Cole Tomas Allen appeared in court Monday to face federal charges after the chaotic encounter Saturday that resulted in shots being fired, Trump being hurried off the stage unharmed and guests ducking for cover underneath their tables. He was ordered to remain jailed pending additional court hearings, and faces up to life in prison if convicted of the assassination count alone.

An FBI affidavit filed in the case reveals additional details about the planning behind the assault, with authorities alleging that Allen on April 6 reserved a room for himself at the Washington hotel where the event would be held weeