired at the end of last season to capitalize on higher salaries from the new CBA.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

“Yeah, I look different, but, hey, everything about me is different. I’m happy. I’m successful,” he says. “My life is fantastic now. You want to know how I did it? All I had to do is stay completely away from my family.”

That's going to be very hard to do in Hulu's four-part return to “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair,” which reunites one of the zaniest and chaotic families ever on prime time. The episodes premiere Friday.

Twenty years after the last episode aired, we learn that Malcolm — a nervous, sputtering Frankie Muniz — is now a father of a teen and desperate to shield her from his dysfunctional parents and siblings.

“I cannot go back to the way I was before and I’m not going to risk you,” Malcolm tells her. “You have to think of it like they’re the full moon and we’re werewolves.”

How the revival came about

Original series creator Linwood Boomer and his co-producer-wife, Tracy Katsky Boomer, batted ideas on how to get the gang back together for years. Both weren't willing to make just anything for a “shameless cash grab.”

Linwood Boomer recalls a light bulb went on when his wife wondered what would it be like if Malcolm had a daughter who was exactly like him. “I was just like, ‘Oh my God, that kid would be miserable,’” he says.

In addition to Muniz, Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek are back as the barely-holding-it-together parents and Christopher Kennedy Masterson and Justin Berfield return as brothers Francis and Reese, respectively.

Newcomers include Keeley Karsten as Leah, Malcolm’s deeply empathic daughter, and Vaughan Murrae, Malcolm’s whip-smart youngest sibling, who we last saw as a baby. Caleb Ellsworth-Clark takes over the role of Dewey.

Director Ken Kwapis, one of the original directors of the show, was tapped to return and was impressed with how the old and new cast members handled the physical and emotional tasks.

“The original cast slipped back into their roles effortlessly. But equally important is they embraced the new members of the cast very quickly,” he says.

“There’s a performance level that some people have described as high octane. And so for the new members of the ensemble, they had to like, ‘OK, I’m going to step up and do it.’ And they all hit it out of the park.”

A comically accurate view of child-rearing

Malcolm may desperately want to keep his distance from his family, but the 40th wedding anniversary of his parents has a gravitational pull, putting everyone on a collision course, albeit a hysterical one.

“It’s hard to do a straight comedy right now because everything’s very serious in the world,” says Katsky Boomer. “It feels nice to just unleash good vibes so people can just take a breather.”

“Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” joins a list of new and upcoming reboots and revivals from the late 1990s and early 2000s, including “Scrubs,” “King of the Hill,” “Prison Break,” “Baywatch” and “Phineas and Ferb.”

The Boomers credit Cranston for keeping the flame of a revival alive, staying in touch with the actors and crew. And he’s jumped back in boldly, despite becoming a huge star in the intervening years. In the first episode back, Cranston stands completely nude as Kaczmarek’s Lois shaves his back and nether regions.

“Malcolm in the Middle” originally aired on Fox and ended its seven-season run in 2006. It won seven Emmy Awards — including one for best writing for a comedy series — and currently streams on Hulu and on Hulu on Disney+, where the revival will also live.

Linwood Boomer based “Malcolm” on his own nutty family, and it struck a chord, depicting childhood as a constant power struggle — with bigger kids, teachers, parents and siblings. There were squabbles with a ferocity rare on TV, and it was funny because it was so grounded in truth. It was TV’s most comically accurate view of child-rearing since “Roseanne.”

“There was a line in the pilot I would say to myself all the time — ‘I want a better family!’ — and it turns out most families aren’t any better,” says Boomer.

Parental legacy

For the revival, the tables are turned. This time it's about being a parent and the legacy that we extend to our children. Malcolm's daughter is struggling in life and school, but her father's genetic toolkit only has belligerence, impulsiveness and thickheadedness, passed on by his on-screen parents.

“So much trauma, unfortunately, is the result of good people literally trying their best,” says Katsky Boomer. “You can understand it as you grow old enough to appreciate that your parents are human beings.”

Kwapis says the revival is painfully — and also hilariously — looking at how sometimes years go by and we're often in the same groove when it comes to family dynamics.

“You get to explore new things, but you also get to the explore the idea that some things — for better or for worse — just can’t change,” he says.

As for any future revisiting of this family, the husband-and-wife “Malcolm” team are noncommittal. “There are no plans. It was a really lovely experience,” says Linwood Boomer. Might there be more? “I can’t say no, but I also can’t say yeah,” he says.

The 19-year-old shortstop agreed to a nine-year, $140 million contract with the Pirates early Wednesday, less than a week after the former first-round pick made his major league debut.

The deal, the largest in club history, includes escalators that could raise the total value to $150 million.

Griffin's Pittsburgh teammates attended Wednesday's news conference to announce the deal.

“This week has been amazing, debut week, and then sitting here signing a contract, it’s been amazing,” Griffin said. “It’s one of the best weeks of my life. ... But it’ll be even better if we can get a win today.”

Pirates owner Bob Nutting said the nine-year contract reflects the team's commitment in winning this season and in the future.

“This is an important step for 2026 as we look at it right now, but obviously this is a long-term commitment,” Nutting said. “It’s a long-term statement of where we’re headed as an organization, where we are headed with this team. ... This obviously is an unusual and dramatic step for the Pittsburgh Pirates. So I’m excited, I hope our fans are excited, I hope the city is excited, I know the organization is excited.”

When asked why it was important to sign for nine years, Griffin said he sees the Pirates as a winning organization.

“I’m pumped to be a Pirate and be a part of this wonderful clubhouse,” Griffin said, looking at his teammates at the back of the room. “A lot of great talent back there and coaches and staff. Thank you all for being here to support me. Y’all made this transition to the big leagues super easy. And I’m just pumped to go compete. The goal is to win. The goal is to win a World Series. And I think we've got a great clubhouse to go do that. I’m pump to be part of it.”

The agreement comes less than 24 hours after general manager Ben Cherington said the “ingredients” were in place for a long-term pact.

The Pirates selected Griffin with the ninth overall pick in the 2024 amateur draft. He sprinted through the team's farm system, hitting .333 with 21 home runs, 94 RBIs and 65 stolen bases. He was one of the final cuts during spring training last month, and his stay at Triple-A Indianapolis was brief.

Pittsburgh called Griffin to the majors after just a week, and he has played well through his first handful of games. Griffin laced an RBI-double in his first big-league at bat against Baltimore last Friday, and added a pair of hits, including a two-run single, in a 7-1 win over San Diego on Tuesday night that helped the Pirates to their sixth win in seven games.

Griffin, who has said repeatedly he wants to stay in Pittsburgh for as long as possible, has impressed teammates with his maturity and his unique skillset.

Reigning NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes called Griffin “a big leaguer through and through,” though Griffin is doing his best to ignore the attention that has surrounded his arrival for a team that is trying to return to relevance and end a playoff drought that's now over a decade old.

“Just sticking to being myself, not trying to do too much,” Griffin said Tuesday night. "Just let the game tell me the situation. Compete one pitch at a time and let it all happen.”

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

An investigation is underway after a deadly standoff ended with the death of 35-year-old Christopher Thomas Shepard, according to the Henry County Sheriff’s office.

Authorities say that on April 6, deputies received information that Shepard had possibly been seen entering a wooded area near Berry Hill Court. Shortly after, deputies, including members of the sheriff’s office SWAT team and a K9 unit, located Shepard in that wooded area.

They attempted to de-escalate the situation; however, authorities say that when they confronted Shepard, he pointed a gun at them, prompting a member of the SWAT team to fire their gun. Shepard was pronounced dead at the scene.

For further details on this incident, click here.

ORIGINAL STORY

Law enforcement is searching for a man after multiple reported domestic violence incidents, Henry County Sheriff’s Office said.

HCSO said they responded to 1560 Virginia Avenue after a woman requested to report a domestic incident. The victim said she was assaulted by her boyfriend at the residence they were staying at in the Collinsville area of Henry County.

Authorities said the victim recalled multiple acts of violence against her, as well as threats against her life, using a firearm in an attempt at intimidation.

As a result, Henry County Sheriff’s Office obtained warrants for 35-year-old Christopher Thomas Shepard. He is now wanted on the following charges:

• Rape
• Object Sexual Penetration
• Strangulation
• Abduction
• Assault and Battery of a Family or Household Member
• Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon
• Use of a Firearm in the Commission of a Felony

Shepard is also wanted in North Carolina for a probation violation. Law enforcement said that Shepard is primarily from Graham, North Carolina, and has “limited ties” to Henry County.

Deputies said they executed a search warrant at the residence of the victim, but Shepard was not there at the time.

Law enforcement said Shepard is considered armed and dangerous. If you have any information regarding Shepard’s whereabouts, contact the Henry County Sheriff’s Office at (276) 638-8751 or Crime Stoppers at 63-CRIME (632-7463).

We will update you with more information as it becomes available.

The Mother Road, as author John Steinbeck dubbed it, has evolved over the years from an escape for poor farmers fleeing the devastating dust storms of the 1930s to perhaps the quintessential American road trip that’s still delivering kicks.

Although there have been faster and more direct routes between the nation’s second- and third-largest cities for some time, Route 66’s neon still burns brightly and its vintage signs beckon travelers to restored motor lodges, classic diners and roadside attractions.

Each stop turns the wheels of the imagination, leaving travelers to contemplate what life was like for the people and communities that have made the road hum over the years.

Illinois

Chicago has long been one of the country’s economic engines, with access to international waters and railroads that linked all corners of the country. In the 1920s, Oklahoma businessman Cyrus Avery, known as the Father of Route 66, knew it wouldn’t be long before automobiles would dominate the transportation landscape, and the Windy City would be the perfect place to start the journey he envisioned.

A member of the federal highway board appointed to map the U.S. highway system, Avery opted to go with the number 66. He knew those double digits were ripe for marketing and could be seared into the minds of motorists.

For some travelers, the journey is fueled more by the food than the scenery, and there’s plenty to choose from — slices of homemade pie, thick shakes, cheeseburgers and an assortment of fried delights.

The Cozy Dog Drive In in Springfield, the Illinois capital, is one of the many diners that sprang up along Route 66, and its breaded hot dogs on a stick have stood the test of time. Third-generation owner Josh Waldmire says the recipe is a secret.

Waldmire’s grandfather, Ed, saw the concoction’s potential as fast and convenient road food and developed a system for frying the dogs vertically.

Missouri

Route 66 has its share of twists and turns, and it’s no surprise that a highway famous for its quirky roadside attractions would cross the nation’s most famous river on one of the more peculiar bridges known to modern engineering.

As the road nears St. Louis, the mile-long (1.6-kilometer-long) Chain of Rocks Bridge hovers more than 60 feet (18 meters) above the Mississippi River.

Engineers eventually built a straighter, higher-speed option, and a poor resale market spared the original bridge from the scrap heap. Today it’s reserved for pedestrians and cyclists.

A median in Missouri is home to St. Robert Route 66 Neon Park, which features orphaned neon signs that once beckoned travelers to stop at certain sites and businesses along the highway. Often handcrafted, they weren’t only markers for motels, cafes and gas stations, but were also folk art and symbols of local culture.

Kansas

The Sunflower State hosts only a short stretch of Route 66, but it packs a punch with the Kan-O-Tex Service Station in Galena. A classic example of roadside fare, the station served as inspiration for the animated 2006 Pixar film “Cars.”

Director John Lasseter and his crew took road trips along the route, digging into history and looking for elements that could bring the project to life. It was in Galena where they spotted the old boom truck that served as the basis for the character Tow Mater. The plot wasn’t far off, as so many once bustling towns — like the fictional Radiator Springs — nearly faded away after being bypassed by an interstate.

Kansas also is home to the Brush Creek Bridge, otherwise known as the Rainbow Bridge. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of few remaining examples of the concrete arched bridges designed by James Barney Marsh.

Oklahoma

There was a real danger for some who traveled the road, particularly Black motorists passing through inhospitable and segregated areas during the Jim Crow era. The Green Book — a guide first published in 1936 by Victor Hugo Green — listed hotels, restaurants and gas stations that would serve Black customers.

The Threatt Filling Station near Luther wasn’t listed in The Green Book, but it was a safe haven — not only for getting fuel, but for barbecue and baseball. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it was the only known Black-owned and operated gas station along Route 66.

Route 66 is littered with abandoned buildings and faded signs, but one example of the highway’s resilient spirit stands tall in Sapulpa, near Tulsa. The restored Tee Pee Drive-In Theater offers a step back into the 1950s, when the booming car culture helped spawn thousands of drive-in theaters nationwide.

Built in 1949, the drive-in officially opened in the spring of 1950 with a screening of John Wayne’s “Tycoon.” It was one of the few drive-ins at the time to have paved pathways. Over the years, it survived a tornado, a fire that destroyed the concession stand and break-ins before being shuttered for more than 20 years. It reopened in 2023.

Texas

Blink and you might miss it, but a stop at the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo is a must for any Route 66 journey. For decades, visitors have been spray-painting the 10 vintage Cadillacs at the site and mulling the transitory nature of time as Bruce Springsteen did in his 1980 song of the same name.

It’s not a ranch, but rather a public art installation created in 1974 by the art and architecture collective Ant Farm. At first, the cars — which were half-buried front-down at a 60-degree angle — were used for target practice. Others would scratch their initials into the metal. The spray painting started later.

Arrive in Adrian and you’re halfway through your trip. Steps from a white line marking the midpoint of Route 66 is the Midway Cafe, where the “ugly pies” are anything but.

If you’re still hungry, head back to Amarillo for a 72-ounce (2 kilogram) steak and all the sides at The Big Texan. If you can finish the meal in an hour or less, it's free.

New Mexico

More than half of Route 66 cuts through sovereign Native American lands, often tracing routes used by tribes long before settlers arrived. Much like the railroad in the 1800s, the highway opened the door to a new era of commerce, but it also fueled stereotypes about cultures along the way.

There are still faded and crumbling references to tipis and feathered headdresses at some stops along the historic highway. The symbols were easily appropriated for marketing by roadside vendors but weren't indicative of the separate and distinct Native American cultures in the area.

Today, tribes are telling their own stories and showcasing their creations, whether it be pottery, fruit pies or poems.

Albuquerque boasts the longest intact urban stretch of Route 66. Those 18 miles (29 kilometers) pass through several neighborhoods and business districts, from historic Old Town to Nob Hill.

Some of the old motor lodges and neon signs along what is now Central Avenue have been restored. Other signs are being reimagined using hubcaps, elaborate lowrider-inspired paint jobs and New Mexico’s classic yellow and red license plates in a nod to the car culture that is very much still alive in the city.

Arizona

Musician Jackson Browne was taking his own road trip in the early 1970s when his car left him stranded in Winslow. The experience inspired the lyrics to the Eagles’ hit “Take it Easy.” But it’s certainly not the only song that is a must-have for a Route 66 playlist.

Bobby Troup created a classic American road anthem in the 1940s with “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.” Nat King Cole, Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones and Depeche Mode carried it through the decades, each covering the song with their own flair.

While standing on a corner in Winslow, don’t be surprised if someone saunters up with a guitar and starts strumming favorites from their own road trip playlist.

Before leaving the state, the one-time gold mining town of Oatman features a Wild West atmosphere, daily staged shootouts and beloved burros. Oatman was a destination along one of the original alignments of Route 66 via a treacherous path through the Black Mountains, but it was later bypassed as part of improvements made in the 1950s.

California

Once a desert oasis, Roy’s Motel & Café in Amboy is a quintessential Route 66 landmark. The towering neon sign is one of the most photographed spots along the road. Inside, foreign currency left by international visitors lines one wall. Across the street, a clothing post decorated with shoes, shirts and other items juts up from the desert floor.

This stretch of the highway through the Mojave Desert offers a special kind of solitude. The pavement gets rough in spots and the landscape takes charge, showing off Joshua trees, wide-open spaces and the remnants of ancient volcanic activity.

Much of the area is undeveloped, meaning it looks a lot like it would have when Route 66 was commissioned in 1926.

After making it through oft-congested Los Angeles, the iconic Santa Monica Pier marks the end of the line, and it’s nothing short of a perpetual party with a steady stream of spectators and performers. Although many stretches of Route 66 have lapsed into decay, the breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean are a reminder of the pursuits made possible by the road over the last century.

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Associated Press writers John O’Connor in Springfield, Illinois, and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

The incident follows a report of an assault at a local gas station, which set off a search for the suspect.

The situation began on Sunday, April 4, when a woman reported being assaulted by her boyfriend at a Circle K in Collinsville. During the investigation, authorities learned that the suspect committed several acts of violence against the victim, including physical assault, strangulation, and non-consensual sexual acts. It was also reported that Shepard used a firearm to threaten and intimidate her.

The suspect, identified as 35-year-old Christopher Thomas Shepard, was described by law enforcement as an ex-convict believed to be armed with a semi-automatic handgun and considered dangerous. Warrants were obtained for Shepard on multiple felony charges, including physical assault, strangulation, and non-consensual sexual acts. Shepard was also wanted in the State of North Carolina for a probation violation related to a prior violent felony conviction.

Over the next two days, sheriff’s deputies tracked Shepard down and received multiple tips claiming that Shepard remained within a large, wooded tract of land spanning several hundred acres.

On April 6, around 10 a.m., deputies received information that Shepard had possibly been seen entering a wooded area near Berry Hill Court. At approximately 10:45 a.m., deputies, including members of the Sheriff’s office SWAT Team and a K9 unit, located Shepard in that wooded area.

The sheriff’s office says deputies attempted to de-escalate the situation for approximately nine minutes; however, authorities say that when they confronted Shepard, he pointed a gun at them. In response, a member of the SWAT team fired, and Shepard was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident was captured on multiple body-worn cameras, which show that both Shepard and the deputy discharged their firearms nearly simultaneously.

Per standard procedure, the Virginia State Police has been requested to conduct an independent and thorough investigation into this incident. The deputy involved has been placed on administrative leave with pay.

Sheriff Wayne Davis stated, “This was a dangerous and rapidly evolving situation involving an armed and violent individual. Our deputies worked diligently to locate and apprehend this suspect while prioritizing public safety. The actions taken ultimately prevented further harm to our community.”

He added, “Our deputies are often faced with split-second decisions in dangerous situations. While these moments are challenging, their commitment remains focused on protecting the citizens of Henry County.”

The investigation remains ongoing.

Stay with 10 News as this breaking news story continues to develop.

The Doha event had been set to open the season for track's elite series on May 8, as it typically has in recent years, but the postponement means Shanghai's meet on May 16 starts the series instead.

“In recent weeks, the Diamond League has been monitoring the situation in Doha, working in close coordination with meeting organizers, Qatari authorities and other stakeholders,” the Diamond League said in a statement on Wednesday, hours after the announcement of a two-week ceasefire between Iran, the United States and Israel.

“In the interests of athlete and spectator safety, a decision has now been taken to postpone the meeting. Should conditions allow, it will now be held on June 19.”

The change of date also means a change of venue. Temperatures in Qatar in June are typically higher, so the event moves to the Khalifa International Stadium, which is fitted with large cooling systems around the arena that were used when it hosted the 2019 world track and field championships.

Qatar has become a key host nation for global sports events in recent years and has had to postpone or cancel high-profile competitions since the United States and Israel began strikes on Iran in February.

The “Finalissima” soccer game between Argentina and Spain, which was due to be played in Qatar, was canceled last month and Qatar's motorcycle Grand Prix was rescheduled to November. Elsewhere in the region, Formula 1 races set for April in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have been called off.

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

Staley released a statement on South Carolina's X account on Tuesday in which she expressed her respect for Auriemma and said the two have spoken since South Carolina’s 62-48 victory on Friday night. The season ended with UCLA's runaway 79-51 win over South Carolina in Sunday's national championship game.

“With the college women’s basketball season behind us, it’s time to move forward and close the chapter on how our semifinal game with UConn ended,” Staley wrote in her statement. "I spoke with Geno and I want to be clear — I have a great deal of respect for him and what he’s meant to the game. One moment doesn’t define a career and it doesn’t change the impact he’s had on growing women’s basketball.

“The standard at UConn is what it is because of him, and that’s something this game has benefited from. So I’m asking everyone to turn the page. Let’s refocus on what matters most, continuing to elevate our game, creating opportunities and pushing it forward. That’s always been my mission, and it’s not changing.”

Staley's statement followed Auriemma's apology on Saturday after he went over to Staley in the final seconds of Friday night's game and appeared to chastise her. Coaches from both teams had to separate them. When the game finally ended, Auriemma walked off the court to the locker room without going back to shake hands with anyone from South Carolina.

Auriemma said in a statement on Saturday that there was no excuse for how he handled the end of the game against South Carolina. Tuesday night he released a statement saying he had spoken to Staley, her staff and team, and again expressed his apologies.

“I apologized to Dawn, her staff and her team,” Auriemma said. "I’ve lost more games in the Final Four than any coach in history. But Friday I lost something more important. I lost myself.

"Those who know me know I have nothing but respect and admiration for the game and the coaches who coach it. Dawn and her team deserved to win, and they deserved better from me.

"Women’s basketball deserved better. My university, my athletes, my former players and our fans deserved better.

“Dawn and I have agreed to move on, and we hope the focus will shift back to the growth in women’s basketball. The game deserves it.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

The activist and former San Francisco 49ers quarterback has completed “The Perilous Fight,” to come out Sept. 15 through the Hachette Book Group imprint Legacy Lit. His memoir will come out almost exactly 10 years after he knelt before a preseason game, a protest against police violence and racial inequality that was emulated by some players and criticized by politicians, team owners and fans, some of whom booed him and burned his jersey.

Kaepernick, who has not played in the NFL since 2016, said in a statement that he wanted to offer context for what led to his taking a knee. Before that, he had remained seated during the anthem.

“People saw the moment. But they didn’t see the years that made it possible: the questions about who I was; the injustices I could no longer ignore; the voices of those who came before me that I carried into that stadium,” Kaepernick said in a statement released Tuesday. “That journey, from a Black kid navigating an identity the world didn’t always make space for, to an athlete who realized the game was bigger than football, shaped everything. When I took a knee, it wasn’t a sudden act.”

Legacy Lit is calling the book “equal parts memoir and manifesto,” tracing “the off-the-field battles that turned a single act of protest into a movement that changed American sports and culture forever.” Kaepernick is narrating the audio edition, produced and to be sold exclusively by Audible.

Kaepernick, 38, played six years for the 49ers and helped lead them to an appearance in the Super Bowl in 2013. Baltimore won the game 34-31.

Kaepernick has spoken out often on social issues, launched his own publishing imprint and co-written the picture story “We Are Free, You & Me” and the graphic novel “Change the Game.”

That person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because Mendoza hasn't made his plans public.

The draft will take place in Pittsburgh starting April 23, and many top players will be there to receive congratulations and a hug from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. But players, even those who are drafted first, sometimes prefer to watch from a different location.

Defensive end Travon Walker in 2022 and quarterback Trevor Lawrence in 2021 were the two most recent top picks to watch from afar.

Raiders officials have signaled they would like to ease Mendoza into the starting lineup without expressly saying they will draft the player who won the Heisman Trophy and led Indiana to the national championship.

Las Vegas signed veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins last week likely with the idea of him starting while Mendoza watches and learns from the sideline. Cousins is in Las Vegas for offseason workouts.

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

Two other assailants were wounded and captured during Tuesday’s shootout in the city's financial and business district, while two police officers sustained slight injuries, officials said.

Israel had withdrawn its diplomats from Turkey over security concerns and deteriorating relations with Ankara shortly after the start of the war in Gaza, and officials said the consulate was closed at the time of the attack.

Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said one of the assailants had links to a group that he said “exploits religion,” without naming the organization.

The Islamic State group has carried out deadly attacks in Turkey in the past.

Anadolu Agency reported that security forces detained nine suspects in operations conducted in Istanbul as well as in the provinces of Konya and Kocaeli. They were being questioned along with the two injured assailants, the agency reported, without providing further details.

Cifti said the attackers had traveled from the city of Izmit, in Kocaeli province, in a rented car. The two wounded assailants are brothers, identified as Onur C. and Enes C. The first has a criminal record related to drugs.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned the attack and praised the Turkish authorities for preventing further violence.

The NHL’s career goal-scoring leader announced his intentions in a clip of a pre-taped interview with Capitals radio broadcaster John Walton that aired Wednesday.

"We're going to make a decision in the summer," Ovechkin said, adding he needed to talk with his family, owner Ted Leonsis, president of hockey operations Brian MacLellan and general manager Chris Patrick.

Ovechkin said health would be the biggest factor: “I’m going to be 41 years old in September, so you just have to be smart about it.”

He has been peppered with questions for several months about whether he’ll retire or play a 22nd season in the league. Ovechkin's current contract expires June 30.

Washington will have just three games left after playing at Toronto on Wednesday night and faces an uphill climb to make the playoffs.

Monday was the one-year anniversary of the Russian superstar scoring his 895th goal at the New York Islanders, breaking Wayne Gretzky's record that seemed unapproachable until Ovechkin came along.

Ovechkin has since scored 33 more goals, 31 this season, to get to 928 in the regular season. On March 22, he scored No. 1,000 total in the NHL, counting goals in the playoffs.

He also holds records for the most power play goals with 331, game-winning goals with 141 and shots with 7,091 — and counting. Not just an offensive powerhouse, the 6-foot-3 winger has been a physical force and ranks third on the career hits list with 3,871.

The Capitals visit longtime Ovechkin rival and fellow face of the sport Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday, then host them Sunday. The home finale in the nation's capital is sold out, with tickets going for way above face value in anticipation of it being the captain and franchise cornerstone's final game there.

They visit Columbus on Tuesday in what could be Ovechkin's final game in North America. He played his first career game in Washington against the Blue Jackets on Oct. 5, 2005.

Ovechkin, who is from Moscow, could opt to play one more season in the KHL, where he started as a professional when it was called the Russian Superleague. He played from 2001-05 and during the 2012-13 NHL lockout with Dynamo Moscow.

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

The look of incredulity that crossed his face was at once withering and comical.

“Have you played here?” Koepka replied.

“Not yet,” he was informed.

“Yeah,” Koepka said, “I could tell by the question.”

In fact, only two people have managed a round of 63 at the Masters, much less 59. Nick Price was the first to set the record four decades ago, and the most recent was Greg Norman, whose first-round 63 in 1996 came before his epic final-round collapse.

That remains the highest single-round scoring record of any of the major championships.

“I'm surprised that it has been that long,” said Justin Rose, who has twice shot 65, including the first round last year, which he paired with a final-round 66 that put him in a playoff that he lost to Rory McIlroy.

Rose also has shot 81 at Augusta National, by the way.

“There's so many great players capable of putting up that number,” Rose continued, reflecting on the longstanding record ahead of this year's tournament. “I think that the course lends itself most ideally to that score on a Sunday, but also if conditions allow, Sunday is kind of when the course is getting its most sort of maxed out, in terms of green speeds and firmness. So that kind of counteracts some of those more accessible hole locations that traditionally we see on Sunday.”

There's reason to believe the record could one day be matched, or even broken. For one thing, scores keep coming down, including in the majors. Branden Grace was the first to shoot 62 when he did it at the British Open in 2017, but four have matched him in the past three years at the U.S. Open and PGA Championship, where Shane Lowry and Xander Schauffele both shot 62 in 2024.

Then there's the fact that technology, physiology and just about every other “ology” has improved over the years. Players have been hitting the ball farther and just as accurately, and that has forced Augusta National to continually change to keep up.

Those changes are one reason, Rose said, that its current record still stands.

Subtle alterations have taken place around greens and bunkers, but the most noticeable changes are in sheer length. The course played to 6,925 yards when Norman shot the most recent 63. It will play to 7,565 when the first round begins on Thursday.

“I think that's a big thing, a lot of mid-irons into small targets. Wedges into small targets,” Rose said. “If you're on and it's your day, sure, you can make a lot of birdies. But you're also going to make a bogey or two quite easily.”

Anthony Kim set the single-round record for birdies at the Masters with 11 in 2009, but he also dropped enough shots to finish with a round of 65. So, birdies alone probably aren't enough to challenge Price and Norman; it would take an eagle or two as well.

That's possible. Four players have even eagled consecutive holes in the same round, including Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson.

It just isn't easy. Nothing is at Augusta National.

“The scores are always a little higher than you think they're going to be,” said 2023 British Open champion Brian Harman, who has just three rounds in the 60s — all 69s — in 20 competitive rounds at the Masters. "You know, when you come out here and you play, you feel like you can go shoot low numbers. It’s just not a lot of the low numbers out here.

“It’s a lot more of a grind than people think,” Harman said.

The second nine tends to play about a stroke more difficult than the first nine at Augusta National, thanks in part to water that comes into play through Amen Corner. But while seven players have gone out in 30, most recently Min Woo Lee in 2022, only two have come home in 29: Mark Calcavecchia in the final round in 1991 and David Toms in the final round in 1998.

In other words, going back to that question posed to Koepka of whether someone could ever shoot 59 at the Masters, it would take pairing the best first nine with the best second ever to do it.

“If I want to go play the member tees and maybe play like, 15 holes," said Koepka, a five-time major winner, "yeah, I could do that.”

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

Here are takeaways from AP's story:

Forest clearing and unplanned growth in Oiapoque

Oiapoque's local economy depends largely on fishing, illegal gold mining and cross‑border visitors from neighboring French Guiana. Rapid, unplanned urban growth is already straining the city’s fragile infrastructure, residents say.

According to Tiago Vieira Araújo, an Oiapoque councilman, seven new neighborhoods have emerged, some of them in areas where pristine rainforest stood a year ago. Frequent complaints among locals include overcrowded schools and the city's only hospital operating at full capacity.

Renata Lod, a representative on Oiapoque’s Indigenous council, said that "Petrobras arrived in the city with strong political backing, promising progress as if we would go to sleep one way and wake up like Dubai.” The reality, she said, is a completely disorganized population growth and invasion of Indigenous lands.

For migrants like Reginaldo Nunes Fonseca, the hope of opportunity was enough to get them to move. He moved from the northeastern state of Maranhao after seeing a television report in Janauary about Petrobras getting license to do exploratory drilling.

There are fears of environmental impacts

Environmental groups warn that an oil spill could devastate fisheries and wetlands, while Indigenous leaders fear the project could endanger their lands and way of life.

Federal prosecutors also asked Brazil's environmental regulator to annul or suspend the environmental license, arguing that Petrobras’ studies are insufficient and that the company is concealing the full extent of the environmental impact. No ruling has been issued.

Petrobras said it conducted spill modeling to secure the license and has been deploying drifting devices to monitor ocean currents since it began exploration in October.

In January, Petrobras reported a drilling-fluid leak that briefly halted operations. IBAMA, the environmental regulator, fined the company 2.5 million reais ($470,500).

Pushing to phase out fossil fuels while promoting oil exploration

When Brazil hosted the annual U.N. climate summit, known as COP30, last year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the country’s negotiators sought to advance a global road map for phasing out fossil fuels, which are the primary drivers of global warming.

However, the reality in places like Oiapoque highlights a broader dilemma for much of the developing world. Some countries, including Brazil, have committed to curb greenhouse gases emissions like carbon dioxide, which are released from the burning of oil and cause climate change. At the same time, many residents hope that revenues from fossil fuels lift their economies.

Expanding oil drilling to Amazon region, even in an offshore project like this one, also raises questions about Lula’s campaign pledge to protect the rainforest.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Nonprofits received a reassuring answer this week, however, from the century-old, Boston-based Liberty Mutual Insurance. The major insurer's nonprofit Liberty Mutual Foundation announced Wednesday the establishment of a $600 million endowment, a long-term source of funding that leaders promise will bring lasting resources and more responsive grantmaking.

“We all know that we live in really challenging times. And that is very true for our nonprofit partners as well,” Melanie Foley, the chair of the foundation's board, told the Associated Press. “We’ll be there to continue to support them, be as flexible as we can be, really listening to what they need.”

Endowments generally start with a set donation that is invested and allow foundations to increase their assets over time. Foley said Liberty Mutual Foundation had “matured” enough from its 2003 founding to necessitate “a permanent, self-sustaining" funding source. The Fortune 100 company is funding the endowment by transferring assets such as shares held within Liberty Mutual entities.

The move places Liberty Mutual's charitable arm among an influential subset of foundations with more than $100 million in assets. Partners should feel a “sense of security,” according to Foley. This new source will allow the foundation to increase grantmaking from its roughly $50 million baseline of recent years.

Foley emphasized that Wednesday's announcement isn't a response to recent developments in the sector. But the news arrives at a time of great instability for nonprofits. There's been a yearslong decline in the number of American donors, who make up the bulk of U.S. philanthropic funding. The Trump administration's attempts to freeze federal funds and cut social services grants have left many organizations without a once-reliable avenue for funding. Companies and philanthropies have reversed course on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts that often resulted in support for nonprofits serving vulnerable communities.

Those poised to benefit most from Liberty Mutual Foundation's endowment are Boston-area nonprofits addressing its focus on housing stability, workforce development and climate resiliency — areas where leaders believe they can leverage their expertise as a global property and casualty insurer. The foundation directed gifts to more than 500 nonprofits last year, according to a company spokesperson. Previous recipients include national nonprofits like the American Red Cross, local chapters of groups such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and community organizations serving homeless youth such as Bridge Over Troubled Waters.

Corporate foundations offer nonprofits a level of “rigor and relevance” when they align their purpose with the business' outcomes, according to Leah Battin, the manager of strategic advisory at Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose. A healthcare company might address social determinants of health such as pollution or nutrition with greater precision than a family or community foundation lacking in that background.

“They can take long-term views around ecosystems change that really benefit and draw from the expertise of the company,” she said.

With the new endowment, Foley said Liberty Mutual Foundation plans to provide more high impact grants over longer periods. She pointed to a recent program that provides nonprofit collaboratives with the time and resources to tackle complex challenges they can't handle alone. Its first year saw more than $9 million go toward more than a dozen partnerships addressing issues from workforce readiness to food security. A handful received three-year support, which Foley said represents the outer limits of their grant durations.

The foundation also intends to make spot grants similar to those coming out of COVID-19 aimed at remediating inflationary pressures, according to Foley. The idea, she said, is to be there when “the unexpected” happens.

“As things come up in the environment, we're gonna be there to think with our partners of how we are best suited to support them,” Foley said.

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

Orlando can take a big step toward assuring it'll stay out of the 9 vs. 10 play-in game in the Eastern Conference when it takes on Minnesota. Denver can move closer to the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference when it plays host to Memphis.

And the West play-in standings might get a bit more clear.

The Los Angeles Clippers take on Oklahoma City, while Portland meets San Antonio. The Clippers enter Wednesday with a one-game edge on the Trail Blazers in the race for the No. 8 spot out West.

Stories of note

— Doc Rivers hints at retirement

— The playoffs, thankfully, are coming

— Miami returning to the play-in tournament

— JJ Redick gets a bit feisty in Lakers' loss

— Jayson Tatum set for return to New York

— The Bulls want to keep Billy Donovan

Who's in and who's out?

Here's what we know so far regarding the NBA playoff field for this season.

— Eastern Conference playoff teams: Detroit has locked up the No. 1 seed and will open the postseason on April 19. Boston, New York, Cleveland are in. At this point, Atlanta and Toronto would get the other two guaranteed spots, but those are not clinched.

— East play-in teams: Miami is locked into the play-in for the fourth consecutive year. Entering Wednesday, the other three teams headed there would be Philadelphia, Orlando and Charlotte.

— East eliminated teams: Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana, Brooklyn and Washington.

— Western Conference playoff teams: Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Denver, the Los Angeles Lakers, Houston and Minnesota are in.

— West play-in teams: Phoenix, the Los Angeles Clippers, Portland and Golden State are in. The Warriors will be the No. 10 seed.

— West eliminated teams: Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Utah and Sacramento.

Tuesday recap

— Timberwolves 124, Pacers 104: Wolves clinch playoff spot, despite 20 turnovers.

— Raptors 121, Heat 95: Miami locked into fourth consecutive play-in tournament.

— Celtics 113, Hornets 102: Jaylen Brown scores 35, Boston gave up 41 in second half.

— Warriors 110, Kings 105: Stephen Curry kept making plays late, saved Golden State.

— Thunder 123, Lakers 87: Banged-up Lakers may lose home-court edge for Round 1.

— Clippers 116, Mavericks 103: Kawhi Leonard scores 34, Clippers hang on to 8th spot.

— Rockets 119, Suns 105: Houston wins 50th, 7th straight, rallies from 21-point deficit.

— Bulls 129, Wizards 98: Washington now an NBA-worst 3-23 since the All-Star break.

— Nets 96, Bucks 90: Milwaukee's Doc Rivers dropped retirement hint before the game.

— Pelicans 156, Jazz 134: Bez Mbeng 3rd Jazz player to play all 48 minutes this season.

Wednesday's schedule

— Atlanta at Cleveland: A very possible East first-round preview.

— Minnesota at Orlando: Wolves are in, now can focus on health.

— Milwaukee at Detroit: Giannis Antetokounmpo still wants to play.

— Memphis at Denver: Nuggets chasing No. 3 seed, need a win here.

— Portland at San Antonio: Blazers have work to do to avoid 9-10 game.

— Oklahoma City at LA Clippers: Clippers have work to do to avoid 9-10 game.

— Dallas at Phoenix: Suns almost certainly will be No. 7 seed for play-in.

Thursday's schedule

— Miami at Toronto: Raptors looking to sweep teams' four-game season series.

— Chicago at Washington: Bulls led the Wizards by as many as 37 on Tuesday.

— Indiana at Brooklyn: Pacers' Rick Carlisle (family reasons) out next two games.

— Boston at New York: Jayson Tatum returns to MSG, where he got hurt last spring.

— Philadelphia at Houston: Rockets charging toward home-court edge for Round 1.

— LA Lakers at Golden State: Injuries crushing Lakers, who have lost three straight.

National TV schedule

Wednesday on ESPN: Atlanta-Cleveland (7 p.m. Eastern) and Portland-San Antonio (9:30 p.m.).

Thursday on Prime Video: Boston-New York (7:30 p.m. Eastern) and LA Lakers-Golden State (10 p.m.)

Betting odds

Oklahoma City (+130) is favored to win the NBA title, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, followed by San Antonio (+450), Boston (+550), Denver (+1200), Cleveland (+1200) and New York (+2000). Detroit, the No. 1 seed in the East, is +2200. The Los Angeles Lakers were +2500 before Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves got hurt; they're +30000 now.

Key dates

— Friday: All 30 teams play their 81st games of the season.

— Sunday: All 30 teams play their regular-season finales.

— April 14, 15 and 17: NBA play-in tournament dates.

— April 18 and 19: NBA playoff series openers.

— May 2, 3 or 4: Conference semifinals begin.

— May 10: NBA draft lottery.

— May 10-17: NBA draft combine.

— May 17 or 19: Eastern Conference finals begin on ESPN and ABC.

— May 18 or 20: Western Conference finals begin on NBC and Peacock.

— June 3: Game 1, NBA Finals on ABC. (Other finals dates: June 5, June 8, June 10, June 13, June 16 and June 19).

Numbers watch

— MVP, defensive player of the year and All-NBA hopeful Victor Wembanyama (bruised ribs) is doubtful for San Antonio's game Wednesday against Portland. He still needs one more game (and at least 20 minutes played) to be eligible for those individual awards.

— The Wizards have been outscored by 935 points this season. If they lose their final three games by an average of 21.7 points, they'd become the third team in NBA history to get outscored by 1,000 points. The others? Dallas in 1992-93 ... and the Wizards, last season.

Stats of the day

— Think the game has changed a little? In 2015-16, there were four instances of teams scoring 130 points in a game and losing. In 2025-26, that’s happened 48 times.

— There are 10 teams with 15 or more losses since this season's All-Star break. Oklahoma City has lost 14 games after the All-Star break — in the last three seasons combined.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba

The rain meant he couldn't work on building his own house or do odd jobs for others in the area, but the weather wasn't the only thing holding him back. Like thousands of others who have moved to the small city of Oiapoque, in Brazil’s northern state of Amapa, Fonseca is waiting for an economic boom that may or may not come.

The area is experiencing a rush of migrants since Petrobras, Brazil’s state-run oil company, last year secured environmental licensing for offshore drilling in the Equatorial Margin near the mouth of the Amazon River, about 180 kilometers (112 miles) off Amapa’s coast.

“I thought, well, that’s good — the city is going to grow, there will be a lot of job opportunities," said Fonseca, who saw a television report about the licensing in January and decided to move from the northeastern state of Maranhao. "So I started calling friends and said: ‘I’m going there because here I’m unemployed and not doing anything.'”

Amapa is one of Brazil’s poorest and underdeveloped states. Oiapoque’s economy relies on fishing, illegal gold mining and visitors from neighboring French Guiana, who cross daily and spend euros, which hold their value better than the Brazilian real. While the prospect of economic opportunities is bringing hope, the impacts of unplanned urban growth in a city with already poor infrastructure are being felt.

The oil-fueled optimism highlights a broader dilemma for developing countries: how to curb their emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which are released from the burning of oil and cause climate change, while relying on such revenue to transform local economies.

It also raises questions about President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's campaign commitment to protecting the environment. He has made stopping deforestation an important part of his government and last year Brazil hosted the U.N. climate summit known as COP30.

“We don’t want to pollute a single millimeter of water, but no one can stop us from lifting Amapa out of poverty if there is oil here,” Lula said last year during a visit to Amapa.

There is a surge of speculation ahead of drilling

On March 10, about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from Fonseca's home, Petrobras met with politicians, business owners and community leaders to present its operation plans.

Company representatives said drilling for an exploratory well began in October and would last about five months. If large quantities of oil are found and the company wants to begin extracting it, that would require further government permits, a process that can take months or even years.

Environmental and Indigenous groups have sued the Brazilian government and Petrobras to halt exploration, arguing the licensing process failed to properly consult traditional communities, underestimated spill risks and did not adequately assess climate impacts. Federal prosecutors also asked IBAMA to annul or suspend the environmental license, arguing that Petrobras’ studies are insufficient and that the company is concealing the full extent of the environmental impact. No ruling has been issued.

During the meeting, officials also said Oiapoque was serving mostly as a helicopter base for offshore crews, as it's the closest land point. Administrative operations related to the drilling were based out of Belem, a major city in the neighboring state of Para.

Despite open questions about future extraction and Oiapoque's limited role in Petrobras' operations, speculation has already reshaped the city.

The city’s population was 27,482 in 2022, according to census data, but a new count has yet to be taken, so it’s unclear how many people there are.

“In the past 18 months, Oiapoque has seen significant population growth," said Tiago Vieira Araújo, an Oiapoque councilman who stood up and voiced concerns during the meeting. "There are already seven new neighborhoods, and social problems have come with them.”

Urban infrastructure in Oiapoque is already precarious. Less than 2% of households have adequate sewage systems, and only 0.2% are on properly structured streets, according to Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.

In the new settlements — known locally as “invasions” — conditions are worse. Residents have cleared public rainforest, creating informal plots and erecting makeshift homes. Freshly cut tree stumps, wooden stakes and rough shacks rise from mud and have only the basics: a kitchen, a bed and a rudimentary bathroom.

“We know it’s not right to clear the forest. Everyone knows it’s wrong,” Fonseca said. “But space is limited.”

Some locals see Dubai as a model for the area's development

Yuri Alesi, 34, a lawyer who advocates for land rights in new settlements and a former city councilman, is running for vice mayor in a special election set for April. He envisions Oiapoque as an “Amazonian Dubai,” fueled by oil revenues.

“Dubai is in the middle of a desert, an unlikely place to grow,” he said. “The industry that drove its development was oil.”

Brazil’s offshore Equatorial Margin, from the Suriname border to the country's northeast, is believed to hold significant oil and gas reserves. Preliminary estimates suggest they could hold up to 10 billion barrels, with a potential value of about 3.8 trillion reais ($719.7 billion). Alesi said royalties could generate roughly 100 million reais ($19 million) a month for Oiapoque, about the equivalent of the city's total goods and services produced each year, according to Brazil's statistics institute.

The Amazon, which is crucial to regulating the global climate because forests store carbon dioxide, is constantly under pressure from deforestation driven by agriculture, cattle ranching and mining. That pressure has been less intense in Amapa, where about 82% of the land remains forested, according to MapBiomas, a nonprofit that tracks land use.

The state’s isolation, bordered by rivers and the sea and lacking road connections to the rest of Brazil, has helped protect it from the deforestation seen in the southern Amazon.

Previous booms have not ended in prosperity

While some point to Dubai as a model for Oiapoque’s future, nearby cities that once benefited from oil offer a warning for Oiapoque.

Petrobras has explored oil and gas in the state of Coari, also part of the Amazon, since the 1980s. Yet the city ranks among Brazil’s poorest, with about 72% of its residents living in extreme poverty, according to a recent study by Agenda Publica, a nonprofit focused on public policy.

Other cities in Amapa have also seen boom and decline cycles tied to mining. Pedra Branca, about 280 miles from Oiapoque, grew between 2007 and 2014 during an iron ore boom.

Prosperity in Pedra Branca drew Selma Soares, 46, who moved from Maranhao to Amapa in 2008 and opened a grocery store.

In 2013, a collapse at a port operated by mining company Anglo American killed six workers and disrupted iron ore production. India’s Zamin Ferrous later took over the mine and suspended operations.

“People who had shopped with us for years struggled to eat,” Soares said.

In the past few years, she heard growing rumors that Oiapoque was booming. After visiting the city last year, she moved with her husband and son. The family now runs a small supermarket on the outskirts of town. Soares said many others have followed.

“People are waiting for drilling to begin,” she said. “They believe everything will improve.”

Amid enthusiasm there is also concern

At the river separating Oiapoque from French Guiana, a small port hums with boats linking Brazil, its neighbor and nearby communities. Green-and-yellow stickers read: “Oil yes! Development yes!,” a message promoted by local politicians.

Just 20 minutes away by boat, members of the Indigenous Galibi Kali’na community are wary. Some see economic opportunity, but leaders oppose exploration, warning of environmental risks and threats to their way of life.

“Petrobras arrived with strong political backing, promising progress as if we would go to sleep one way and wake up like Dubai,” said Renata Lod, a representative on Oiapoque’s Indigenous council. “But what we have actually seen is completely disorganized population growth, invasions of Indigenous lands."

Lod listed several frequent complaints among Oiapoque residents, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, including overcrowded schools and the city’s only hospital operating at full capacity.

There is also fear of potential oil spills.

“Most Indigenous lands are flooded wetlands. How do you clean a wetland? Once oil enters the rivers, there’s no way to remove it," Lod said.

An oil spill could quickly carry pollutants to nearby coasts and rivers, threatening ecosystems and communities that depend on fishing and mangroves. Petrobras said it conducted spill modeling to secure the environmental license and has been deploying drifting devices to monitor ocean currents since it began exploration in October.

In January, Petrobras reported a drilling-fluid leak that briefly halted operations. IBAMA, the environmental regulator, fined the company 2.5 million reais ($470,500).

At the community meeting, Petrobras officials sought to ease concerns, defending the safety of its operations. They also pointed to everyday items, from clothing to air conditioning, to underscore oil’s economic importance.

“People here see Petrobras as an economic remedy,” said Araújo, the city councilman. “But even a remedy has side effects. And we’re already experiencing the side effects before seeing any of the benefits.”

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Photographer Eraldo Peres and video journalist Felipe Campos Mello contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

These days, growing congregations is very much on Isaacs' mind, as she's leading a movement to strengthen rural synagogues and Jewish communities around the country. They've reached dozens, and they're hoping for many more.

“Rural Jewish life is important for the Jewish people and it’s important for rural America,” Isaacs said. “Those people deserve to be served and shepherded.”

Isaacs is executive director of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life at Colby College, a liberal arts school in Waterville, Maine. The center began a decade ago with a goal of supporting Jewish congregations that are far from big cities and it has grown to run programs for more than 60 communities in 22 states.

A little less than 2.4% of Americans are Jewish. Of those millions of people, one in eight lives outside a major urban area, and the center exists to help them thrive, Isaacs said.

The center's work is taking place at a vital time, as there are roughly 20% fewer synagogues in America than there were in 1990, according to data compiled by Alanna E. Cooper, a Jewish studies professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. The trend is even more pronounced in rural America, where aging populations and the relocations of residents has hit congregations hard.

The outreach to rural synagogues is also happening as Jewish Americans confront a rising tide of antisemitism and violent attacks against Jewish communities. The Anti-Defamation League noted a nearly 900% increases in antisemitic incidents for the decade ending 2024. Some of the states with a high rate of incidents include largely rural states like Maine, New Hampshire and Wyoming, the ADL's report said.

The center's work can help reverse that trend, Isaacs said.

“You have more Jews that experience joy, who can locate strength, form connections with other Jews across the country and around the world,” Isaacs said. “In a world of rising antisemitism it's more and more important that Jewish communities are joyful, strong and connected.”

Since forming, the center has helped congregations from Maine to California, Montana and Texas.

From Maine to Montana

Isaacs is also the rabbi at Beth Israel, a century-old synagogue down the road from Colby that is the only one within 20 miles of the college. The synagogue has grown along with the center, but the Center for Small Town Jewish Life's work stretches far beyond Maine, she said.

And congregations that have relied on the center said its contributions are vital in a country where the Jewish population has overwhelmingly been urban since the early days of immigration. In Helena, Montana, Rebecca Stanfel, the executive director of the Montana Jewish Project, said the center was instrumental in helping bring together the relatively small Jewish community in her vast state.

Linking far-flung faith communities together is critically important in a place like Montana, Stanfel said.

“In Helena, we have no choice but to rely on volunteers. And if we want to have something like a seder, High Holidays, it's got to come from the community,” Stanfel said. “That is also a really important model for people outside rural America.”

A plan to help

The center assists congregations through three strategies designed to boost rural synagogues. One is Makom, a two-year mentorship program for rabbis earlier in their service to rural synagogues.

Another trains lay leaders to lead prayer and support congregations, which helps them thrive without a full-time rabbi. The third is board leadership coaching, which trains synagogue presidents and boards on how to manage small town Jewish institutions.

Rabbi Lisa Rappaport, who leads Congregation Beth Israel in Chico, California, was among the first to go through the Makom program. Rural rabbis often lead the only Jewish congregation in town, and that makes the work “special and it's beautiful and it's challenging,” she said.

Strengthening rural communities

The Makom fellowship program lifts up rural rabbis to that challenge, Rappaport said.

“We have felt very validated as rabbis in small communities that our work is as important,” she said.

In Waterville, volunteers ranging from Colby students to retirees were getting ready to host about 100 people for Passover. It might be a small community, but it's a strong and loving one, said Jeff Lovitz, a synagogue member, as he folded napkins.

“We've been here since the early ‘70s. Our kids went to Hebrew school here,” he said. “I think it’s important to have a Jewish community in Waterville.”

The Panama Ports Company, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings, said in a statement dated Tuesday that Maersk A/S had undermined a contract over the Hong Kong company's operations of ports at either end of the Panama Canal in order to pave the way for a new operator affiliated with Maersk to take over the Balboa terminal.

The company said the arbitration will be held in London, but didn't explain what remedy it was seeking. Company arbitration is a dispute resolution process in which a neutral third party decides corporate conflicts.

In February, Panama’s government seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing the Panama Ports Company to run the ports was unconstitutional. The ruling drew backlash from China.

The Panamanian government later allowed subsidiaries of Maersk and the Mediterranean Shipping Company to take over operations at the two ports.

Panama Ports Company started arbitration proceedings against Panama in February. In late March, it expanded its claims, saying damages have escalated beyond $2 billion.

It said on Tuesday that its claim against Maersk is separate from its ongoing steps to hold Panama accountable for what it called “anti-contract and anti-investor conduct.”

Maersk said it does not believe it is liable for the claims and will address them “in the appropriate forum," without elaborating.

There was no immediate comment from Panama's government.

The legal actions could further complicate CK Hutchison's initial plan to sell the bulk of its dozens of global ports, including the two Panama ports, to a consortium that involved U.S. investment firm BlackRock in a $23 billion deal.

The sale plan, first announced in March 2025, pleased U.S. President Donald Trump, who has alleged Chinese interference with the critical shipping lane’s operations. But the planned sale apparently angered Beijing, and China's antitrust regulator last year said it would initiate a review of the deal.

The parties involved in the deal have since been looking for ways to move forward with the sale, including considering plans to add a Chinese investor to the consortium.

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Associated Press writer Alma Solís in Panama City contributed to this report.

The new laws focus on several key areas, including expanding career and technical education in high schools, streamlining the financial aid process, increasing parental involvement in course selection, and improving school construction and modernization planning.

These legislative actions follow Spanberger’s first-day executive order, which also prioritized the improvement of K-12 schools and higher education institutions, as well as student achievement.

“The strength of public schools is personal for me — both as someone who grew up in Virginia public schools and as a parent of three school-aged daughters,” said Spanberger. “Parents deserve to know that their students are receiving an education that allows them to reach their full potential.”

Spanberger continued, “I am signing this legislation into law to help make sure every student is set up for success — whether they enter straight into the workforce, pursue an apprenticeship, join the military, or attend a community college or four-year university. Over the next four years, I will continue to work with anyone who wants to deliver results for parents, students, and families.”

Here’s a look at the bills that were signed into place:

• HB332 (Delegate Sam Rasoul), SB203 (Senator David Suetterlein): Making it easier to get career and technical education teachers into the classroom.Passed unanimously.
• SB592 (Senator Lamont Bagby). Aligning career and technical education course offerings with emerging industry and workforce needs. Passed unanimously.
• HB544 (Delegate Alex Askew), SB498 (Senator Lashrecse Aird). Supporting new investment in K-12 schools by making the Commission on School Construction and Modernization permanent and requiring a 10-year capital roadmap. Passed unanimously.
• HB211 (Delegate Debra Gardner). Studying barriers to Head Start and Early Head Start participation in Virginia. Passed with bipartisan support.
• HB1221 (Delegate Briana Sewell), SB167 (Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg). Cutting red tape by streamlining Virginia’s higher education financial aid programs to reduce confusion and help Virginia students apply for awards. Passed unanimously.
• HB924 (Delegate Sam Rasoul). Directing the Board of Education and Superintendent of Public Instruction to support the improvement of low-performing schools. Passed with bipartisan support.
• HB299 (Delegate Dan Helmer), SB200 (Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg). Strengthening the administration of Standards of Learning assessments. Passed with bipartisan support.
• SB817 (Senator David Suetterlein). Empowering parents by requiring schools to notify parents of student course enrollment deadlines and the process for requesting changes to course selection. Passed unanimously.
• HB1243 (Delegate Israel O’Quinn). Ensuring state accountability ratings accurately reflect student achievement growth. Passed unanimously.
• HB647 (Delegate Hillary Kent). Helping more career and technical education instructors get licensed. Passed unanimously.
• HB206 (Delegate Karen Keys-Gamarra). Giving parents additional information about the administration of college partnership laboratory schools. Passed with bipartisan support.
• SB108 (Senator Stella Pekarsky). Making clear the prohibition on student cellphone and smart device use on school property from bell to bell, helping public school students learn in a distraction-free environment during class time and focus on social interaction during lunch. Passed with bipartisan support.
• HB1486 (Delegate Sam Rasoul), SB568 (Senator Glen Sturtevant). Instructing students on the addictive potential of electronic devices. Passed with bipartisan support.
• SB245 (Senator Christopher Head). Prohibiting schools from using social media as the sole method of communicating with students about school-related extracurricular activities. Passed unanimously.
• HB1086 (Delegate Amy Laufer). Encouraging K-12 schools to purchase fresh school meal ingredients from Virginia farmers and producers. Passed unanimously.
• HB832 (Delegate Kimberly Pope Adams). Assisting Governor’s Schools in increasing meal offerings available to all students. Passed with bipartisan support.
• HB705 (Delegate Cliff Hayes), SB151 (Senator Christie New Craig). Developing a statewide program of instruction on water safety for elementary school students. Passed with bipartisan support.
• HB957 (Delegate Elizabeth Guzman). Ensuring school divisions have information about the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in K-12 schools. Passed unanimously.
• HB971 (Delegate Cia Price). Protecting student-athlete’s biometric data. Passed with bipartisan support.
• SB529 (Senator Danny Diggs). Focusing the training of school security officers on emergency procedures and responding to behavioral threats in schools. Passed unanimously.
• HB1301 (Delegate Josh Thomas), SB122 (Senator Jeremy McPike). Supporting students with diabetes. Passed unanimously.

Information on which vehicles hold their value best isn’t readily accessible, but savvy shoppers can use it to pick a vehicle that depreciates less than average over the long haul. The car experts at Edmunds analyzed sales transaction data and compared the average transaction price of used 2023 model-year SUVs with their original manufacturer’s suggested retail price. From there, they identified the top two SUVs in five size categories that hold their value best. These rankings are specific to the 2023 model year but could also be seen as solid bets if you buy a new 2026 model.

Extra-small SUVs: Toyota Corolla Cross and Honda HR-V

The Toyota Corolla Cross is a subcompact SUV that excels as a practical and budget-friendly vehicle. It comes with many standard driver assist features and offers ample cargo space for its size. The Corolla Cross isn’t flashy, but it can’t be beat for value considering it’s worth 81.7% of its original value after three years of ownership.

Nipping at the heels of the Corolla Cross, the HR-V will also appeal to SUV shoppers who want a practical means of transportation. Edmunds praised the HR-V’s amount of passenger space and cargo volume but was underwhelmed by its slow acceleration.

Small SUVs: Toyota RAV4 Hybrid and Honda CR-V

Among small SUVs, the Toyota RAV4 aces the fundamentals. It’s comfortable and roomy, and it’s available in a wide range of trim levels to suit varied budgets. Excellent performance in crash tests is another draw, as is great fuel economy. It all leads to the RAV4 Hybrid having a strong 81.4% residual value in our analysis.

Close behind is another very popular small SUV, the Honda CR-V. A smooth ride and easy-to-use tech features are just some of the CR-V’s positive attributes. Edmunds also singled out its easygoing driving nature, roomy cargo hold, and impressive fuel economy from its available hybrid powertrain.

Midsize SUVs: Toyota 4Runner and Ford Bronco

The Toyota 4Runner has a loyal following among those seeking an SUV with a rugged design and genuine off-road capability. Based on the Tacoma pickup, the midsize 4Runner still waves the flag for the traditional SUV fans who want real off-road performance. After three years, the 4Runner retains 83% of its value on average, the best of all SUVs mentioned in our article.

If you want a vehicle with an even more adventurous spirit but still maintains its value, check out the Ford Bronco. It has a retro-fueled design, incredible go-anywhere capability, and a seemingly endless options sheet.

Midsize three-row SUVs: Toyota Highlander Hybrid and Honda Pilot

The Toyota Highlander has been a popular three-row SUV for more than two decades. The current version continues to provide a comfortable driving experience and excellent fuel economy from the Highlander Hybrid version. The Highlander’s third-row seat is pretty small, but you’re not going to complain about the Highlander Hybrid’s residual value of 77% after three years.

Coming in second is the Honda Pilot. It also has an enviable reputation for providing ample space and cargo room for growing families. Its third-row seat is bigger than the Highlander’s, but Honda doesn’t currently offer a hybrid version of the Pilot.

Large three-row SUVs: Toyota Sequoia and Chevrolet Tahoe

The Toyota Sequoia is bound to appeal to SUV shoppers who need maximum room and crave strong performance. Its hybrid engine packs a punch and delivers plenty of passing power — even if fuel economy is about on par with most other large non-hybrid rivals. A residual value of 80% after three years adds reassurance that this large SUV won’t burn a giant hole in your wallet when you drive off the dealer lot.

Chevrolet’s Tahoe comes in second for large three-row SUVs that best maintain their value after three years. Thanks to its lineup of two stout V8 engines and a turbocharged diesel-powered six-cylinder, the Tahoe is ideal if you’re planning on towing a heavy trailer. The Tahoe also comes with Chevy’s latest technology features.

Edmunds says

An SUV of any shape or size is a major investment. Knowing the vehicle that’s caught your eye won’t plummet in value provides added peace of mind.

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This story was provided to The Associated Press by the automotive website Edmunds.

Nick Kurczewski is a contributor at Edmunds.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said several missiles lifted off from North Korea’s eastern coastal Wonsan area on Wednesday morning and flew about 240 kilometers (150 miles) each in a direction toward the North’s eastern waters.

It said an additional North Korean ballistic missile fired later Wednesday traveled more than 700 kilometers off the North’s east coast. Japan’s Defense Ministry said it assesses that the missile fell in waters outside the country’s exclusive economic zone.

South Korea’s military said it maintains a readiness to repel any provocations by North Korea under a solid military alliance with the United States. It earlier said it detected the launch of an unidentified projectile from North Korea’s capital region on Tuesday.

South Korean media reported the projectile, also likely a ballistic missile, disappeared from South Korean military radars after displaying an abnormal development in the initial launch stage. This indicated the launch ended in failure, according to the reports.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the North Korean launches had not posed any immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to allies.

The back-to-back launches came after North Korea made it clear that it has no intentions of improving ties with South Korea, whose liberal government has steadfastly expressed its hopes to restore long-dormant dialogue.

South Korea would always remain North Korea's “most hostile enemy state,” Jang Kum Chol, first vice minister at Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday. He derided South Korea as “world-startling fools” engaged in wishful thinking over a recent statement by Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

After South Korean President Lee Jae Myung expressed regret over alleged civilian drone flights into North Korea, Kim Yo Jong on Monday praised him for what she called honesty and courage, but reiterated a threat to retaliate if such flights recur. South Korean officials responded by describing Kim’s statement as meaningful progress in relations.

Jang said her statement was intended as a warning. He cited Kim Yo Jong as calling South Korea “the dogs affected by mange that blindly bark to the tune of neighboring dogs” as she criticized it for recently co-sponsoring of a U.N. resolution on the North’s purported human rights violations.

North Korea has refused to return to talks with South Korea and the U.S. and pushed to expand its nuclear arsenal since Kim Jong Un’s diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019. North Korea has instead sought to strengthen ties with Russia, China and other countries embroiled in confrontations with the U.S. Last September, Kim Jong Un traveled to Beijing to attend a military parade alongside other foreign leaders and held his first summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in six years.

North Korean media reported on Wednesday that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit North Korea on Thursday for a two-day trip.

Earlier this week, North Korea said Kim Jong Un had observed a test of an upgraded solid-fuel engine for weapons and called it a significant development boosting his country’s strategic military arsenal.

Missiles with built-in solid propellants are easier to move and conceal their launches than liquid-fuel weapons, which in general must be fueled before liftoffs and cannot last long.

South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Monday the engine test was likely related to an effort to build a more powerful solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile that can carry multiple nuclear warheads, according to lawmakers who attended the meeting.

Experts say North Korea wants multi-warhead missiles to penetrate U.S. missile defenses, but they doubt Pyongyang has mastered the technology needed to acquire such a weapon.

— AP journalists Mari Yamaguchi and Mayuko Ono contributed from Tokyo.

Resisting an early onslaught from PSG is key to Liverpool's chances of keeping the tie alive heading into the return leg at Anfield next week.

“PSG under (coach) Luis Enrique do not give you a second to have the ball comfortable on your feet,” Liverpool manager Arne Slot said. “It’s press, press, press every second of the game.”

When the two sides met last season in the round of 16, PSG advanced on penalties against six-time champion Liverpool following an intense battle. PSG carried the momentum from that victory all the way to a first Champions League title.

While Liverpool was arguably the pre-match favorite last year, it's a different story now. Slot's team is reeling from a crushing FA Cup loss and will be trophyless unless it wins the Champions League.

Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah has yet to find his best form in his last season at the club, with only 10 goals in 35 games so far.

PSG has Ballon d'Or winner Ousmane Dembélé, midfielder Vitinha and flying winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia in top form. Dembélé scored a scintillating volley against Toulouse in the French league on Friday and seems to be peaking at the right time.

However, PSG is still missing midfielder Fabián Ruiz with a knee injury and is without winger Bradley Barcola, who injured his ankle in the last-16 rout of Chelsea.

Liverpool striker Alexander Isak — the British-record signing for 125 million pounds ($170 million) — has recovered from injury and Slot said he will be on the bench at Parc des Princes.

Isak had surgery in December on a broken ankle and fibula.

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

“Sometimes it is really difficult to determine if someone has a cold versus allergies,” said Sandra Hong, MD, allergist at Cleveland Clinic. “One of the things that I think is really important is that you get symptoms around the same time every single year.”

Dr. Hong said another way to tell if it’s allergies is to pay attention to the symptoms.

Are you noticing any kind of itching? For example, an itchy throat, itchy eyes or itchy ears.

That’s very common with allergies.

With a cold or flu, you’re more likely to experience a fever, body aches, or chills, in addition to a runny nose, or sore throat.

Dr. Hong said symptoms of a virus also tend to resolve a lot sooner.

With allergies, they can linger for weeks.

“Very frequently, patients with allergies also have asthma, so I would actually be very aware of that. And if you notice during this time of the year that things that you normally like to do are causing you to be short of breath, or you’re coughing, or wheezing, please talk to your primary care physician, or consider seeing an allergist because those symptoms can be related to asthma,” she explained.

Dr. Hong said if you do discover that you have allergies, there are plenty of over-the-counter medications that can help.

However, if symptoms persist, it’s best to consult with your physician.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people will be sending kites into the skies at the Green Hill Park. The park was chosen not just for its outdoor beauty, but also for the amount of space it provides.

“Green Hill Park is a great asset in our community for folks in Roanoke County in the region to enjoy some of our trails and the Greenway,” Roanoke County Parks, Recreation and Tourism Marketing and Administration Coordinator Alex North said. “We also have a great space for events and every year we kick that off during the spring with Kite Festival.”

The Richmond Air Force Kite Club will be flying demonstrations throughout the day, while an Activity Zone will have crafts and activities for families to enjoy.

The festival has been in the works for the past couple of months, and since it is the 25th anniversary, Roanoke County has a little special event planned.

“It’s been a staple in the Roanoke region for years,” North said. “We’re going to be celebrating that not just by having the event for the 25th year, we’ll have a special photo op thanks to our partners and sponsors from Virginia 811.”

The festival is free for all and will take place on April 18 from 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. The first 1,000 kids will also get a free kite. A sensory tent will also be available for anyone who may get a little overstimulated.

To John Steinbeck, it was the Mother Road that led poor farmers from Dust Bowl desperation to sunny California. To Native Americans along the route, it was an economic boon that also left scars. To Black travelers, it offered sanctuary during segregation. And to music fans, it was the place to get their kicks.

Route 66 marks its 100th anniversary this year. Despite losing its status decades ago as one of the nation’s main arteries, people from around the world still flock to it to take perhaps the quintessential American road trip and soak in its neon lights, kitschy motels and attractions, and culinary offerings.

Each town has its own history and magic, said Sebastiaan de Boorder, a Dutch entrepreneur who, with his wife, breathed new life into The Aztec Motel in Seligman, Arizona.

“It's an essential part of American culture and history,” he said of the highway. “The historical aspect is just a very big important part of American culture, with its influence and its character.”

The dream

Route 66, which runs for roughly 2,400 miles (3,860 kilometers) from Chicago through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before ending in Santa Monica, California, was stitched together a century ago from a collection of Native American trading routes and old dirt roads with the goal of linking the industrial Midwest to the Pacific coast.

Oklahoma businessman Cyrus Avery, known as the Father of Route 66, saw it as more than just a way to cross the country efficiently. It was a chance to connect rural America and create new pockets of commerce.

Avery knew the number 66 would be ripe for marketing and could be seared into drivers' minds, and he was right: Route 66 has been immortalized in movies, books, including Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” and Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” and songs such as Bobby Troup's “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” which served as an anthem for post-World War II optimism and mobility.

Waves of migration

Since its November 1926 designation as one of the nation's original numbered highways, the onetime Main Street of America has embodied the promise of prosperity.

It became a literal path of hope for migrants escaping drought-ravaged farms and poverty during the 1930s Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. And during World War II, it was used to move troops, equipment and workers out West.

The postwar boom of the 1940s and 1950s were Route 66's heyday, as it became a popular vacation route. Cars became more affordable, disposable income increased, and people began chasing freedom on the open road.

“People generally have a sense of adventure, a sense curiosity. And you can find that on Route 66. This is the road of dreams,” author and historian Jim Hinckley said.

Going mainstream

Roadside diners and motels thrived, as crafty entrepreneurs dreamed up ways to part motorists from their money. There were rattlesnake pits, totem poles, trading posts, caverns where Old West outlaws purportedly hung out, and modern engineering marvels like St. Louis' gleaming steel arch.

Barns were painted with larger-than-life ads, billboards teased local attractions, and neon was everywhere.

The cherry on top? The food.

There were places to grab and go, but also to sit down and relish a slice of home. The Cozy Dog Drive In — famous for its breaded hot dogs on a stick — has fit both bills since 1949. Inside the dining room in Springfield, Illinois, travelers tell tales of life on the highway.

“The road wouldn’t be alive without the stories of all the places along it that kept it going from town to town,” third-generation owner Josh Waldmire said. “We just survive off each other. The road feeds us, and as long as we put our feelings and love back into the road, it will reverberate with the travelers and the stories of the people.”

A divided highway

Route 66 was an economic boon to the Native American tribes along the way. But although it brought tourists, it also left scars of eminent domain across tribal land and perpetuated stereotypes.

More than half of the highway crossed through Indian Country, and vendor signs often made casual references to tipis and feathered headdresses — symbols easily appropriated for marketing but not always representative of the distinct cultures found along the route.

At Laguna Pueblo west of Albuquerque, restaurants and service stations sprang up, some operated by military veterans from the pueblo who were masters at fixing everything from flat tires to busted radiators.

Pueblo women adapted too, turning utilitarian pottery vessels into works of art coveted by tourists. Homemade bread and pies sealed the deal.

Laguna leaders have long considered the road — or he-ya-nhee' in the tribe's language of Keres — as “the corridor of commerce,” said businessman and tribal member Ron Solimon. Capitalizing on that potential, the tribe has built a multimillion-dollar empire of casinos, burger stands and other businesses.

There were also dangers along the route, particularly during the Jim Crow era, when Black travelers had to rely on guides like the Green Book to find safe lodging and services.

“Especially for long-distance travel, segregation was a fact of life,” said Matthew Pearce, state historian for the Oklahoma Historical Society. “And so Black motorists needed to know a safe place to go.”

The Threatt Filling Station near the central Oklahoma community of Luther wasn't listed in the Green Book, but it did serve as a safe haven between two sundown towns, where people who weren't white needed to leave by sunset. The station offered barbecue and even baseball.

Edward Threatt, whose grandparents opened the station around 1933, recalled a TV program about travelers getting their kicks on 66. “By and large, the Black traveler didn’t get a lot of kicks on Route 66,” he said. “And if they got some kicks, it wasn’t the kind you would think of.”

A new direction

President Dwight Eisenhower’s vision for a modern interstate highway system eventually led to Route 66 being decommissioned as a federal highway in 1985. Some towns along the route died, and it fell to local governments, state historical societies, and private businesses to preserve their sections of the famed road.

A driving force was Angel Delgadillo, a barber who lobbied the Arizona Legislature to designate the road as a historic highway. He saved Seligman from turning into a ghost town and set the bar for preservation elsewhere.

In New Mexico, original sketches for neon signs have been preserved, Route 66-themed murals abound and developers in Albuquerque have restored motor lodges along the longest urban stretch of the road still intact.

More than 90% of the road is still drivable in California. Cadillac Ranch in the Texas Panhandle offers the chance to spray-paint half-buried cars. And at the Mississippi River, travelers can walk or bike across the old Chain of Rocks Bridge.

More than 250 of the route's buildings, districts and road segments are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. But it's more than bricks and asphalt that fuel the fascination.

“Some of the most interesting and fun things that happen to people when they travel the route is running into somebody they know or some happenstance thing that comes totally unexpected,” said author and historian Jim Ross. “And that's a great part of the Route 66 experience.”

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Associated Press writers John O'Connor in Springfield, Illinois, and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

The Giovanni-Steger Poetry Prize competition will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Lyric Theatre. Giovanni, who died in 2024, launched the competition in 2006 alongside former Virginia Tech President Charles Steger.

Giovanni received hundreds of awards and honors throughout her career, including a 2024 Emmy for exceptional merit in documentary filmmaking for “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.” She was also recognized as a cultural icon of the Black Arts and Civil Rights movements, forging friendships with figures such as Rosa Parks, Aretha Franklin, James Baldwin, Nina Simone and Muhammad Ali.

The competition is open to students of all majors and will showcase a variety of Virginia Tech student poets vying for monetary awards.

Student finalists will present their original poetry, and the top three winners will receive prizes.

Barcelona's hopes of ending an 11-year wait for another European Cup will largely rest on the performances of 18-year-old Lamine Yamal. The Spain playmaker has scored in three consecutive Champions League games and his 21 goals overall in all competitions this campaign leads his team.

Atletico for its part will look for inspiration from forward Antoine Griezmann. Atletico's all-time top scorer wants to end his stellar run with the club on a high note before the 35-year-old leaves for the MLS.

The Spanish rivals will have played five times in two months after next week’s second leg in Madrid.

Atletico edged Barcelona in the Copa del Rey semifinals in February before Hansi Flick's side got some revenge on Saturday when it won 2-1 away in the Spanish league to strengthen its league lead.

Barcelona is a five-time European champion, but Diego Simeone’s Atletico eliminated the Catalan club at the same stage both in 2014 and 2016 on the way to reaching the Champions League final.

Barcelona is aiming to reach the semifinals for a second straight year.

Atletico's bid to make its first semifinal appearance since 2017 will depend on its defense and a mix of attacking options which include Julián Álvarez, Ademola Lookman and Alexander Sorloth.

Marcus Rashford will likely start for Barcelona in place of the injured Raphinha.

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

The visit is the first by a Taiwanese opposition leader in a decade and comes ahead of a meeting in Beijing between Xi and U.S. President Donald Trump scheduled to take place in May.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's opposition-controlled parliament has stalled attempts by its government to pass a $40 billion special defense budget, expected to fund arms deals with the United States and the development of Taiwan's indigenous defense industry.

China claims the self-ruled island as its own territory and has not excluded the use of force to take it. Beijing has been ramping up its military pressure by sending warplanes and naval vessels around the island almost daily, while its military occasionally stages live-fire drills nearby, the latest in December.

The U.S. State Department said such activities “increase tensions unnecessarily” and called on Beijing to cease military pressure against Taiwan.

Before leaving the capital, Taipei, the chairwoman of the Kuomintang party told reporters that Taiwan must spare no effort to prevent war and seize any opportunity to promote peace.

A few dozen supporters and detractors of Cheng showed up at Taipei’s airport, chanting and holding signs.

“The purpose of this visit to mainland China is precisely to show the world that it is not just Taiwan that unilaterally hopes for peace,” Cheng said.

“I believe that through this journey for peace, everyone is even more eager to see the sincerity and determination of the CPC Central Committee to use peaceful dialogue and exchange to resolve all possible differences between the two sides,” she added, referring to the initials of the Communist Party of China.

China takes issue with US arms sales to Taiwan

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tuesday relations with Taiwan were part of China's internal affairs.

“China’s opposition to military ties between the U.S. and Taiwan is consistent and clear,” spokesperson Mao Ning said.

Beijing has repeatedly criticized U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, in particular a massive deal announced by the Trump administration in December, valued at more than $11 billion, that includes medium-range missiles, howitzers and drones.

China prohibits all its diplomatic partners, including the U.S., from maintaining formal ties with Taipei. The U.S. is the island’s strongest informal backer and arms provider, and the arms sale is expected to be discussed at the Xi-Trump summit.

In a call in February between Xi and Trump, the Chinese leader said that “Taiwan will never be allowed to separate from China,” according to a Chinese government statement about the conversation released at the time. “The U.S. must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence,” it added.

Beijing also said that the “Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations.”

Taiwan's ruling and opposition parties hold different stances toward Beijing

It was not clear if Cheng was going to meet with Xi as part of her six-day trip to China, which started in the eastern metropolis of Shanghai and is set to conclude in Beijing.

The KMT, as Taiwan's main opposition party, is not in a position to strike agreements with Beijing that would affect the entire island; however, Cheng might sign party-to-party cooperation agreements with the Communist Party to reinstitute regular dialogue or boost ties at a municipal level between KMT-controlled localities and Chinese cities, said Wen-Ti Sung, a fellow with the Atlantic Council, an American think tank.

Cheng's visit “may sideline the Taiwan Strait tension issue from the Xi-Trump summit, thus enabling the U.S.-China summit to focus on business areas of common interest rather than geostrategic points of contention,” Sung said.

The KMT has proposed a smaller defense budget and criticizes the governing Democratic Progressive Party's larger budget as a “blank check” for arms purchases.

Cheng's visit contrasts sharply with Beijing's treatment of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, with whom China does not engage, labeling him a “separatist.”

Taiwan has been governed separately from China since 1949, when a civil war brought the Communist Party to power in Beijing. Defeated KMT forces fled to Taiwan, where they set up their own government.

Lai's party views Taiwan as a sovereign country, not a subordinate to China. The KMT, meanwhile, officially recognizes only one China, which it interprets as the Republic of China that before 1949 included the mainland and today is Taiwan’s official name.

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Mistreanu reported from Bangkok.

In Virginia, as of Wednesday, April 8, the average price for regular gasoline is more than $4 per gallon, according to AAA. That’s a little over $1 higher than last month’s average. Diesel is averaging about $5.81 per gallon, while premium gasoline is $4.91.

Within the region, AAA reports that Lynchburg continues to have the most expensive gas in the area, with an average of $3.99 for regular and $4.796 for premium.

Across the state, the highest prices are in Washington, D.C., where regular gas averages $4.19 per gallon.

To find out where the lowest fuel prices are near you, visit GasBuddy’s website.

Since the U.S. and Israel launched a joint war against Iran on Feb. 28, the cost of crude oil — the main ingredient in gasoline — has spiked and swung rapidly. That’s because the conflict has caused deep supply chain disruptions and cuts from major oil producers across the Middle East.

Roberts-Smith was awarded both the Victoria Cross and Medal of Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan and is only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime.

The charges follow a military report released in 2020 that found evidence that elite Australian Special Air Service and commando regiment troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and other noncombatants. Around 40,000 Australian military personnel served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, of whom 41 were killed.

Veteran accused of 5 unlawful deaths

The allegations against Roberts-Smith relate to the deaths of five Afghan people who died in 2009 and 2012 while he served in Afghanistan as an elite SAS corporal. Police allege he either shot his victims or ordered a subordinate to shoot them in Uruzgan province where Australia's forces were based.

Police said he had been charged Tuesday with five counts of war crime murder. But the charges laid in court Wednesday were two counts of war crime murder and three counts of aiding or abetting a war crime murder. All charges carry the same potential maximum sentence of life in prison.

The charges allege Roberts-Smith killed and caused a subordinate to kill at Kakarak village on April 12, 2009. He allegedly caused a subordinate to kill at Darwan village on Sept. 11, 2012. He allegedly killed and caused a subordinate to kill at Syahchow village on Oct. 20, 2012.

Australian law defines war crime murder as the intentional killing in a context of armed conflict of a person who is not taking an active part in the hostilities, such as a civilian, prisoner of war or a wounded soldier.

Australian prime minister describes veteran's arrest as a ‘difficult time’

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described Roberts-Smith's arrest as a “difficult time” for the Australian Defense Force.

“We should give thanks every day for the men and women who wear our uniform, who are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our nation, to keep our Australian way of life going forward. That doesn’t change,” Albanese told Sky News television.

“It’s important that this not be politicized, and I have no intention of commenting on what is a legal process,” Albanese added.

Opposition leader Angus Taylor called on the federal government, known as the Commonwealth of Australia, to pay for the legal defenses of all military personnel prosecuted for war crimes, including Roberts-Smith.

“It is an imperative that the Commonwealth provide anyone who’s prosecuted in this process, including Ben Roberts-Smith, with ... the financial support they need to defend themselves and to ensure that there is a fair trial,” Taylor told reporters. “The presumption of innocence is crucial.”

Former Australian prime minister pays tribute to troops

John Howard, who as Australia's then-prime minister first committed Australian troops to fight in Afghanistan in 2001, said Roberts-Smith's arrest would emotionally impact millions of Australians.

“This is a difficult issue for many, as it tests to the limits not only our respect for Australian values, but the deep and special reverence we have for those who put their lives on the line to keep us safe,” Howard said in a statement.

The Australian Special Air Service Association, which represents current and former members of the elite regiment, said some may be required to testify against former comrades. Others must defend themselves against “grave allegations.”

“These realities are deeply confronting for a close and enduring community,” the association said in a statement.

Roberts-Smith, 47, spent the night in jail after he was arrested at the Sydney Airport on Tuesday morning, and he did not appear in court either in person or by video link Wednesday.

His lawyers did not enter pleas to the charges or apply for his release on bail. The case was adjourned until June 4.

Civil court upholds similar allegations

A civil court has already found similar allegations against Roberts-Smith credible in a defamation suit he brought after newspapers published articles in 2018 accusing him of a range of war crimes. In 2023, a federal judge rejected Roberts-Smith’s claims and ruled that he likely killed four noncombatants unlawfully in 2009 and 2012.

But while the civil court found the war crimes allegations were mostly proven on a balance of probabilities, the war crime murder charges would have to be proved in a criminal court to a higher standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

Media magnate Kerry Stokes helped fund Roberts-Smith's civil court action. Roberts-Smith quit his job as a state manager of Stokes' Seven West Media in 2023 after losing the defamation case.

During his defamation trial, Roberts-Smith had testified that he had never killed an unarmed Afghan and denied ever committing a war crime. He claimed he has the victim of spiteful fellow soldiers' lies and of others' envy of his medals.

Roberts-Smith is the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime.

Fellow veteran pleads not guilty to war crime allegation

Former SAS soldier Oliver Schulz has pleaded not guilty to a charge of war crime murder. He is accused of shooting Afghan man Dad Mohammad three times in the head in an Uruzgan province wheat field in 2012.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers said Schulz's trial is unlikely to be held before 2027.

In 2024, the government announced that several serving and former Australian military commanders had been stripped of medals over allegations of war crimes committed in Afghanistan.

Holding commanders to account for alleged misconduct of Australian special forces between 2005 and 2016 had been recommended in the war crime investigation report made public in 2020.

Soler homered off López in the first inning, then was hit by a 96 mph fastball from the right-hander his next time up. In the fifth, Soler charged the mound after López threw a high-and-inside wild pitch that tipped off catcher Jonah Heim's mitt.

At first, López held up his hands as the two glared at each other before both started throwing punches.

“I asked him if everything was OK and the answer he gave me, I didn’t like it,” Soler said through a translator, according to MLB.com. “That’s why I went out there.”

The benches and bullpens emptied as players from both teams tried to separate the two. Atlanta manager Walt Weiss was among those who tackled Soler, the 2021 World Series MVP with the Braves.

“I love Soler. We were teammates here,” Weiss said. “But that’s a big man, and so I just felt I've gotta get him off his feet because he’s gonna hurt somebody. And so that was my instinct, just to get in there and get Jorge off his feet, yeah, because he was on a warpath.”

López was still holding the baseball when he landed a punch on Soler's batting helmet.

The two were teammates in Atlanta during the second half of the 2024 season.

“It’s just a shame, the situation and how things unfolded,” López said through a translator, according to MLB.com. “On my part, there was never any intent to hit him at any point. So, again, it’s just a shame.”

Atlanta led 4-2 when the fight occurred and went on to a 7-2 victory.

Soler's two-run shot in the first made him 14 for 23 with five homers and three doubles against López.

“Obviously, I have good numbers against him,” Soler said. “After the home run and getting hit by a pitch after that, and then he missed way too high and close to my head. At this level, you can’t miss like that.”

Weiss understood why Soler was mad.

“I know it didn’t look good because of Soler’s numbers against Lópey, and he hit a homer, he hit him. It didn’t look good," Weiss said. "Lópey’s not throwing at him. I don’t allow our pitchers to throw at people just because they can’t get ’em out. Our job is to get ’em out. But I understand why Soler got angry. And he’s a really mild-mannered guy. So, I think the switch flipped for him.

“There was no intent there. I just think that Lópey’s just overthrowing, because he’s had a hard time getting him out. But he’s certainly not trying to hit him,” Weiss added.

López pitched 4 2/3 innings, allowing three hits with seven strikeouts and two walks.

“Obviously, guy’s got good numbers off López, and hits a homer his first at-bat. Gets drilled up high in the wrist his second at-bat and then third one takes a good swing and then throws the next one head-high. It wasn’t over his head but it was head-high coming in," Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said.

“I don’t blame Jorge one bit. He went out there and words were exchanged and Jorge went out,” Suzuki added. “You get thrown at your head, you have a family, your career, you know, it’s dangerous. I know it’s part of the game. I know it happens."

The Angels won 6-2 on Monday in the opener of the three-game series. Tuesday night's game was more eventful, to say the least.

“It gets your juices flowing a little bit, on both teams I’m sure," Weiss said. "So, as long as nobody gets hurt, it’s kind of a good time. But as long as nobody gets hurt. But yeah, I was proud of our guys the way we handled everything tonight.”

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

In a deep red district that Greene won by 29 points and Trump carried by almost 37 points two years ago, Fuller was on track to prevail by about 12 points with almost all votes counted. The result added to a string of special elections where Democrats performed better than expected, a track record that the party hopes will create momentum toward November's midterm elections when control of Congress hangs in the balance.

In another election held Tuesday, a Democratic-backed candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court won by double-digit margins, growing the liberal majority there.

Fuller insisted that his victory over Democratic candidate Shawn Harris in Georgia was a testimony to Trump's staying power.

“They couldn’t beat Donald Trump and they never will,” he told supporters in Ringgold, near the border with Tennessee. “And I will be on Capitol Hill as a warrior to have his back each and every day.”

However, Trump’s escalating rhetoric had some Republicans concerned, even in this deep red district. The president had set a deadline for Tuesday at 8 p.m. — one hour after polls closed in Georgia — for Iran to reach a deal with the United States, saying that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” However, he later announced a two-week ceasefire to allow negotiations to continue.

Acworth resident Jason McGinty said he was worried Trump was “about to go too far" and "may be committing a war crime” if he followed through on threats to bomb power plants and other infrastructure in Iran. He voted for Fuller to “make sure the America First party is still in place.”

Retiree Judy McDonald agreed with the president’s decision to go to war but was “very anxiety-ridden” over the conflict.

“Eventually we will have peace and the Iranians will kind of come to a conclusion that they won’t have a country if they don’t stop the terrorism,” she said.

Some Democrats hoped the election would send a message to Trump

Fuller will serve out the remaining months of Greene’s term, bolstering the party’s slim majority in the House, where Republicans control 217 seats to Democrats’ 214, with one independent.

He’ll have to face another Republican primary on May 19 to win a full two-year term, and could face a June 16 party runoff. Harris is already the Democratic nominee for November.

Retiree Melinda Dorl supported Harris “so it sends a message to Trump and his cronies that people aren’t happy," she said.

“This war was totally uncalled for. Trump is a liar. Everything he says is a lie,” Dorl said, adding that Trump was wrecking relationships with countries that have traditionally been American allies.

Harris, a cattle farmer and retired general who describes himself as a “dirt-road Democrat,” stirred enthusiasm even among supporters who expected him to lose.

“I voted for the Democrat even though this is a very red district and the Democrat has almost no chance of winning,” said Michael Robards, a software engineer from Kennesaw who calls himself a center-right independent. He said he wants to see Trump’s policies rolled back and the president again impeached.

Georgia's 14th District stretches across 10 counties from suburban Atlanta to Tennessee. After losing to Greene two years ago, Harris said his strong showing this time would be a stepping stone to November.

“We’re going to beat him next time,” Harris said on Tuesday in Rome, Georgia.

Fuller said he had withstood Democrats’ best punch.

“The left did their best. They poured in millions upon millions of dollars,” Fuller told reporters. “And what you’re seeing is the best that they can accomplish.”

Fuller had presidential support

Trump endorsed Fuller, a district attorney who prosecuted crimes in four counties, to succeed Greene in February, boosting him over other Republican candidates in a crowded field.

Greene, once among Trump’s most ardent supporters, had split with the president by criticizing his foreign policy and his reluctance to release documents involving the Jeffrey Epstein case. The president eventually had enough, saying he would support a primary challenge against her. Greene announced a week later that she would resign.

Outside of Congress, Greene has continued to assail Trump.

“Trump was elected to go to war against America’s deep state and to end America’s involvement in foreign wars,” she wrote on social media on Tuesday. “Not to kill an entire civilization while waging a foreign war on behalf of Israel, another foreign country.”

However, Fuller has backed Trump to the hilt — including the war — and has identified no issue on which he disagreed with the president.

Trump reiterated his support for Fuller on Monday night and then again on Tuesday.

“To the Great Patriots in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District: GET OUT AND VOTE TODAY for a fantastic Candidate, Clay Fuller, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” the president wrote on social media.

Redick and Vanderbilt repeatedly exchanged words in a visible, vocal argument after Redick called a timeout and removed Vanderbilt from the Lakers' game against Oklahoma City just 16 seconds into the second quarter.

Redick said the argument was caused by “just a confluence of things," declining to be specific about what Vanderbilt had done wrong.

“Nothing personal with him,” Redick added. "Normal stuff from my end. I think for all of us, being undermanned, we’ve got to scrap and claw. We’ve got to all be on the same page. We've got to be great teammates. We've got to all play hard. I called a timeout to get him out of the game, and he reacted.”

After Redick called the timeout, Vanderbilt approached him on the court. When Vanderbilt became demonstrative, Austin Reaves — who didn't play due to injury — stepped between his teammate and the head coach, along with assistant coach Nate McMillan.

Vanderbilt continued the discussion when Redick sat on the bench after the timeout, and Redick made a dismissive gesture in Vanderbilt’s direction that appeared to irritate Vanderbilt further.

Vanderbilt didn’t return to the game after being pulled, and he left the Lakers’ downtown arena without speaking to reporters.

Vanderbilt made his only shot and had two rebounds and a steal during his 4 1/2 minutes of play, but he also missed three consecutive free throws right before the first-quarter buzzer. The defensive specialist has played inconsistent minutes for Redick this season, struggling to bring his offensive game up to a level that would allow him to be a rotation regular.

Los Angeles faced the Thunder without NBA scoring leader Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Reaves, Marcus Smart and Jaxson Hayes due to injury, and the result was predictable: Oklahoma City routed the Lakers 123-87, sending them to their third consecutive loss after winning 13 of their previous 14.

The defeat was Los Angeles' first at home since Feb. 24, ending a 10-game winning streak. The Lakers (50-29) slipped a full game behind streaking Denver (51-28) for the third seed in the Western Conference playoff picture, while only the tiebreaker is keeping the Lakers above the surging Houston Rockets (50-29) in fifth for now.

Until Doncic and Reaves both were lost for the rest of the regular season — and probably longer — during the Lakers' blowout loss at Oklahoma City a week ago, they were surging toward a top-three seed with hopes of a significant playoff run. While Redick hasn't publicly given up on that chance, he acknowledged before the game that any attempt to play for better seeding “probably went out the window after the (first) OKC game.”

Redick didn't mince many words about his healthy players after the Lakers' lowest-scoring performance of the season — an effort that inexplicably included 17 missed free throws.

“We’ve got to find nine guys that are, like, all in on us fighting,” Redick said. “Whatever you’ve got to do to go out and fight and be all in on the team, we’ll find the nine guys. It’s a great opportunity for us over the next three games to find those guys.”

The coach said he called an earlier timeout to remove Rui Hachimura from the game because the forward “didn't do his job.”

Redick also said starting center Deandre Ayton has “had trouble catching the ball. We've had a bunch of plays for him. He's just had trouble catching the ball, and I don't know if that's the passing or him trying to get position. He just hasn't been able to catch the ball.”

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA

“They think they’re invincible. They’re not,” Swalwell told a large crowd at a town hall in Sacramento, the state capital. He didn't specify how he'd advance those policies, which would likely face legal challenges.

The event kicked off a series of campaign functions he's planned around the state with less than a month to go until mail-in ballots go out to voters ahead of the June 2 primary. Swalwell, a Democrat, is among a crowded field of candidates jostling for advantage in a race in which a small margin could decide who advances to the November general election. The two highest vote-getters advance regardless of party, and Democrats are worried about a possible lock-out if no clear front-runner emerges.

Speaking to a friendly crowd, Swalwell painted himself as a “battle-tested” fighter in Congress against President Donald Trump. He served as House manager for Trump’s second impeachment trial and said he wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and has supported taking away the agency's funding. Los Angeles was the target of one of the administration's first large-scale immigration sweeps last summer and the first place where it deployed the National Guard. The position comes after Swalwell faced accusations by some of his Democratic rivals for not taking a strong enough stance against the agency.

Positioning himself as a labor-friendly and progressive candidate, Swalwell said he wants to address ongoing state budget gaps with a new corporate tax and use state funding to pay for health care for low-income people, including immigrants. He also said he supports letting state employees work remotely, a contentious issue in Sacramento.

“I will root for the success of anyone who invests and does business in California, if they work with me to lift the wages of hard-working Californians and expand the benefits,” he said.

This year's election marks the first time since voters approved the state’s “ top two ” primary system more than a decade ago that there has been a governor’s race with no dominant candidate. Swalwell is considered among the leading candidates, alongside billionaire Tom Steyer and former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter on the Democratic side. Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, won Trump's endorsement this week. Sheriff Chad Bianco is another prominent Republican in the contest.

Swalwell in recent weeks has emerged as a favorite target for fellow Democrats, who have accused him of failing to show up for votes in Congress and questioned whether he actually lives in California. On Tuesday, Swalwell again disputed those criticisms and said he's “not going to be distracted.”

An Iowa native who was elected in 2012 and represents a House district east of San Francisco, Swalwell ran a short-lived presidential campaign in 2019.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is term-limited, hasn't endorsed anyone to replace him.

“Nah, not really,” Tatum said Tuesday following Boston's win over Charlotte. “I mean, yeah, I thought about it. Not, like, thrilled to go back and play there. Last time I played there, obviously, it was a traumatic experience for me."

The experience, of course, was when he was carried off the floor with a ruptured right Achilles tendon in Game 4 of the Celtics' Eastern Conference semifinals loss to the Knicks last season. It ended the six-time All-Star's season, and following surgery the next day thrust him into a nearly 10-month rehab.

It ended on March 6 with his season debut and a 15-game stretch since then that has him averaging over 20 points and 10 rebounds with the playoffs upcoming. But being back in New York for the first time since his injury still will come with some trepidation, he acknowledged.

“Obviously, at some point I knew I would have to get over that hurdle and play there again. So, it's going to have to be this Thursday," Tatum said.

Teammate Jaylen Brown said he thinks Tatum is in a good place.

“I think he's trending in the right direction,” Brown said. “Mentally, it could possibly be something. But that's what the teammates are there for. We got his back."

Coach Joe Mazzulla said the way Tatum has worked his way back into condition both physically and mentally are a testament to everything he's done since being helped off the court in New York last May.

“I think the entire process leading up from Day 1 with the surgery put him in position to be able to do that,” Mazzulla said. “Just how he approached the entire journey and the people he had around him kind of put him in position. I think where he's at now, it all goes together. How do you approach that day? How do you approach recovery? How he's approached every step of the way that he's taken. He did it with a lot of hard work and diligence. ... That kind of set him up to be where he is now."

And like it or not, it's brought him to perhaps the most important step in him feeling mentally back — returning to the site of the worst day of his basketball career.

“It's part of it,” Tatum said. "I decided to come back and play and I'm not necessarily, like, skipping certain games. I mean, I can't play back-to-backs right now. But, I decided to come back and play, so it's another game on the schedule.”

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

Valentina Orellana-Peralta was shopping for Christmas clothes with her mother at a Burlington store in the San Fernando Valley’s North Hollywood neighborhood on Dec. 23, 2021, when she was struck by a bullet that had gone through the dressing room wall.

Police were responding to calls for help after a man wielding a bike lock attacked two women in the building. As armed officers walked through the store, Officer William Dorsey Jones Jr. fired his rifle three times, killing the man and Orellana-Peralta.

The lawsuit filed by the girl's parents alleges wrongful death, negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Her mother Soledad Peralta “felt her daughter’s body go limp and watched helplessly as her daughter died while still in her arms,” the lawsuit states.

It alleges that the LAPD failed to adequately train and supervise the responding officers and “fostered an environment that allowed and permitted this shooting to occur.”

“Valentina had her entire life in front of her, and it was taken in an instant due to reckless decisions made by the very people who were sworn to protect her," said Nick Rowley, who represents the family. “We intend to hold LAPD fully accountable for taking an innocent young woman’s life.”

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office, representing the LAPD, did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The Los Angeles Police Commission, a civilian oversight board, ruled in 2022 that Jones was justified in firing once but that his two subsequent shots were out of policy. Then-Police Chief Michel Moore previously found in his own review that all three shots were unjustified.

Jones told the LAPD’s Use of Force Review Board that he believed someone inside the store was shooting people and mistook the bike lock the man was wielding for a gun. He said he thought a wall behind the man backed up against an exterior brick wall when in fact, the area contained the women’s dressing rooms.

Rowley recently secured a $30 million settlement from the city of San Diego for the killing of 16-year-old Konoa Wilson, one of the largest settlements in a police killing case in U.S. history. It surpassed the $27 million settlement that the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay in the lawsuit over the killing of George Floyd.

The Weather Authority is tracking a sharp dip in overnight temperatures across Southwest and Central Virginia. Freeze warnings are in effect for much of the area until about 9 a.m. Wednesday, with some spots under alerts through 10 a.m. This comes as clear skies are allowing the mercury to slide into the lower 30s and even upper 20s by early morning. If you’ve started your spring planting, 10 News’s meteorologist Edward Shaw recommends covering your plants tonight and tomorrow night, as freezing conditions are likely to affect many neighborhoods.

Here’s a look at the expected low temperatures overnight:

• Roanoke: 32
• Covington: 27
• Lynchburg: 31
• Blacksburg: 28
• Rocky Mount: 33

These chilly readings are set to cap off a stretch of mostly clear weather that has already brought some areas into the 30s late Tuesday night, as displayed on 10 News graphics during the forecast.

Major warmup expected late week into the weekend

The good news? A noticeable warming trend is expected as the week progresses, with springtime sun taking charge. 10 News’s meteorologist Edward Shaw forecasts highs rebounding into the mid 60s by Thursday, climbing to a balmy 76 degrees by Friday. The warmup doesn’t stop there—temperatures are forecast to reach 79 on Saturday, with the potential for low 80s by Sunday and continuing into early next week. The 7-day outlook from the Weather Authority shows a steady rise from a high of 59 on Wednesday all the way to 85 by next Tuesday.

According to meteorologist Shaw, these temperatures will put the area back in line with seasonal averages and offer a taste of early summer. After a string of chilly days and nights, this coming stretch is some of the warmest air the region has seen so far this spring.

Mostly sunny skies with just a slim rain chance for Saturday

Sunshine is expected to prevail across the region for the next several days, with only one minor interruption. Thursday could see a little bit of lingering cloudiness from a system along the coast, though nothing significant is forecast. Saturday stands out as the only day with a notable chance of any precipitation—an isolated shower is possible as another system brings in some residual moisture, but most areas are expected to remain dry.

The 10 News 7-day forecast highlights “plenty of sunshine” through Tuesday, making for mostly pleasant weather as temperatures climb.

Have a great weather photo to share? Pin it for a chance to be featured! Visit https://www.wsls.com/pinit/

Southwest and Central Virginia will be waking up to some of the coldest mornings so far this spring, as freeze warnings are in effect overnight into Wednesday and again into Thursday. According to 10 News meteorologist Edward Shaw, temperatures are expected to dip into the upper 20s and low 30s in many spots, with the coldest air likely settling in between 6 and 7 a.m. Wednesday. These warnings are set to expire around 9 a.m. for most of the area, while some spots in West Virginia and outlying western regions may remain under advisories until 10 a.m. Edward Shaw noted that gardeners who have already planted should make plans to cover up any sensitive plants or bring them indoors where possible. While the air is mostly dry — limiting widespread frost — some areas near bodies of water or typical cold valleys may still see localized frost develop. Another round of chilly morning temperatures is forecast for Thursday, with similar precautions recommended.

Current temperatures and clear skies to continue

Tuesday brought highs in the 50s and 60s across the region, paired with sunny skies and crisp spring air. Evening conditions stayed clear, and these same clear, cool nights are likely to stick around for the next couple of days. For Wednesday, high temperatures are forecast to land in the upper 50s to low 60s; Roanoke could see 59 degrees, Blacksburg 56 degrees, Lynchburg 58 degrees, and both Danville and South Boston reaching 61 degrees. It will be a chillier start to Wednesday compared to recent mornings. Looking ahead to Thursday, mostly sunny skies are expected to return. Some clouds may edge in from the west later in the day as a coastal system tracks nearby, but no rain is anticipated as a result.

Extended outlook: Warmer temperatures and sunshine on the way

The longer-range forecast from the 10 News Weather Authority team shows a big warm-up through the weekend and into early next week. After a run of crisp, cool mornings, high temperatures are forecast to reach the mid to upper 60s on Friday and Saturday, followed by a surge into the upper 70s and possible 80s as next week begins. Rainfall looks to be limited — only a small chance for isolated showers appears Saturday, but the general pattern is for dry weather and plenty of sun. Most of Southwest and Central Virginia will enjoy drier, pleasant conditions through the seven-day period. Got a frosty sunrise or protecting your spring plants from the chill? Pin your weather photo to 10 News at https://www.wsls.com/pinit/!

“It is emphasized that this does not signify the termination of the war,” the statement said. “Our hands remain upon the trigger, and should the slightest error be committed by the enemy, it shall be met with full force.”

U.S. President Donald Trump said he’s pulling back on his threats to widen attacks on Iran. The president said that includes an array of bridges, power plants and other civilian targets — subject to Iran being ready for a two-week ceasefire and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump’s latest threat over the Iran war hit a new extreme earlier Tuesday when he warned, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if Iran fails to make a deal that includes reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz.

The Republican president’s earlier comments were swiftly met with condemnation from Democrats, some “Make America Great Again” supporters who have since broken with Trump, and the first American pope.

Here is the latest:

UN chief welcomes two-week ceasefire and urges end to hostilities

Secretary-General António Guterres calls on all parties “to abide by the terms of the ceasefire in order to pave the way towards a lasting and comprehensive peace in the region,” his spokesperson said.

Guterres also calls on the parties to comply with their obligations under international law, spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement late Tuesday.

International law requires the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

“The secretary-general underscores that an end to hostilities is urgently needed to protect civilian lives and alleviate human suffering,” Dujarric said.

Jean Arnault, the secretary-general’s personal envoy, is in the region “to support efforts toward lasting peace,” the spokesperson said.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq says it will halt operations for two weeks

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed Iraqi militias, said in a statement early Wednesday that it will halt its operations in Iraq and the region for two weeks.

The announcement came hours after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire.

Iran-backed militias in Iraq have claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks on U.S. bases and other facilities in the country in solidarity with Tehran since the war began.

Key bridge between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain reopens

The King Fahd Causeway, a key bridge linking Saudi Arabia and the island kingdom of Bahrain, reopened Wednesday morning after an hourslong closure over possible incoming fire from Iran.

The King Fahd Causeway Authority said in its announcement on X that vehicle traffic has resumed.

Israel says ceasefire with Iran doesn’t include war in Lebanon against Hezbollah

In a statement Wednesday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it supports Trump’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks, but that it doesn’t include the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

It said the ceasefire is subject to Iran immediately opening the Strait of Hormuz and stopping all attacks on the U.S., Israel and countries in the region.

The statement said Israel also supports U.S. efforts to ensure Iran no longer poses a nuclear or missile threat.

Governments in Asia and the Pacific welcome ceasefire

Australia said it “welcomes the agreement by the United States, Israel and Iran to a two-week ceasefire to negotiate a resolution to the conflict in the Middle East.”

“The Australian government has been calling for de-escalation and an end to the conflict for some time now,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Wednesday in a statement.

They also criticized “Iran’s de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, coupled with its attacks on commercial vessels, civilian infrastructure, and oil and gas facilities.”

In Japan Minoru Kihara, chief cabinet secretary, said his nation “welcomes the announcement as a positive development. We hope they reach an agreement.”

Winston Peters, New Zealand’s foreign minister, said on X, that his nation welcomed the effort to end the war.

“While this is encouraging news, there remains significant important work to be done in the coming days to secure a lasting ceasefire,” he said.

Australia PM says Trump’s threat to Iranian civilization was not appropriate

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Trump’s threat to the Iranian population was not appropriate.

Albanese referred to Trump’s threat that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if Iran failed to make a peace deal that included reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to use language such as that from the President of the United States. And I think it will cause some concern,” Albanese told Sky News television on Wednesday.

“We’ve said very clearly that the conduct of any conflict must be within international law and that provides for making sure that civilians — who aren’t parties to the conflict — are given every protection possible,” Albanese added.

Albanese described the agreement reached by the United States, Israel and Iran to a two-week ceasefire to negotiate a resolution to the conflict as “positive news.”

Pro-government demonstrators take to the streets in Tehran

Pro-government demonstrators in the streets of Iran’s capital Wednesday morning after the ceasefire was announced screamed: “Death to America, death to Israel, death to compromisers!”

Organizers tried at one point to calm demonstrators, but they continued the chants.

They also burned American and Israeli flags in the street.

It shows the ongoing anger from hard-liners, who had been preparing for what many assumed would be an apocalyptic battle with the U.S.

Iran includes ‘acceptance of enrichment’ in Farsi version of its ceasefire plan

Iran in the Farsi-language version of its 10-point ceasefire plan included the phrase “acceptance of enrichment” for its nuclear program, something that was missing in English versions shared by Iranian diplomats to journalists.

It wasn’t immediately clear why that term was missing.

However, Trump had said ending Iran’s nuclear program entirely was a key point of the war.

Trump after Iran issued its 10-point plan had described it as fraudulent, without elaborating.

Israel is still attacking Iran, military official says

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said early Wednesday that Israel was still attacking Iran.

Moments earlier the White House said Israel had agreed to the terms of the two-week US-Iran ceasefire agreement.

Iran also kept up fire on Israel.

— Sam Mednick

Israeli strike kills at least eight people in southern Lebanese coastal city

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said another 22 people were wounded in the strike on Sidon.

The strike came without warning, and the Israeli military did not immediately specify who it was targeting.

At least 1,530 people have been killed in the latest war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group.

Pakistan invites Iran and the US to talks in Islamabad on Friday

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he is inviting Iran and the United States to meet in Islamabad and have further discussions.

In a post on X, Sharif said that both parties have agreed on the ceasefire.

“I warmly welcome the sagacious gesture and extend deepest gratitude to the leadership of both the countries,” he said. “And invite their delegations to Islamabad on Friday, 10th April 2026, to further negotiate for a conclusive agreement to settle all disputes.”

There has been no public response from the U.S. or Iran to the invitation.

US confirms release of journalist kidnapped by Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia in Iraq

Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed in a statement that American journalist Shelley Kittleson, who was kidnapped last week in Iraq, has been released.

Kittleson was abducted by the Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah from a street corner in Baghdad on March 31.

Rubio said in a statement posted on X, “We are relieved that this American is now freed and are working to support her safe departure from Iraq.”

He thanked Iraqi authorities, as well as the FBI and U.S. defense department and other U.S. agencies for their work toward securing Kittleson’s release.

Vance was involved in talks as deadline drew closer

As the clock inched closer to Trump’s proposed 8 p.m. deadline with no resolution in sight, U.S. Vice President JD Vance got roped into the conversation late Tuesday, according to an official from one of the mediating countries who was briefed on the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive diplomatic discussions.

Vance’s office did not immediately have a comment.

Vance is currently traveling in Hungary.

— Farnoush Amiri and Michelle L. Price

Neither Iran nor the US has offered any time for the ceasefire to begin

But a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, said American forces had halted offensive operations.

Iran continued to fire at Gulf Arab states and Israel, despite Pakistan saying the ceasefire had taken hold immediately.

—- Jon Gambrell

Chinese officials encouraged Iran to find path to ceasefire with US, AP sources say

China, which is Tehran’s biggest trade partner, spoke with the Iranians to get them on board, according to two officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Chinese officials were in touch with Iranian officials to encourage Tehran to find a path to a ceasefire deal as the negotiations were evolving, the officials said.

Beijing primarily had been working with intermediaries, including Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, as it tried to use its influence, said one of the officials, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the diplomatic matter.

The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier Tuesday, Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said, “All parties need to demonstrate sincerity and quickly end this war that should not have happened in the first place.” She said China was “deeply concerned” about the impact the conflict has on the world economy and energy security.

— Farnoush Amiri and Aamer Madhani

Iran and Oman to be allowed to charge for Strait of Hormuz passage

The two-week ceasefire plan includes allowing both Iran and Oman to charge fees on ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, a regional official said Wednesday.

The official said Iran would use the money it raised for reconstruction. It wasn’t immediately clear what Oman would use its money for.

The strait is in the territorial waters of both Oman and Iran. The world had considered the passage an international waterway and never paid tolls before.

The official, who had been directly involved in the negotiations, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

— Samy Magdy

Pentagon press briefing set for Wednesday morning

The announcement of the press conference with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, comes after the president announced the ceasefire agreement.

Israel agrees to terms of the two-week US-Iran ceasefire agreement, White House official says

The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pakistan, which brokered the ceasefire deal, says it extends to Israel and Hezbollah fighting in Lebanon.

— Aamer Madhani

There are concerns in Israel about ceasefire agreement, says AP source

That’s according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media.

The person said Israel would like to achieve more in the war with Iran.

— Sam Mednick

Leavitt says negotiations will continue

Asked for clarity on what Trump meant by the Iranian peace proposal being “workable,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “President Trump’s words speak for themselves: this is a workable basis to negotiate, and those negotiations will continue.”

“The truth is that President Trump and our powerful military got Iran to agree to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and negotiations will continue,” Leavitt said in a statement.

Oil prices plunge after Trump pulls back on threats to widen attacks

Futures for U.S. crude oil sank 18% to around $92.60, while Brent crude oil futures fell about 6% to $103.40.

Both prices remain well above where they were at the start of the war.

Futures for the S&P 500 rose 2.4%.

US signaled to Israel that strikes were meant to show Iran what could come, official says

Some Israeli officials had begun speculating as Trump neared his self-imposed deadline that he was edging toward finding an off-ramp even as he offered increasingly menacing rhetoric, according to person privy to internal deliberations.

The U.S. administration had signaled to Israelis that the strikes on military assets on Kharg Island earlier Tuesday and the targeting of Iran’s two main petrochemical hubs, Mahshahr and Assaluyeh, were sending a clear message to Tehran of what would come if Trump chose to further intensify the bombardment, according to the person who requested anonymity to discuss the matter.

Israeli officials were skeptical and believed the apparent breakthrough could unravel and lead to further escalation if the Iranians don’t make good on quickly opening the Strait of Hormuz, the person added.

— Aamer Madhani

US military has halted all offensive operations against Iran, US official says

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive military operations, noted that defensive measures and operations would still be in effect.

It comes after President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire agreement with the Islamic Republic.

— Konstantin Toropin

White House doesn’t immediately clarify what Trump meant by ‘workable’ Iranian plan

The White House on Tuesday night did not answer messages on why the president described Iran’s 10-point peace plan as “workable.”

Among the points communicated by Tehran were an easing of U.S. sanctions on Iran and “the withdrawal of United States combat forces from all bases and points of deployment within the region.”

In his social media post announcing a postponement of his threatened bombing campaign, Trump wrote: “We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate.”

The White House did not immediately clarify what Trump meant or provide details on what a “basis” for future negotiations might entail.

Missile alerts sound despite Iran and US saying they’ve reached a ceasefire

Israel and the United Arab Emirates both sounded missile alerts early Wednesday, despite Iran and the United States saying they had reached a two-week ceasefire in the war.

It wasn’t immediately clear what was being targeted in the two countries, which bore the brunt of the missile and drone fire during the war.

Throughout the war, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has called the shots in all decisions. Individual commanders have made decisions on what to strike and when, with the nation’s political leadership sidelined.

Whether they agreed to stop shooting with the declared ceasefire and negotiations being planned in Islamabad remained in question.

However, many Mideast wars see combatants launch last-minute attacks to be able to claim victory with their populations.

Also not clear: What Iran means in referencing ‘withdrawal’ of US combat forces

In question is another point messaged by the Iranians — “the withdrawal of United States combat forces from all bases and points of deployment within the region.”

The U.S. has maintained a network of military bases through the Persian Gulf for decades after the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq.

The bases have served as the region’s chief security guarantor and provided protection for the energy-rich Gulf Arab states.

Iran did not define, however, what it meant by “combat forces,” potentially giving wiggle room for those bases to remain.

But any step-down in troop levels in the region likely would anger the Gulf Arab states that have suffered through weeks of war.

It isn’t clear if Iran will loosen its chokehold on the waterway that’s crucial to global energy supplies

Iran’s foreign minister says that ships would be allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, over the next two weeks under coordination from Iran’s military.

About a fifth of the world’s oil transits the strait in peacetime.

Araghchi wrote in a statement that: “For a period of two weeks, safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible via coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces and with due consideration of technical limitations.”

Before the war, there were no “technical limitations.” Over 100 ships a day passed through the water in Iranian and Omani territorial waters in a decades-old traffic system.

But any step-down in troop levels in the region likely would anger the Gulf Arab states that have suffered through weeks of war.

Iran’s explanation of its 10-point plan says Strait of Hormuz would be subject to ‘regulated passage’

Iran’s explanation of the 10-point plan included its claim that the Strait of Hormuz would be subject to “regulated passage ... under the coordination of the Armed Forces of Iran.”

It added that it would be “thereby conferring upon Iran a unique economic and geopolitical standing.” It would also receive full sanctions relief.

These terms would represent an extraordinary step down by the U.S. after 47 years of hostilities with Iran, starting from the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran says its acceptance of a ceasefire doesn’t mean an end to the war

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said Wednesday it had accepted a two-week ceasefire in the war.

Its statement said it would negotiate with the United States in Islamabad beginning Friday.

“It is emphasized that this does not signify the termination of the war,” the statement said. “Our hands remain upon the trigger, and should the slightest error be committed by the enemy, it shall be met with full force.”

Trump says talks with Pakistani officials helped lead to his decision to delay bombing campaign

In his social media post, Trump said he decided to delay an expansion of U.S. strikes “based on conversations” with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Gen. Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful army chief.

Sharif, in a post on the social platform X earlier Tuesday, urged Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks to allow diplomacy to advance. Pakistan has been leading negotiations.

Sharif used the same post to ask Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz for two weeks.

Trump’s second term has largely been defined by his eagerness to make intimidating threats

And then to retreat if a backlash ensues — a phenomenon his critics have derided as “Trump Always Chickens Out,” or TACO.

The president backed off on many of the sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs he first announced in April 2025 after they caused the financial markets to go haywire.

He also largely dropped threats to impose high levies on many imported products from China, Mexico, the European Union and Canada — among other trade partners.

Perhaps the most spectacular example came during a January meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Trump insisted that he wanted the U.S. to get Greenland “including right, title and ownership,” only to switch course and abandon his threat to impose widespread tariffs on Europe to press his case.

Trump says Iran has proposed a ‘workable’ 10-point peace plan that could help end war

The president added in his social media post that Iran has presented “a workable basis on which to negotiate.”

“Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two-week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated,” Trump said in the post.

Trump says he’s pulling back on his threats to widen attacks

The president says that includes an array of bridges, power plants and other civilian targets — subject to Iran being ready for a two-week ceasefire and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

In a post on his social media site on Tuesday evening, Trump said Iran could agree “to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz” and said that he’d then “suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks.”

Since the war began in February, Trump has set a series of deadlines threatening escalation of the conflict, only to back off just before they expire.

Iran threatens to cut US and its allies off from the region’s oil and gas ‘for years’

Iran’s joint military command spokesperson made the warning in a statement responding to U.S.-Israeli attacks.

Ebrahim Zolfaghari said Iran will intensify its attacks on military, security, and economic infrastructure in Israel and on “centers related to” the U.S. in the region.

Zolfaghari said Iran’s continued attacks on the infrastructure of the U.S. and its allies aim to deprive them of the region’s oil and gas supplies “for many years” and “force them to leave” the Middle East.

White House insists that Trump stands with innocent civilians in Iran

That’s according to a statement by spokeswoman Anna Kelly in response to criticism the president’s comments have received.

“As President Trump has said, Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, and the Iranian people welcome the sound of bombs because it means their oppressors are losing,” the statement says.

“The President will always stand with innocent civilians while annihilating the terrorists responsible for threatening our country and the entire world with a nuclear weapon. Greater destruction can be avoided if the regime understands the seriousness of this moment and makes a deal with the United States.”

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4 wounded in Qatar after interception of Iranian missiles

Qatar’s Interior Ministry said late Tuesday that falling debris hit a residence in the Muraikh area, moderately wounding four people, including a child, as the country responds to Iranian attacks.

Trump uses the language of annihilation to threaten Iran

The president who yearned for a Nobel Peace Prize and once reveled in the appearance of solving conflicts has turned to the language of annihilation as he struggles to find a resolution to his war of choice in Iran.

Donald Trump’s latest threat over the Iran war hit a new extreme Tuesday as he warned, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if Iran fails to make a deal that includes reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz.

His comments were swiftly met with condemnation from Democrats, some “Make America Great Again” supporters who have since broken with Trump, and the first American pope. Some fellow Republicans suggested his comments were a negotiating tactic.

Pakistan’s foreign minister briefs Saudi, Egyptian, Turkish counterparts on peace efforts

Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar late Tuesday briefed his Saudi, Egyptian and Turkish counterparts on Islamabad’s efforts to promote dialogue and diplomatic engagement in pursuit of peace and stability in the region.

The Foreign Ministry says Dar and Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan discussed the regional situation, and that Dar also spoke with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

Iranians fear power outages as Trump’s deadline nears

Three times a week, Asghar Hashemi undergoes dialysis treatment at a hospital in northern Tehran. He fears that if power stations are knocked out, as Trump has threatened, his life will be in danger.

Tehran residents rushed Tuesday to stock up on bottled water and charge cellphones, flashlights and portable power banks as the hours ticked down to Trump’s latest ultimatum.

“I am worried, but I am more worried about my fellow citizens,” Hashemi said, lying on his bed at Tajrish Martyrs Hospital for treatment. “Whatever happens, we will stand until the end.”

Alaska Republican senator says Trump’s Iran rhetoric ‘endangers’ Americans

Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Tuesday said President Trump’s threat “that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ cannot be excused away as an attempt to gain leverage in negotiations with Iran.”

She said on social media that the rhetoric is an “affront” to ideas the U.S. has long sought to uphold and promote around the world.

“It undermines our long-standing role as a global beacon of freedom and directly endangers Americans both abroad and at home,” she said.

Murkowski, a centrist who at times has been critical of Trump, called on all those involved in the conflict — including Trump and Iran’s leaders — to “de-escalate their unprecedented saber-rattling before it is too late.”

In front of a crowd of more than 2,000, the Howlers opened their home slate with Opening Day festivities, highlighted by the first of 13 scheduled fireworks shows this season. Despite a strong outing from Will McCausland, Fredericksburg pulled away late to secure its fourth consecutive victory.

Aidan Major made his first start in the Cleveland Guardians organization, pitching 2 2/3 innings and striking out three. The Nationals struck first in the second inning when Luke Dickerson delivered an RBI single to score Gavin Fien.

The Howlers answered in the bottom half of the inning, capitalizing on two wild pitches and a pickoff error to tie the game at 1.

Fredericksburg regained the lead in the third on Ronny Cruz’s RBI double to right field. Cruz finished a triple shy of the cycle and drove in three runs.

Hill City responded again in the third as Robert Arias singled to right to score a run and even the game at 2. Cruz put the Nationals back in front in the fifth with an RBI triple, making it 3-2.

Yeiferth Castillo tied the game in the sixth with a 401-foot home run to right field, the first in Howlers franchise history.

The Nationals took control in the seventh. Zane Petty entered in relief and allowed a two-run home run to Cruz on the first pitch he faced, giving Fredericksburg a 5-3 lead. Nick Peoples added a grand slam in the eighth to extend the advantage.

The Howlers added a run in the bottom of the eighth on a fielder’s choice by Castillo, but Fredericksburg closed out the game to remain unbeaten.

McCausland took the loss despite striking out a career-high eight batters. Isaac Lyon earned the win for the Nationals.

The Dawgs closed the regular season by winning four of their final five games, overcoming injuries, midseason call-ups and roster changes while maintaining chemistry down the stretch. Now in the franchise’s 10th season, the team is looking to make another deep playoff run and deliver a championship to the Star City.

Head coach Dan Bremner said the team’s mindset will be critical as the intensity ramps up in the postseason.

“It’s going to hurt — you accept that ahead of time,” Bremner said. “If you’ve already embraced that, you go through the wall and you don’t really care. That’s what I saw the last couple games with our guys. If we can maintain that mentality, it’s going to give us a chance, and that’s all you can really ask for.”

Forward Khristian Acosta said the team’s familiarity has made it easier to stay consistent despite the roster movement throughout the season.

“For me personally, I’m just very comfortable here with all the guys and the coaches,” Acosta said. “It’s really easy to come back and get right back into it with the group.”

Gustav Müller, who recently returned after a stint in Worcester, credited both the players and coaching staff for building a cohesive roster.

“Kudos to these guys and the coaching staff for the transactions they made,” Müller said. “They brought in some really good guys, and the college players fit the system well. It’s really just a ‘dog mentality’ — that’s what we have here. You’ve got to be a dog to want to be here.”

With that mindset, the Dawgs now turn their focus to the playoffs, aiming to carry their late-season form into a potential championship run.

Some have pitched him as a gateway to young people — particularly young men — who have drifted to the right in recent years. Others fear he is a sign of the party beholden to its extremes, pointing to inflammatory rhetoric like “Hamas is a thousand times better” than Israel, describing some Orthodox Jews as “inbred” and that “America deserved 9/11."

Piker's appearances with Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, have catalyzed questions of how big a tent the party wants to build as it works to regain power in the midterm elections and win back the White House.

The packed, raucous events on state university campuses offered a clear signal from at least one faction of Democrats that there's a growing appetite for figures like Piker and the candidates who stand with them.

"Belief itself is an act of hope,” El-Sayed told the crowd.

“Because we may not win, but for damn sure if we don't try, we will lose,” he added. “And look, winning is right there. We live at the golden edge of a horizon of our own making.”

Piker said he is a ‘megaphone’ for an angry electorate

In an interview with The Associated Press prior to the events, Piker cast the reaction to his role as part of a broader fight for Democrats' future.

“There is definitely, I think, a battle right now for who gets to be more representative of the national Democratic Party,” he said.

Piker remains largely unapologetic for his past remarks, although he's said some were poorly worded. He called the renewed focus on them “totally ridiculous, especially considering that there are far more consequential things happening in the world right now.”

“The super wealthy are picking apart the scraps of the American carcass like a bunch of vultures, and some of the Democrats are talking about their affiliations with a Twitch streamer,” Piker said. “I think Americans understand that this is totally ridiculous.”

The 34-year-old Turkish American streamer has 3.1 million followers on Twitch and 1.8 million on YouTube, making him an influential voice in a shifting media landscape where mainstream outlets are losing clout. Unlike traditional podcasts, his livestreams are often unscripted and interactive. He has hosted prominent Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Piker said he is a “megaphone” for an angry electorate, and he believes the criticism that he faces is less about him personally and more about what he represents — a younger, more populist wing of the party.

“I think they find me to be a more appropriate target than to just actively disparage the voters,” he said.

El-Sayed said the Democratic Party ‘has given up on the idea of persuasion'

El-Sayed, who has been backed by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, attempted to channel that appeal in appearances at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan on Tuesday. A physician and former county health official, he is locked in a competitive Senate primary with U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. It's a critical race for a seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters and the winner of the primary will likely face former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers.

El-Sayed has cast himself as an outsider in the race and said he's finding ways to reach voters across the political spectrum, such as starting the day on Tuesday on Fox News Channel's “Fox & Friends” and ending it at the University of Michigan with Piker.

“I think the Democratic Party, frankly, has given up on the idea of persuasion," El-Sayed said in an interview. “If you’re serious about persuading, what you do is you engage with that audience and you engage through that creator to have a conversation about what you actually want to build.”

He added that he doesn't agree with everything Piker has said, but that he believes the Democratic Party hasn't learned its lesson when it comes to “cancel culture.”

“Everybody’s sick and tired of trying to toss people out because they said something that we disagree with rather than actually having an adult conversation about what we believe in,” said El-Sayed.

The war in Gaza remains a flashpoint in Michigan

In Michigan, home to large Muslim and Jewish communities, the war in Gaza has become a flashpoint in the Senate primary. Both El-Sayed and McMorrow have described the war as a genocide, but El-Sayed has called for ending U.S. military aid while McMorrow has emphasized a two-state solution. Stevens, meanwhile, calls herself a “proud pro-Israel Democrat.”

McMorrow told Jewish Insider that Piker was someone who “says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks and views and followers," and she compared him to white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Trump's decision to dine with Fuentes between his presidencies ignited a firestorm of controversy over his association with extreme voices on the right. Stevens said El-Sayed is “choosing to campaign with someone who has a history of antisemitic rhetoric.”

El-Sayed responded to the backlash over Piker by saying, “If we want to have a conversation where we're actually bringing people together about the things that we need and deserve, we're gonna have to go to unlikely and uncommon places.”

Not everyone in the party wants to go to those places. Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, who chairs the moderate New Democratic Coalition and co-chairs the Congressional Jewish Caucus, called Piker “an unapologetic antisemite.”

“We are deeply disappointed by the decision to host a speaker at the University of Michigan with a documented record of antisemitic rhetoric," said Rabbi Davey Rosen, the CEO of Michigan Hillel. “Such invitations normalize hate and contribute to a hostile environment for Jewish students.”

Piker said he is not antisemitic and describes himself as anti-Zionist. Hostility toward Israel has risen across the political spectrum and has become a fault line within the Democratic Party during the war in Gaza.

Criticism has centered on Piker's past remarks. After the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Piker argued that whether reports of sexual violence are accurate “doesn’t change the dynamic” of the conflict. He has repeatedly said the core issue is Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

Piker has drawn backlash for a comment in which he said “America deserved 9/11,” made during a 2019 livestream while discussing U.S. foreign policy. Piker has said the remark was poorly worded and added in the AP interview that he “didn’t mean that Americans deserved to die.”

Moments after the Avalanche beat the St. Louis Blues 3-1 on Tuesday night to clinch Central Division and top seed in the Western Conference, Bednar was already focusing on the next step toward the ultimate goal of a Stanley Cup.

“We’re not all the way there yet,” Bednar said. “You know, like the goal for us started with winning the division, the conference, we still need another win to get first overall. Like, we’d be crazy not to chase that at this point, right? It’s important, if you get to where you want to go, you might as well try and get your home ice, especially after a season like this.”

It is the third time in five seasons, and first since 2023, that the Avalanche finished as the top team in the conference. The team lost in the first round of the playoffs that season, but won the organization’s third Stanley Cup after finishing first in the Western Conference in 2022.

The Avalanche (51-16-10, 112 points) actually have a better record on the road with a 27-7-5 mark compared to a 24-9-5 record at Ball Arena. But goalie Scott Wedgewood said home ice in the playoffs is a big advantage.

“Just atmosphere, altitude … you’re in your own bed the night before,” Wedgewood said. “You know, you still got to perform. It doesn’t mean you win because you’re at home, but like I said in between rounds, you’re able to knock a team out in five or six, you’re home for that many more days.”

The Avalanche are also on the cusp of clinching the President’s Trophy, awarded to the team with the best regular-season record, which would give them home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs.

“Then obviously the fans, you get them going with a couple of hits, playoff hockey’s intense, and it’ll pay in your favor,” Wedgewood said.

Bednar would like to see consistency from the team through the final five games, noting that the Avalanche have been up and down over the last few games.

“We’ve proven that we can do it when we want to set our minds to it, which is really important,” Bednar said. “I don’t have to see it for 60 minutes for every game the rest of the way, but we need to see it enough to secure our goal and making sure everyone’s confident in the way we play.”

___

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

Salem used two major innings to put the Warbirds away, scoring four in the bottom of the third and five in the bottom of the fourth.

Kleyvar Salazar and Ty Hodge led the RidgeYaks with two RBI each, with three other Yaks registering RBI as well.

The RidgeYaks are back in action on Wednesday at 6:35 p.m.

Looking ahead to the latter half of our forecast, we have a switch-up ahead with a warmer pattern returning!

Our temperatures stand in the 30s and 40s right now, so you will want to grab the light jacket as you’re headed out the door this morning.

We aren’t alone in the cooler-than-average weather! The Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and starting to reach into the plains will see temperatures as low as 20 degrees below average for this time of year. Here, closer to home, we will only see those temps about 5 degrees below average.

Even still, this evening we will fall below that freezing mark. Where the growing season has already started in portions of the Roanoke Valley and Lynchburg Zones, we’ll need to cover any sort of sensitive vegetation. Freeze Warnings are in place for the shaded counties below from 12 AM tonight through 9 AM tomorrow.

If you are sick of the cooler temperatures, we will finally warm up this weekend with highs back in the 70s and 80s! Have a great day!

The meeting’s goal was to spread the word and inform the public. Topics included the project timeline, the amount of money involved, a statewide sales tax exemption for data centers, and concerns about light and noise emissions. Residents also raised issues about the facility’s proximity to a school, a perceived lack of transparency from the county’s Board of Supervisors, and how much water and electricity the campus would consume.

“The masses need to come out to the next meeting and future meetings to help prevent this Google data center from coming into Botetourt County,” said Pam Dotson, a Fincastle resident.

Botetourt County resident and real estate agent Danny Goad said the community has been doing its homework.

“Doing a whole lot of digging and some due diligence, engineering calculations, we’ve been able to come up with a pretty good idea of what they’re planning on,” Goad said.

Ben Verschoor, an organizer with the Southwest Data Center Transparency Alliance, encouraged residents who oppose the project to stay engaged.

“It’s not over until it’s over,” Verschoor said. “They’re not even through the permitting process yet, so one of the things that these kind of meetings do is let people know who are against it that they’re not alone.”

What comes next

With the project still working through permitting, residents are weighing several strategies to slow or stop it. Some are discussing recalling members of the Board of Supervisors, while others are considering legal action to delay the project and its permits.

One immediate strategy involves submitting public comments to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before a Thursday, April 9th deadline in an effort to block the agency’s approval and ultimately delay the project. The data center is under a project titled “Project Raspberry”. To submit a comment, residents can visit the Corps of Engineers’ public notice page, type “RASP” in the search box and fill out the comments form.

Residents are also putting pressure on Virginia’s General Assembly to end the statewide sales tax exemption for data centers — a provision currently being debated as lawmakers work to finalize next year’s budget. The General Assembly is set to reconvene April 22, giving residents a window to contact their representatives before then.

“I think we have to take a multi-prong approach,” Goad said.

Verschoor echoed that sentiment, emphasizing that no option has been ruled out.

“Nothing is necessarily off the table,” he said. “It’s just a matter of — is it the right strategy? Do we have grounds for it?”

Dotson said hearing others voice similar concerns has been energizing.

“When you hear other people voicing the same concerns and similar concerns, it definitely has an impact on the overall feeling if you can be successful in trying to beat something like this,” she said.

The packed meeting made clear that residents are not ready to give up.

Taylor, who focused her campaign on abortion rights, handily defeated Republican-backed Maria Lazar in the fourth straight victory for liberal court candidates dating back to 2020. Liberals are now guaranteed to hold a majority on the court until at least 2030.

“Once again, Wisconsin showed the entire nation that we believe that the people should be at the center of government and the priority of our judiciary, not the billionaires, not the most powerful and privileged, but the people,” Taylor said in her victory speech.

Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Brian Schimming, in the wake of Lazar's double-digit defeat, called for Republicans to “stay united and continue fighting for our conservative values.”

Democrats tightened their control of the court just months before a November election in which they seek to keep the governor’s office and flip the state Legislature, where Republicans have held the majority since 2011. Democrats aspire to undo a host of Republican-enacted laws that made Wisconsin a focal point for the nation’s conservative movement in the 2010s.

This year’s Supreme Court election stands in stark contrast to the swing state’s previous two, where national spending records were set in battles over majority control. Spending and national attention was down dramatically this year without control of the court at stake.

Liberals took control of the state’s top court in 2023, ending 15 years under a conservative majority. They held onto their majority with last year’s victory in a race that drew involvement from President Donald Trump and billionaires George Soros and Elon Musk, who personally handed out $1 million checks to voters in the state.

Liberals argued that democracy was at stake in the 2025 election, noting that when the court was controlled by conservative justices in 2020 it came just one vote shy of siding with Trump in his attempt to invalidate enough votes to overturn his loss in that year’s presidential election.

The court under liberal control has reversed several election-related rulings, including one that overturned a ban on absentee ballot drop boxes, and it is poised to once again be in the spotlight around the 2028 presidential election.

Races for the court are officially nonpartisan, but support for candidates breaks down mostly along partisan lines. The seat was open due to the retirement of a conservative justice.

Taylor, who is a state Appeals Court judge and previously worked for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, focused much of her campaign on abortion rights. One of her TV ads argued that “abortion is on the ballot.” In another ad, she criticized Lazar for calling the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 “very wise.”

Lazar, who is also a state Appeals Court judge and was supported by anti-abortion groups in her run for that court, tried to brand Taylor as nothing more than a politician who will push a partisan agenda on the high court.

They sparred over each other’s partisanship during the campaign’s sole debate last week.

Lazar accused Taylor of being a “radical, extreme legislator” and a “judicial activist.” Taylor said that Lazar would bring “an extreme, right-wing political agenda to the bench.”

But she had a much harder time getting her message out. Taylor had a large fundraising advantage and spent about nine times as much as Lazar on television ads, based on a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice.

The liberal-controlled court has already struck down a state abortion ban law and ordered new legislative maps since taking control of the court, fueling Democrats’ hopes of capturing a majority this November.

Taylor has been a judge since 2020 and before that spent 10 years as a Democrat representing the liberal capital city of Madison in the state Assembly.

Lazar, a judge since 2015, previously worked four years under a Republican attorney general in the state Department of Justice. In that role, she defended a law enacted under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.

A circuit court judge ruled in December that the law is unconstitutional, a decision expected to ultimately land before the state Supreme Court.

Lazar also defended laws passed by Republicans and signed by Walker implementing a voter ID requirement and restricting abortion access.

Democrats had been optimistic given the past two Supreme Court elections, which saw candidates they backed winning by double digits.

Another conservative justice is retiring next year, giving liberals a chance to take 6-1 control of the court thanks to Taylor’s victory.

Trump swerved to deescalate the war less than two hours before the deadline he set for Tehran to capitulate to a deal or face attacks on its bridges and power plants meant to destroy Iranian “civilization.”

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it has accepted the ceasefire and that it would negotiate with the United States in Pakistan beginning Friday. Neither Iran nor the United States said when the ceasefire would begin, and attacks took place in Israel, Iran and across the Gulf region early Wednesday.

Israel backed the U.S. ceasefire with Iran but the deal doesn’t cover fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Wednesday.

His office said in the statement that Israel supported Trump’s decision to suspend strikes subject to Iran immediately opening the Strait of Hormuz and stopping all attacks on the U.S. Israel and countries in the region. His office said Israel also supports U.S. efforts to ensure Iran no longer poses a nuclear or missile threat.

The ceasefire calls for Israel and Hezbollah to halt fighting in Lebanon, according to the prime minister of Pakistan, which has been mediating talks.

The ceasefire process was clouded in uncertainty after Iran released different versions of the 10-point plan intended to be the basis for negotiations. The version in Farsi included the phrase “acceptance of enrichment” for its nuclear program. But for reasons that remain unclear, that phrase was missing in English versions shared by Iranian diplomats to journalists.

Trump initially had said Iran proposed a “workable” 10-point plan that could help end the war launched by the U.S. and Israel in February. But he later called it fraudulent, without elaborating. Trump has said ending Iran’s nuclear program entirely was a key point of the war.

Pro-government demonstrators in the streets of Iran’s capital screamed: “Death to America, death to Israel, death to compromisers!” after the ceasefire announcement Wednesday morning. They also burned American and Israeli flags in the street.

It shows the ongoing anger from hard-liners, who had been preparing for what many assumed would be an apocalyptical battle with the United States.

Iran and Oman to collect shipping fees in Strait of Hormuz

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said passage through the strait would be allowed under Iranian military management. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that meant Iran would completely loosen its chokehold on the waterway.

The plan allows for both Iran and Oman to charge fees on ships transiting through the strait, according to a regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss negotiations they were directly involved in. The official said Iran would use the money it raised for reconstruction.

In addition to control of the strait, Iran’s demands for ending the war include withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, the lifting of sanctions and the release of its frozen assets.

Since the war began, Trump has repeatedly backed off deadlines just before they expire.

In doing so again Tuesday, Trump said in a social media post he had come to the decision “based on conversations” with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Gen. Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful army chief. Sharif, in a post on X hours earlier, urged Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks to allow diplomacy to advance. He used the same post to ask Iran to open the strait for two weeks.

“Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated,” Trump said.

There are concerns in Israel about the agreement, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media. The person said Israel would like to achieve more.

Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is still buried at enrichment sites. The program had been one of the main issues cited by both Israel and the U.S. in launching the war.

Earlier Trump threats raised alarms

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if a deal isn’t reached, Trump said in an online post Tuesday morning. But he also seemed to keep open the possibility of an off-ramp, saying that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.”

Trump’s expansive threat did not seem to account for potential harm to civilians, prompting Democrats in Congress, some United Nations officials and scholars in military law to say such strikes would violate international law.

Tehran’s representative at the U.N., Amir-Saeid Iravani, said the threats “constitute incitement to war crimes and potentially genocide” and that Iran would "take immediate and proportionate reciprocal measures” if Trump launches devastating strikes.

The U.S. and Israel have battered Iran with attacks targeting its military capabilities, leadership and nuclear program. Iran has responded with a stream of strikes on Israel and Gulf Arab neighbors, causing regional chaos and outsized economic and political shock.

Late Tuesday, Pakistan's prime minister urged Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks to allow diplomacy to advance. In a post on X, Shehbaz Sharif, whose country has been leading negotiations, also asked Iran to open up for two weeks the Strait of Hormuz.

China, which is Tehran’s biggest trade partner, encouraged the Iranians to find a way to a ceasefire as talks progressed, according to two officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Before the deadline, airstrikes hit two bridges and a train station, and the U.S. hit military infrastructure on Kharg Island, a key hub for Iranian oil production.

While Iran cannot match the sophistication of U.S. and Israeli weaponry or their dominance in the air, its chokehold on the strait since the war began in late February is roiling the world economy and raising the pressure on Trump both at home and abroad to find a way out of the standoff.

Airstrikes hit Iran, which fires on Saudi Arabia and Israel

Even as the ceasefire was announced, missile alerts continued in the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait early Wednesday, hinting at the chaos surrounding the diplomatic moves. A gas processing facility in Abu Dhabi was ablaze after incoming Iranian fire, officials said.

Israel was continuing its attacks on Iran, said an Israeli military official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations. Iran also kept up fire on Israel.

The U.S. military has halted all offensive operations against Iran but continues defensive actions, said an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive military operations.

Earlier Tuesday the Israeli military said it attacked an Iranian petrochemical site in Shiraz, the second day in a row it hit such a facility. The military later said it also struck bridges in several cities that were being used by Iranian forces to transport weapons and military equipment.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but the government has not updated the toll for days.

In Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, more than 1,500 people have been killed. and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel, and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

___

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri at The United Nations; Aamer Madhani, Konstantin Toropin, Seung Min Kim, Michelle L. Price, Joshua Boak and Will Weissert in Washington; John Leicester in Paris; Nicole Winfield in Rome; Amir-Hussein Radjy in Cairo and Natalie Melzer in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

The case of Nigel Max Edge had been scheduled for a Brunswick County court hearing in which the local prosecutor was slated to reveal whether he intended to seek the death penalty. But District Attorney Jon David said in a news release that part of the case was set aside because questions about Edge's “capacity to proceed” were raised by multiple mental health professionals.

“The defense has presented evaluations from two experts, and this office requested an independent evaluation by a state forensic examiner,” David said. “All three evaluations conclude that Mr. Edge currently lacks the capacity to proceed to trial.”

Superior Court Judge Jason Disbrow ordered that Edge be transferred to Cherry Hospital, a state psychiatric facility in Goldsboro, David said.

David said the state’s mental expert found that Edge “may be restored to capacity through appropriate treatment, including medication and counseling." With such a restoration, the legal case against Edge would resume.

Voicemail and email seeking comment were left for Edge's public defender, Matthew Geoffrion.

Authorities allege Edge, 41, piloted a small motorboat up to a dockside cocktail bar in Southport last Sept. 27 and opened fire with a short-barreled semiautomatic rifle. Three people were killed, and several others were injured.

Edge, who faces additional charges, was serving with an elite sniper unit in Iraq when he was shot four times, including once in the head. Friends and family say he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and still has a bullet lodged in his brain.

Tuesday’s action has “the practical effect of suspending further litigation unless and until the defendant’s capacity is restored,” David said, adding the state could still seek the death penalty “should the facts and law warrant this designation.”

Edge will remain in custody during treatment, which David said would be for an “indeterminate” amount of time.

Roussell becomes the seventh head coach in program history.

“We are excited to name Aaron Roussell as our new head women’s basketball coach,” Williams said. “Aaron is a proven winner who embodies the University’s values of integrity, leadership, academic excellence and student-athlete development. We look forward to welcoming Aaron, his wife Molly, and their three children to Grounds for a new era of Virginia women’s basketball.”

Roussell spent the last seven seasons at University of Richmond, compiling a 148-72 record and leading the Spiders to three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. Richmond won the Atlantic 10 Tournament in 2024 and secured back-to-back outright regular-season conference titles in 2024 and 2025.

“My family and I are beyond excited to lead the UVA women’s basketball program into a bright and prosperous future,” Roussell said. “We are well aware of the rich history and tradition of this program, and we look forward to putting the UVA program into the nation’s elite on a consistent basis.”

Virginia marks Roussell’s fourth stop as a collegiate head coach. Over 22 seasons, he has compiled a 460-194 career record, including previous stints at Bucknell University and University of Chicago.

A two-time Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year, Roussell led Richmond to its first winning season in six years in 2020-21. In 2023-24, he guided the program to its first Atlantic 10 championship and NCAA Tournament appearance since 2005.

During his final four seasons at Richmond, the Spiders posted four consecutive 20-win seasons and reached the NCAA Tournament three straight years, including the program’s first tournament victory in 2025.

At Bucknell, Roussell went 151-72 over seven seasons, winning Patriot League Tournament titles in 2017 and 2019. The Bison also captured regular-season championships in 2016, 2017 and 2019, with Roussell earning Patriot League Coach of the Year honors twice.

He began his head coaching career at Chicago, where he posted a 161-50 record over eight seasons. His teams made four NCAA Division III Tournament appearances, advancing to the third round twice and reaching the national quarterfinals once. He was named University Athletic Association Coach of the Year three times and earned WBCA Regional Coach of the Year honors twice.

Roussell graduated from University of Iowa in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, mass communications and political science. He later earned a master’s degree in sports administration from Minnesota State University in 2004.

It is the third time in five seasons, and first since 2023, that the Avalanche finished as the top team in the conference.

Martin Necas also scored and Scott Wedgewood made 18 saves for Colorado, which has earned points in eight of its last 11 games.

Wedgewood was shaken up midway through the third period after Philip Broberg made contact with him after being tripped by Sam Malinski. Wedgewood was driven awkwardly into the post and stayed down for several minutes, but remained in the game.

Robert Thomas scored and Joel Hofer made 34 saves for the Blues, whose slim playoff hope took a hit with the loss.

Colorado outshot St. Louis 17-3 in the first period and had a two-goal lead as a result.

Nichushkin gave the Avalanche the lead with 3:49 left in the first and Necas made it 2-0 with 27.7 seconds left in the period, scoring off a feed from Nathan Mackinnon feed.

Nichushkin added to the Colorado advantage with a short-handed goal at the 1:40 mark of the second. It was Colorado's second short-handed goal of the season and first since November 8.

Thomas got the Blues on the board with 4:22 left in the second. It was the sixth goal in the last four games for Thomas, who had a hat trick against Colorado on Sunday.

Nicholas Roy returned to the Colorado lineup after missing seven games to an upper-body injury.

Up next

Avalanche: Hosts Calgary on Thursday night.

Blues: Host Winnipeg on Thursday night.

___

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

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 4.8% and South Korea’s Kospi gained 5.6%. Futures for the S&P 500 advanced 2.3% as of 9:30 p.m. EDT, while Dow futures rose 2%.

Futures for U.S. crude oil sank 14.3% to $96.83 a barrel and Brent crude oil, the international standard, dropped 13.3% to $94.74. Oil prices had spiked because the war snarled the production and transportation of crude in the Persian Gulf. Much of that oil exits the gulf through the Strait of Hormuz to reach customers around the world, but Iran had blocked it to enemies.

Late Tuesday, Trump said he was holding off on his threatened attacks on Iranian bridges, power plants and other civilian targets. Iran’s foreign minister said passage through the strait would be allowed for the next two weeks under Iranian military management.

The dramatic moves in prices are just the latest swings to hit financial markets since late February because of constantly shifting signals about when the conflict may end. Even with word of a ceasefire, neither Iran nor the United States said when it would begin, and attacks took place in Israel, Iran and across the Gulf region early Wednesday.

Earlier, U.S. stocks swung sharply during regular trading as uncertainty about the war with Iran increased after Trump had threatened that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” if Iran does not meet his deadline at 8 p.m. Eastern time to open the Strait of Hormuz.

The S&P 500 fell as much as 1.2% but stocks rallied at the end of trading after Pakistan’s prime minister urged Trump to extend his deadline for another two weeks and asked Iran to open up the strait for the same amount of time.

The S&P 500 erased all its losses and ended with a modest gain of 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 85 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.1%.

They’re the latest swings to hit financial markets since late February because of deep uncertainty about when the fighting may end.

Oil prices were likewise shaky. The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude to be delivered in May briefly climbed above $117 before settling at $112.95.

Oil prices have spiked because the war has snarled the production and transportation of crude in the Persian Gulf. Much of that oil exits the gulf through the Strait of Hormuz to reach customers around the world, but Iran has blocked it to enemies.

The worry in markets has been that a long-term disruption will keep oil prices high for a long time and send a painful wave of inflation crashing through the global economy. Trump kept traders on edge by making a series of threats to blow up Iranian power plants only to delay several times.

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline across the United States has leaped to $4.14, according to AAA. It was below $3 a couple days before the United States and Israel launched attacks to begin the war in late February.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased on word of a potential cease-fire. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.24% from 4.30% earlier Tuesday.

That’s still well above its 3.97% level from before the war, and the rise has pushed up rates for mortgages and other loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which slows the economy.

Reaves is out for the rest of the regular season after straining his oblique during the Lakers' blowout loss at Oklahoma City last Thursday. He was examined in Dallas, where the Lakers had subsequently traveled for their next game, by the Mavericks' medical team in a courtesy typically extended by home NBA teams to their visitors.

At the Lakers' practice in Dallas on Saturday, Redick claimed the Mavs' medical team “scanned the wrong area” and had to do two MRIs to identify Reaves' Grade 2 left oblique strain.

The Mavericks issued a statement to DLLS Sports on Tuesday saying their “medical team followed standard imaging protocols based on the information provided at the time. There was no error in the scan performed.”

When Redick was asked why he claimed otherwise before the Lakers hosted the Thunder on Tuesday, he was brief.

“Look, I think in the end, we got the image we needed,” Redick said. “Obviously very appreciative, because it’s happened throughout the season, whenever the home team is accommodating to us, just like we would be for them. And we’re going to move on.”

The Lakers also lost Luka Doncic for the rest of the regular season during that loss in Oklahoma City. The NBA's top scorer has a Grade 2 strain of his left hamstring.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA

Slotkin, a potential Democratic 2028 presidential contender, peppered five Iowa voters with questions about divisiveness in U.S. politics and issues affecting their communities. She also wanted to know what the voters would look for if they could “build a candidate in a test tube" and why they chose Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.

“What would have gotten you to actually consider a Democrat?” Slotkin asked as the discussion winded down.

She hadn’t told them yet she was one.

The conversation was one of many Slotkin is having ahead of this fall’s crucial midterm elections. They are a way for the Midwestern Democrat to hear what it might take for the party to win back parts of the country like Iowa, which swung from backing President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 to Trump in the last three elections.

Slotkin on Tuesday described a Democratic Party that has forgotten about the middle of the country, has spent too much time rehashing old fights and lacks coordination in delivering a strong counter to Trump.

“I’m pretty clear-eyed about the problems,” Slotkin told The Associated Press in an interview. “I’m interested in being a part of the next generation who’s going to rehab the Democratic brand.”

Slotkin's sit down with Trump voters in Iowa Tuesday, and a town hall in Ohio Wednesday, was organized by a PAC dedicated to reshaping the party, Majority Democrats. But for Slotkin, the stops in red and purple states also are opportunities for the former CIA analyst to introduce herself to voters outside her home state, many of whom — like those gathered for Tuesday’s lunch — don’t know who she is or what she stands for.

Slotkin was elected to the Senate in 2024 after serving three terms in the U.S. House. She was among six Democrats in Congress with military or national security backgrounds who in a video last year urged U.S. military members to resist “illegal orders.” Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition punishable by death, and the video prompted a Justice Department investigation.

Slotkin said Tuesday that they made the video “for moments exactly like this,” shortly before Trump paused for two weeks his threat to take out Iran’s “whole civilization.”

Democrats want to flip House seats in Iowa

Later Tuesday, Slotkin’s schedule included headlining a fundraiser and a county party dinner. She also held a health care-focused town hall with Iowa state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, a Democrat looking to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn in one of the most competitive House seats in the country.

She shared some of the same themes to the friendly faces in Des Moines as she did earlier with the Trump voters, lamenting that politics is so divisive and describing the bipartisan disappointment over the health care system that she hears across the country.

But she put a finer point on her own views to the Democratic audiences, saying that the U.S. needs a public health insurance option for people of any age and giving advice on how to convince voters that supporting a Democrat is in their best interest.

“I want to win in November," Slotkin told an applauding audience. “That means being honest about where the Democratic Party needs to go.”

“The debate is not between progressive and moderate," she said. "It’s fight or flight.”

Slotkin shies away from answer on 2028

Visiting Iowa used to hold more obvious significance for Democrats before the party shook up the early presidential nominating calendar last cycle, bumping Iowa from its place as the first state to weigh in on the nominations. The state party in 2024 did away with the traditional, quirky caucuses that have historically been the first contest for both parties.

Now Iowa Democrats are among those pitching their state should go first in 2028; Michigan is also vying for the first Midwest slot. But it's still months before the Democratic National Committee will decide the order.

Slotkin is one of many prominent Democrats eyeing a potential 2028 run that have been visiting swing states and those that have traditionally been important in the nominating process.

“I'm not announcing anything,” Slotkin said Tuesday, and even joked about Iowa and Michigan's “cage match" for the early position.

The ambition didn't get past Ed Klavins, a Trump voter who participated in the focus group.

“She’s trying to figure out what she can do differently to have a better chance of getting reelected and maybe higher office,” said Klavins, a retiree from Urbandale, Iowa, who didn’t know Slotkin was the guest for Tuesday’s focus group lunch and said he was paid $200, plus lunch, to be there.

Klavins wants politicians on both sides of the aisle that challenge their party’s status quo. He told Slotkin that he wants a candidate who doesn’t pander to what they think voters want. He voted for Trump and thinks he’s succeeding in putting national security first, like closing the U.S.-Mexico border and eliminating the threat Iran poses to national security.

But Slotkin showing up to listen “makes her a little more genuine in my eyes,” he said. “I like her.”

The rally was organized by the Federation of Cuban Women, a massive organization with close ties to the government and the Communist Party, to honor the late Vilma Espín, the federation’s founder, a guerrilla fighter and Raúl Castro’s wife.

The crowd that gathered at a park commemorating a 19th-century independence patriot waved Cuban flags, held signs that read “Down with the Blockade" and clutched pictures of Fidel Castro and Espín.

Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman and Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal led the demonstration along with Mariela Castro, daughter of Espín and former President Raúl Castro.

“This policy of abuse has to stop," Vidal told The Associated Press. “The Cuban people don’t deserve this. It’s the most comprehensive, all-encompassing, and longest-running system of coercive measures ever imposed against an entire country.”

Vidal, a key negotiator in a historic rapprochement between Cuba and the United States in 2014 under the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama, added: “It subjects us to collective punishment, recognized as such under international law, and we couldn’t fail to be here."

In early January, the U.S. attacked Venezuela and arrested its then-leader, disrupting critical oil shipments to Cuba. Later that month, Trump threatened tariffs against any country that sells or supplies oil to the island.

However, Trump said he didn't mind when a Russian tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude oil arrived in Cuba last week, marking the island's first oil shipment in three months. Russia has since said it would send a second tanker.

Cuba produces only 40% of the fuel it consumes, and the shortage has paralyzed the Caribbean nation, affecting its health system, public transportation and the production of goods and services, and deepened an economic crisis that has plagued the island for the past five years.

“I am here fighting for the people of Cuba," said Leydys de la Cruz, a 57-year-old seamstress who joined Tuesday's rally. “I would ask Trump to leave us in peace. The situation is very bad because of the blockade he’s imposed on us.”

Georgina Reyes, a 36-year-old IT technician, also pleaded with Trump: “I would tell him that we don’t hurt anyone. ... Please don’t hurt us.”

Trump has pressured for regime change in Cuba and threatened to take over the island while U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — the son of Cuban immigrants — has demanded the release of political prisoners and liberal economic reforms.

The U.S. and Cuban governments have confirmed talks, but the extent of those is unclear.

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

The development came after the powerful Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah said in a statement that it had decided to free Kittleson, who was abducted on March 31. Its condition was that Kittleson must “leave the country immediately” upon her release.

Two officials within the militia, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, told The Associated Press that in exchange for freeing Kittleson, several members of the group who had previously been detained by Iraqi authorities would be released.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed Kittleson's release in a statement early Wednesday. He said on X, “We are relieved that this American is now freed and are working to support her safe departure from Iraq.”

Rubio thanked Iraqi authorities, as well as the FBI and U.S. Defense Department and other U.S. agencies for their work toward securing Kittleson’s release.

A one-off release

According to one of two Iraqi officials who confirmed her release before the U.S. announcement, Kittleson was freed in the afternoon. The officials, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, did not share her current whereabouts but said that prior to her release, Kittleson had been held in Baghdad.

In its statement, Kataib Hezbollah said its decision came “in appreciation of the patriotic stances of the outgoing" Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, without giving more details.

It added that “this initiative will not be repeated in the future.”

In Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, Kittleson's mother told a reporter who knocked on her door Tuesday that FBI agents were at her home. A number of people could be seen sitting at Barb Kittleson’s kitchen table.

Initially she said that her daughter had not yet been freed, but when a reporter returned later, she said she did not know if her daughter had been released or not. No update from the Kittleson family was immediately available after Rubio confirmed her release.

Caroline Clancy, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Milwaukee field office, declined to comment.

Kataib Hezbollah had not previously acknowledged that it abducted Kittleson, although both U.S. and Iraqi officials had blamed the group.

A respected journalist in conflict zones

Kittleson, 49, had lived abroad for years before the kidnapping, using Rome as her base for a time and building a respected journalism career across the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria. Like many freelancers, she often worked on a shoestring budget and without the protections afforded by large news organizations to staff.

She had entered Iraq again shortly before her abduction. U.S. officials have said that they warned her multiple times of threats against her, but that she did not want to leave.

Iraqi officials have said that two cars were involved in the kidnapping, one of which crashed while being pursued near the town of al-Haswa in Babil province, southwest of Baghdad. The journalist was then transferred to a second car that fled the scene.

Three other Iraqi officials said earlier Tuesday that attempts to negotiate her release had run into obstacles. The two Iraqi security officials and one official from the pro-Iran Coordination Framework political bloc spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the sensitive case publicly.

A shadowy militia group

According to one of the security officials, a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of Iran-backed militias that is nominally under the control of the Iraqi military, had been tasked with communicating with the abductors to secure Kittleson’s release but had run into difficulties in communicating with the Kataib Hezbollah leadership.

“The primary challenge is that the leaders of the Kataib militia — specifically, the commanders of the battalions — are nowhere to be found. No one knows their whereabouts, and the process of establishing contact with them is extremely complex,” the security officials said.

“These leaders have gone underground, maintaining no active lines of communication, out of fear of being targeted,” they added.

According to the officials, a message had been sent to the Kataib leadership to determine their demands in exchange for releasing Kittleson. Iraqi authorities were willing to release six Kataib Hezbollah members who are currently detained, most of them in connection with attacks on a U.S. base in Syria, they said.

Kataib Hezbollah has previously been accused of kidnapping foreigners.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton graduate student with Israeli and Russian citizenship, disappeared in Baghdad in 2023. After she was freed and handed over to U.S. authorities in September 2025, she said that she had been held by Kataib Hezbollah.

The group never officially claimed responsibility for kidnapping Tsurkov.

Iran-backed militias in Iraq have also launched regular attacks on U.S. facilities in the country since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

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Associated Press writers Todd Richmond in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, Abby Sewell in Beirut and Matthew Lee and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

“Nobody has any idea why the attorney general is no longer the attorney general, and I’m the acting attorney general, except for President Trump,” Todd Blanche told reporters when asked at an unrelated news conference if Bondi lost her job because she was not successful in bringing criminal cases against the Republican president's perceived adversaries.

Blanche, the deputy attorney general for the last year, was elevated to the top job on at least an acting basis after Trump replaced Bondi. He insisted Tuesday that he did not feel "pressure" in the job despite Trump's well-publicized desire for retribution, though he also said that the president was entitled to seek investigations against former government officials he believes have wronged him.

“We have thousands of ongoing investigations and prosecutions going on in this country right now. And it is true that some of them involve men, women and entities that the president in the past has had issues with and believes should be investigated. That is his right, and indeed it is his duty to do that," Blanche said.

Blanche demurred when asked if he was interested in being nominated to the role of attorney general.

“If President Trump chooses to keep me as acting,” Blanche said, “that's an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that's an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and I go back to being the DAG, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir.’ I don't have any goals or aspirations beyond that.”

Blanche used his first news conference in his new role as acting attorney general to herald a redoubled effort in fighting fraud, offering details about a new fraud enforcement division that he said would draw in prosecutors from offices across the country. The Senate last month confirmed a veteran prosecutor and Blanche aide, Colin McDonald, to lead that division.

The detention of 22-year-old Annie Ramos, the Honduran born-wife of a U.S. Army staff sergeant preparing to deploy, prompted public backlash from critics of the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign who warned it demoralized troops during an ongoing war.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Ramos’ mother-in-law, Jen Rickling, confirmed her release to The Associated Press. The New York Times first reported Ramos' release.

Ramos, who married Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank in March, had been detained by federal immigration agents while attempting to register at his base to receive military benefits and ultimately obtain a green card. She had lived in the country since she was less than 2 years old. DHS said Ramos had been ordered removed by a federal immigration judge in 2005 after her family had failed to appear for a hearing.

Ramos and her husband say she has been attempting to gain legal status, including by applying for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2020 though her application remained stalled amid legal battles to eliminate the program.

“All I have ever wanted is to live with dignity in the country I have called home since I was a baby,” Ramos said in a statement to the AP after her release. “I want to finish my degree, continue my education, and serve my community — just as my husband serves our country with honor.”

A spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, said that Kelly had called DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin regarding Ramos’ detention. Blank has family in Arizona.

“I’m happy Annie is back with her husband and family where she belongs,” Kelly said in a statement. “They never should have gone through this painful process, but far too many families like theirs are because of this administration.”

DHS told the AP that Ramos had been released with a GPS monitor “while she undergoes further removal proceedings.”

“She will receive full due process,” DHS said.

The Trump administration has scrapped policies of immigration enforcement leniency toward the family members of military personnel and veterans, even as the military has promoted the protection of U.S. soldiers' family members from deportation as a recruiting incentive.

Ramos said she plans to continue studying biochemistry and focusing on enjoying married life with her husband.

“As Matthew continues preparing for his long career in the military, my focus now is on securing my status, continuing my studies, and building our life together,” Ramos said. “We want to create a home, a future, and a family. This experience has been incredibly difficult, but it has also reminded me of the power of faith, love, and community. I am hopeful for what comes next.”

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Associated Press reporter Juan Lozano contributed reporting from Houston.

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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 opinion said Customs and Border Protection officers have limited authority to cancel visas and can't do so for suspected smuggling of biological samples. The cancellation of Kseniia Petrova 's visa was arbitrary and capricious, U.S. District Court Judge Christina Reiss said in her written ruling.

“The undisputed facts reveal that Ms. Petrova’s visa was impermissibly canceled because of the frog embryo samples and for no other reason,” Reiss wrote.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which includes Customs and Border Protection, didn't immediately return an email message seeking comment.

In February last year, Petrova was returning from a vacation in France, where she had stopped at a lab specializing in splicing superfine sections of frog embryos and obtained a package of samples for research. She was questioned about the samples while passing through a customs checkpoint at Boston Logan International Airport.

After an interrogation, Petrova was told her visa was being canceled.

Petrova was briefly detained by immigration officials in Vermont, where she filed a petition seeking her release. She was later sent to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana.

She told The Associated Press in an interview last year that she did not realize the samples needed to be declared and was not trying to sneak anything into the country. Petrova has been back in her Harvard lab since January after successfully petitioning a court for the right to return to work, her attorney, Gregory Romanovsky, said.

Tuesday's ruling was an important step toward “correcting what should never have happened in the first place,” Romanovsky said in a statement.

Petrova’s case is being closely watched by the scientific community, with some fearing it could impact recruiting and retaining foreign scientists at U.S. universities.

Rivers' reason: grandkids.

And put simply, he sounds like someone who wants to spent more time with them.

“I won't answer that, but I have grandkids that I want to see,” Rivers told reporters when asked before the Bucks' game in Brooklyn about his future. "I'll put it that way. I'll let you figure it out from there."

The 64-year-old Rivers is going into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame this summer. Only Gregg Popovich, Don Nelson, Lenny Wilkens, Jerry Sloan and Pat Riley have more coaching wins than Rivers — who won the NBA title as a coach with Boston in 2008.

Milwaukee came into the season with championship aspirations, built again around perennial All-Star and former MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and further bolstered by the acquisition of Myles Turner in free agency last summer. But injuries doomed Milwaukee; the Bucks started 8-5, then lost seven consecutive games to fall under .500 and that's where they stayed the rest of the way.

They haven't been a top-eight team in the Eastern Conference since mid-November, wound up fielding trade offers for Antetokounmpo in February — ultimately deciding to keep him, at least for now — and now are embroiled in a war of words with their best player. He says he wants to play even though the Bucks are out of the playoff picture; the team has kept him out citing injuries.

Antetokounmpo has appeared in 36 games this season, by far the fewest of his 13-year career. The constant speculation about his future in Milwaukee has grated on Rivers for some time, prompting him to say last week that it has been bothersome to incessantly have to deal with questions about the relationship between Antetokounmpo and the franchise.

“The tough part about all this is I’m in the middle when I have nothing to do with it,” Rivers said Friday. “Coaches don’t decide any of this. But, the problem with our league is the coaches are the ones sitting out front and we have to sit here and answer this stuff. And I think there are two sides to this. I will tell you that.”

Antetokounmpo's future with the team is certain to be a major topic in the offseason. And now, Rivers' will be as well.

He sounded somewhat reflective last week when formally announced as a Hall inductee.

“Without the players that I’ve coached, without the coaches that I’ve coached with, I wouldn’t be here,” Rivers said when announced as part of this year’s Hall class. “None of us live in isolation. We all live and breathe with other people, and other people help us get to places we are.”

Rivers joined the Bucks midway through the 2023-24 season. He has a number of interests outside of coaching, would likely be a sought-after broadcaster — he's done TV work before — if he steps down from coaching, and indicated that it's difficult to not be present around young grandchildren.

"I have seven grandkids now and they're all 8 years and under," Rivers said. “And it kills me every time I miss grandparents' day with each one of them in school. And it's probably time to go see them more. So, I'll let you figure out the rest.”

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of domestic violence. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the national domestic violence hotline: 1-800-799-7233 in the U.S.

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Gerhardt Konig, 47, had a plan and backup plans for murdering his wife, Arielle Konig, during a weekend trip to Honolulu for her birthday in March 2025, deputy prosecutor Joel Garner said. He tried to push her off a cliff, and when that didn't work he tried to stab her with a syringe filled with an unknown substance.

And when that didn't work, he grabbed the rock, Garner said.

“Every backup plan ends in Arielle’s death,” Garner said, displaying the rock and photos of her injuries.

The doctor's lawyer told jurors Tuesday there were no such plans, and he repeatedly sought to cast doubt on Arielle Konig's account. Gerhardt Konig has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, and he insists he was defending himself from his wife, who he says attacked him with the rock first.

If Gerhardt Konig had wanted to kill his wife and had access to a syringe in a remote area, attorney Thomas Otake suggested, wouldn't he have drugged her and then thrown her from the cliff, rather than having started a scuffle before attempting to fill the syringe as he was wrestling with her?

“You would use the syringe first,” Otake said. “It makes no sense.”

The trial started last month, nearly a year after Gerhadt and Arielle Konig went on a hike on the Pali Puka trail in Honolulu that ended with her bloodied and screaming that he had tried to kill her.

Their two young sons stayed home on Maui while the Konigs were on the trip. Near a lookout offering sweeping views, Gerhardt Konig — upset about his wife's relationship with a coworker — attacked her, Garner said. It was only because two other hikers interrupted the assault that he stopped, Garner said.

The trial, with testimony livestreamed by Court TV, has aired the couple's marital problems leading up to the hike, along with their versions of what happened on the trail.

Gerhardt Konig testified that his wife was having an affair, which he confirmed by unlocking her phone while she slept. The relationship, which Arielle Konig characterized as an “emotional affair” involving flirty messages with a coworker, came up during the hike.

Arielle Konig testified that her husband grabbed her and moved her toward the cliff's edge but she threw herself on the ground in an attempt to hold on. He straddled her and had a syringe in his hand, she said, but she batted it away. She bit his forearm and squeezed his testicles in attempt to get him off her, she said.

Her husband denied pushing her toward the edge and testified that she hit him with a rock on the side of his face. He wrestled the rock away and hit her with it twice in self-defense, he said.

“He reacted, and then he felt horrible about it,” Otake said. “He never wanted to hurt her.”

But the prosecutor told the jury that all of the blood found on the rock and on clothing belonged to Arielle Konig, not her husband.

Gerhardt Konig also denied having any syringes on the mountain, or trying to stab his wife. His defense attorney said no syringe was found at the scene because he never had one.

Otake said Gerhardt Konig was not someone who would try to commit murder, but someone who was struggling with infidelity and trying to do his best. Otake quoted from a heart-shaped birthday card Gerhardt Konig had written to his wife, calling her “the heart of our family” and saying, “The kids and I hit the jackpot with you.”

Gerhardt Konig testified that as he watched his wife crawl away, he believed his marriage and career were over, and he decided to jump to his death. But first, he called his adult son from a previous marriage. The son told authorities that his father said he “tried to kill your stepmom” — a confession Gerhardt Konig denied having made.

During that call, the defendant made no reference to having struck his wife in self-defense, Garner said.

He spent about eight hours hiding on the mountain before deciding to come down, and even then he tried to flee when confronted by police, Garner said.

His wife has since filed for divorce.

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Associated Press writer Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed.

The 87-year-old country star, who is known for his topical satire, fell late last month, according to the statement released on his X account. He will need to wear a neck brace for about a month.

“He remains fully mobile & in good spirits," the statement said.

Stevens' decades-long recording career has included such hits as the Grammy-winning “Everything Is Beautiful" as well as the zany “The Streak," which captured the mid-1970s craze for running naked in public.

Born Harold Ray Ragsdale, Stevens's music was also known for its social commentary. In 1961, he recorded “Jeremiah Peabody’s Poly Unsaturated Quick Dissolving Fast Acting Pleasant Tasting Green and Purple Pills,” which made fun of the advertising industry.

His latest album is expected to be released Friday on Curb Records.

In July, Stevens suffered a mild heart attack and had heart surgery, according to a post on his X account. His performances at his CabaRay Showroom in Nashville, Tennessee, were canceled for the rest of the month as he recovered.

The vote — 11-2, with two abstentions from Pakistan and Colombia — took place shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump issued an unprecedented threat that a “whole civilization will die tonight" if Iran does not open the strategic waterway and make a deal. But late Tuesday, less than two hours before the deadline he set, Trump pulled back his threat.

Trump said he would suspend the threatened attack for two weeks provided Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. One-fifth of the world’s oil typically passes through the strait, and Iran’s stranglehold during the war has sent energy prices soaring.

Iran accepted the two-week ceasefire and said passage through the strait during this period would be allowed under Iranian military management. Trump said Iran has proposed a “workable” 10-point plan for ending the war.

Russia and China strongly defended their opposition to the U.N. resolution, both citing Trump's threat to end Iran’s civilization as confirmation that the proposal would have given the U.S. and Israel “carte blanche for continued aggression," as Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia put it.

Nebenzia and China’s U.N. ambassador, Fu Cong, said the resolution failed to capture the root causes and full picture of the conflict by not showing that America and its closest ally started the now spiraling war.

Fu said in his statement that resolution was “highly susceptible to misinterpretation or even abuse,” and if it were adopted ”would send a wrong message and have serious, very serious consequences."

Russia and China immediately followed up by circulating a rival resolution, seen by The Associated Press, which urged all parties to halt military activities and condemned attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. Nebenzia told reporters it was already in a form that could be put to a vote.

,The foreign minister of Bahrain, which authored the draft, assailed the U.N.'s most powerful body for not taking action and allowing the international community to be “held hostage to economic blackmail" from Iran.

Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani said failing to adopt the resolution sends “the signal that the threat to international waterways can pass without any decisive action by the international organization responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security.”

Al-Zayani told reporters that Gulf countries will intensify diplomatic efforts to deter Iran's attacks and safeguard freedom of navigation.

But Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. thanked its allies on the 15-member council for refusing to adopt the resolution.

“The text unjustifiably and misleadingly portrays Iran’s lawful measures in the Strait of Hormuz, which have been taken in the exercise of its inherent right of self-defense in accordance with the UN Charter, as threats to international peace and security,” Amir-Saeid Iravani said in his statement.

How the resolution evolved

It’s doubtful the resolution, even if it had been adopted, would have impacted the war, now in its sixth week, because it was been significantly weakened to try to get Moscow and Beijing to abstain rather than veto it.

The initial Gulf proposal would have authorized countries to use “all necessary means” — U.N. wording that would include military action — to ensure transit through the Strait of Hormuz and deter attempts to close it.

The United States, which had supported the draft from its original form, assailed the countries that objected to the resolution.

“No one should tolerate that they are holding the global economy at gunpoint," Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said of Iran, “but today, Russia and China did tolerate it.” He said in his statement: “They sided with a regime that seeks to intimidate the Gulf into submission, even as it brutalizes its own people during a national internet blackout, for daring to imagine dignity or freedom.”

After Russia, China and France, all veto-wielding members of the Security Council, expressed opposition to approving the use of force, the resolution was revised to eliminate all references to offensive action. It would have authorized only “all defensive means necessary.” A vote had been expected on Saturday.

But instead the resolution was further weakened to eliminate any reference to Security Council authorization — which is an order for action — and limit its provisions to the Strait of Hormuz. Previous drafts had included adjacent waters.

The resolution vetoed Tuesday would have “strongly” encouraged countries to coordinate their efforts to ensure the safety of navigation across the Strait of Hormuz, including escorting merchant and commercial vessels.

The resolution also demanded that Iran stop impeding freedom of navigation through the strait and attacking civilian infrastructure.

Why it was Bahrain pushing the UN resolution

In response to the U.S. and Israeli attacks beginning on Feb. 28, Iran has targeted hotels, airports, residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure in more than 10 countries, including the Islamic Republic's Gulf neighbors, some of the world’s

major exporters of oil and natural gas.

Iran's blockade in the strait is seen by Gulf nations as an existential threat. Bahrain, a Gulf nation that hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet and is the Security Council’s Arab representative and its president this month, has been pressing for U.N. action.

In response to Iran’s strikes against its Gulf neighbors, the Security Council adopted a Bahrain-sponsored resolution on March 11 condemning the “egregious attacks” and calling for Tehran to immediately halt its strikes.

That resolution, adopted by a vote of 13-0 with Russia and China abstaining, also condemned Iran’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz as a threat to international peace and security and called for an immediate end to all actions blocking shipping.

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This version corrects the second reference to China's U.N. ambassador to Fu.

“I did not play here. I’m not from Carolina,” he said Tuesday evening during his introductory news conference at the Dean Smith Center. “But I think they’re ready to embrace somebody new. A new vision to try to get this program back to where we all want it to be.”

The Tar Heels hired the NBA championship-winning coach Tuesday, signing him to a six-year deal worth $50 million in base compensation.

Malone replaces Hubert Davis, who was fired on March 24 after five seasons as the successor to retired Hall of Famer Roy Williams.

The 54-year-old Malone spent 12 seasons as a head coach in the NBA, including a 10-year run in Denver. He led the Nuggets to the 2023 title behind three-time league MVP Nikola Jokic.

The Nuggets fired Malone last spring with less than a week left in that regular season. Almost a year later, Malone took over a blue-blood program with six national titles, a record 21 appearances in the Final Four and alums including Michael Jordan, James Worthy Vince Carter and Atlantic Coast Conference career scoring leader Tyler Hansbrough.

Malone said 10 to 12 former UNC players visited him in his arena office in the few hours after he arrived earlier Tuesday from Colorado.

“I think family is important,” he said. “It’s something we talked a lot about in Denver. I think it’s even more important in the college landscape because you’re talking about young men coming to your program.”

Malone said he rebuffed overtures from UNC — and then regretted it — early in the search process. Executive associate athletic director Steve Newmark, who’ll become the AD this summer, visited Malone’s Colorado home Sunday and persuaded him to accept the position.

“Coach Malone was the first coach we called and the first coach we talked to,” Newmark said. “And we ended in the right place.”

Malone said he realized that a coaching job like North Carolina becomes available only so often. Davis’ firing opened one of the top jobs in college basketball for only the fourth time since the late Hall of Famer Dean Smith’s retirement after 36 seasons in October 1997.

The job had stayed in the “Carolina Family” ever since. Longtime assistant Bill Guthridge replaced Smith, followed by former UNC player Matt Doherty, former Smith assistant Williams and then Davis, who played under Smith and worked on Williams’ staff.

“I have a chance to be a part of something special — the history, the tradition,” Malone said.

UNC also broke with tradition in December 2024 when it brought in a championship-winning pro coach to lead its football program, hiring Bill Belichick, who went 4-8 in his first season.

Malone’s six-year deal starts at $7.5 million in base compensation and rises to $9 million by the 2031-32 season. Malone can also earn incentives worth up to nearly $1.5 annually, while he has a buyout that starts at $8 million through April 1 and drops to $6.5 million in 2028 and $5 million in 2029 as it continues to decline over the life of the deal.

Additionally, the agreement requires a $4 million salary pool for assistant coaches and support staff, as well as for the school to commit no less than $6.75 million of its revenue-share allotment to men’s basketball.

Malone has never been a college head coach and has spent most of his career in the NBA. His primary connection to UNC athletics is the presence of daughter Bridget on the Tar Heels’ volleyball team. He said he attended multiple basketball practices — with Davis even asking him to speak to the team at least once — during his visits to Chapel Hill during the past season.

After 24 seasons in the NBA, he’ll face some challenges. One that he mentioned: adapting to games played with halves instead of quarters.

Soon to be part of the Tobacco Road rivalries, he’s determined to lead the Tar Heels back to the top.

“I want to add to that rivalry (with Duke),” Malone said. “I want to win. I didn’t come here to be second best. I didn’t come here to lose in the first round of the ACC Tournament.”

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AP Basketball Writer Aaron Beard in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

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On Truth Social, Trump posted that he would withhold “the bombing and attack of Iran” for two weeks, subject to Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian officials said they had accepted a two-week ceasefire and that passage through the strait would be allowed for that same period.

The temporary agreement comes after weeks of the Republican president posting a slew of heated threats, announcing deadline delays and proclamations that the negotiations were going well, sometimes in the same statement.

That was true in Trump's Truth Social post before his now-suspended Tuesday 8 p.m. ET deadline. After threatening a “whole civilization," Trump had said Iran's new leaders were more reasonable and “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”

Trumps posts earlier in the day had raised the ante from his threats Monday, in which he said: “They’ll have no bridges. They’ll have no power plants. They’ll have no anything.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres previously warned the U.S. that attacks on civilian infrastructure are banned under international law, according to his office. Trump had said he's “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes with such attacks.

So how did Trump's deadline delays and threats escalate over the weeks leading up to Tuesday night?

An ultimatum about reopening the Strait of Hormuz

On March 21, Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants if it did not fully reopen the strait within 48 hours.

Iran had until the evening of March 23.

Then, 12 hours before the deadline, Trump took to Truth Social to share what seemed good news: that both countries had productive conversations toward concluding the conflict.

He wrote that he had instructed the Pentagon to postpone any strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days, to give more time for talks.

That pushed the deadline out to the end of that week.

A threat to target desalination plants

Before that deadline, on March 26, Trump doubled down on his threats on Truth Social: “They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty!”

But later that day, he extended the deadline for 10 more days, to April 6 at 8 p.m. Eastern, and said on Truth Social that negotiations were “going very well.”

On March 30, Trump put out a mixed statement: celebrating progress in the talks with Iran while also expanding his threatened bombing if a deal wasn't “shortly reached,” adding that “it probably will be."

“We will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!),” he wrote.

It's unclear how soon “shortly reached” meant for Trump, but a deal was not made as the deadline loomed.

An expletive-filled threat to attack power plants and bridges

“Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT," Trump said in a Truth Social post on Saturday, "Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them.” He meant rain down.

As the deadline approached, his posts had doubled down on his threats until Sunday, when Trump pushed it again in an expletive-filled post.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F——-in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” Trump said on Truth Social, followed by another post that specified 8 p.m. as the deadline.

Trump then suggested on Monday that Tuesday's deadline would be final, saying he'd already given Iran enough extensions.

“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said. “We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night.”

By Tuesday morning, Trump had sent his statement saying “a whole civilization will die tonight,” to which he added that “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

What's next for diplomacy with Iran?

Tuesday night, Trump said that Iran has proposed a “workable” 10-point peace plan that could help end the war the U.S. and Israel launched on Feb. 28.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it has accepted a two-week ceasefire and that it would negotiate with the U.S. starting Friday, but added in its statement that “this does not signify the termination of the war.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said passage through the Strait of Hormuz would be allowed for the next two weeks under Iranian military management, though it wasn’t immediately clear whether that meant Iran would loosen its chokehold on the waterway.

In his post, Trump said that “Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two-week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated."

The eldest child of the U.S. president said that “the biggest players, the biggest names in banking and finance, in tech and AI across the board” believe that “Europe is a disaster,” but “the disaster that they feel also needs to be fixed.”

“The only way it gets fixed, though, in my opinion is if they (Europe) get out of of their own way,” Trump Jr. said during a business discussion in the northwestern Bosnian city of Banja Luka, according to video recordings provided by the official television RTRS television.

Banja Luka is a key city in Republika Srpska, the Serb-run part of Bosnia, whose leaders are staunch admirers of U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The press office of the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital, told The Associated Press in an email that Trump Jr. came “in a private capacity.” The visit was nonetheless seen here as a boost for the Serb separatist political leadership.

Trump Jr.’s trip came as U.S. Vice President JD Vance traveled to Hungary to support the reelection bid of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán before a highly-contested vote next weekend.

Bosnian Serb politician and former Republika Srpska president, Milorad Dodik, an ally of Orbán, said on X that the two visits “signal an important shift of the U.S. administration under the leadership of President Trump and the care for this part of Europe regarding the position of Christians.”

Trump Jr,, in Banja Luka, said that eastern European countries “have a work ethic that has (withstood) some of the ‘woke’ nonsense that has really been a parasitic thing in the mind in Western Europe.”

“I see that creating major fractures in the European Union between those few countries in eastern Europe that actually still believe in common sense, and Western Europe that’s clearly missing in the political discourse these days,” he said.

Dodik has repeatedly called for the Serb-run half of Bosnia to break off from the rest of the country that is run by Bosniaks, who are mainly Muslims, and Croats. The Serb bid to form its own state and unite with neighboring Serbia was seen as the main cause of the 1992-95 ethnic war that killed more than 100,000 before ending in a U.S.-brokered peace agreement.

The Biden administration in 2022 imposed sanctions on Dodik and individuals and companies linked to him because of the separatist policies that stoked fear of renewed instability. The sanctions were lifted by the Trump administration last year.

The Trump administration has long been critical of the EU, notably over trade and EU regulation of the technology sector. Its criticism of long-time European allies has intensified during the Iran war.

Bosnia is a candidate country for EU membership and the 27-nation bloc says it's Bosnia’s biggest trading partner, investor and provider of financial aid.

President Donald Trump's latest threat over the Iran war hit a new extreme Tuesday as he warned, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if Iran failed to make a deal that includes reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz.

The Republican president's comments were swiftly met with condemnation from Democrats, some “Make America Great Again” supporters who have since broken with Trump, and the first American pope. Some fellow Republicans suggested his comments were a negotiating tactic.

It followed his threats in recent days that he would be “blasting Iran into oblivion” and “back to the Stone Ages!!!” He said he would blow up bridges and civilian power plants, which experts in military law said could constitute a war crime. And on Easter morning, he wrote on his social media account: “Open the F——-in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.”

Just over an hour before his 8 p.m. deadline, Trump announced he was pulling back from his threats of widespread strikes, subject to Iran agreeing to a two-week ceasefire and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Supreme National Security Council said it had accepted a two-week ceasefire in the war.

But Trump’s intensifying warnings of widespread and seemingly indiscriminate destruction were a sea change from his January pledge to the people of Iran that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY” after a brutal crackdown on protests. They were the antithesis of the peacemaking image he spent much of the last year trying to cultivate as he sought a Nobel Peace Prize.

And, most urgently, they raised questions about whether the president was threatening actions that could be considered war crimes, whether he is considering using a nuclear weapon or whether it is all bluster.

The president’s extraordinary threat to wipe out Iran's “civilization” Tuesday morning came as the conflict with Iran reached a precipice. Iran rejected the Americans’ latest ceasefire proposal, and the Middle Eastern country’s president said 14 million people, including himself, have volunteered to fight. Meanwhile, there were international calls for restraint, and officials involved in diplomatic efforts said talks were ongoing.

Experts said that Trump's threats to blow up bridges and power plants could constitute a war crime depending on whether the power plants were legitimate military targets, whether any attacks were proportional compared with what Iran has done and whether civilian casualties were minimized.

Trump on Monday defended his profane language, saying he used it only to make a point, and said he’s “not at all” concerned that his threats could amount to a war crime.

In response to the criticism Trump’s comments received, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement: “As President Trump has said, Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, and the Iranian people welcome the sound of bombs because it means their oppressors are losing. The President will always stand with innocent civilians while annihilating the terrorists responsible for threatening our country and the entire world with a nuclear weapon. Greater destruction can be avoided if the regime understands the seriousness of this moment and makes a deal with the United States.”

Trump's comments drew condemnation and hopes that it was bluster

Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican and a Marine Corps veteran, said that what Trump is “clearly trying to accomplish” is to “bring this whole effort to a close and that’s the best way to preserve lives and property and reduce suffering.”

“The president clearly, to me, wants to increase the amount of leverage he has immediately so that we can bring this conflict to a close and avoid further bloodshed or suffering from the Iranians, from the Americans or from any other people.”

Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican and a stalwart Trump ally, said Monday before the president's annihilation warning that he hoped Trump's threats to bomb power plants and bridges were bombast.

“I am hoping and praying that President Trump is, this really is bluster. I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure. I do not want to see that,” Johnson said on a podcast. “We are not at war with the Iranian people. We are trying to liberate them.”

Democratic leaders in the House said in a joint statement that Trump's “statement threatening to eradicate an entire civilization shocks the conscience.” Their Senate counterparts said it was “a betrayal of the values this nation was founded on, and a moral failure.”

Pope Leo XIV said any attacks on civilian infrastructure violate international law and called the president’s comments “truly unacceptable.”

Former Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a stalwart MAGA supporter who has since turned critic of the president, suggested invoking the 25th Amendment, under which the vice president and a majority of Cabinet members declare a president unfit for office and remove him.

“Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness,” she wrote on X.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who often breaks with the president, called Trump's latest threat “an affront to the ideals our nation has sought to uphold and promote around the world for nearly 250 years.”

Trump's history of inflammatory threats

Roseanne McManus, a professor of political science at Penn State University whose research has focused on international security and how countries signal their intentions in ongoing or potential conflict, said presidential threats of force traditionally had some restraint and subtlety.

But Trump, dating back to his first term, has broken with those norms, she said. That was most notable when he warned North Korea in 2017 that it would see “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it made more threats against the U.S., raising fears of a nuclear escalation. He later said he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “fell in love,” and the threats largely stopped.

Since returning to the White House last year, he has made more incendiary threats and moves.

Last summer, he joined Israel in striking Iran's nuclear sites, a move that came before a self-imposed timeline for action ran out. Earlier this year, he launched a brazen strike that captured Venezuela's authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, and brought him to the U.S. for trial.

He has also suggested using military force to take control of Greenland and has said he believes he’ll have “the honor of taking Cuba” soon, but he has so far not followed through on those threats.

Trump has referred to his unpredictability as an asset, McManus said, and has seemed to lean into the “Madman Theory,” attributed to former President Richard Nixon, that aims to deter adversaries by convincing them he’s unpredictable enough to carry out an extreme action.

His actions over the last year, along with increasingly frequent over-the-top threats in recent days to Iran, seem to show that “he’s been leaning into the strategy to a greater extent in his second term.”

“I think the fact that Trump is willing to shatter these norms with his rhetoric could suggest that he is not restrained by the same sorts of things that would restrain a normal leader,” she said.

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Associated Press writers Steven Sloan and Stephen Groves in Washington and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

Southwest Airlines announced Tuesday that starting April 20 passengers will only be able to carry one charger on their planes, and they won't be allowed to put it in the overhead bin or in their checked luggage. The airline already requires passengers to keep their chargers in the open while they are using them, so flight attendants can act quickly if they start to overheat.

The new Southwest rule goes even further than the limit of two chargers per passenger that the International Civil Aviation Organization recommended last month. But the airline says it isn't going to aggressively enforce the policy by searching bags and confiscating chargers. Instead, Southwest's Vice President of Safety and Security Dave Hunt said the airline will stress this to travelers when they book their flights and arrive at the airport while explaining the potential dangers.

That alone might be a big help because most people don't seem to be aware of the risks, said Jeff Marootian, who is CEO of UL Standards & Engagement, which establishes the guidelines for the makers of these chargers and other electronic devices.

“A huge part of the concern here is seeing that number of incidents continue to increase, correlating, of course, to the number of devices that people are bringing on planes,” he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration said more lithium battery incidents are reported every year and hit 97 in 2025 as everyone carries more re-chargable devices like phones, iPads, laptops and these portable chargers. Marootian said that his organization hears about two incidents every week, and reported a 42% increase in the number of incidents involving portable chargers in 2025.

One of the worst happened in January 2025 when a devastating fire aboard an Air Busan plane waiting to take off from an airport in South Korea forced the evacuation of all 176 people aboard before the fire burned through the plane's roof.

Flight attendants have fire-resistant bags and insulated gloves to put overheating devices into to contain any potential blaze. Southwest’s Hunt said the airline’s new rule will “strengthen our ability to contain and mitigate lithium battery incidents, including reducing the risk of battery fires.”

To help make the rule workable for passengers, Southwest plans to equip all of its planes with in-seat power by the middle of next year.

Aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo, who flew for United Airlines for 37 years, said he thinks Southwest's new policy is a positive step to reduce the risk. Even though the number of fires is small compared to the roughly 100,000 flights every day around the globe, the potential consequences of a battery fire can be disastrous.

“It can turn into something very serious very quickly,” Arroyo said.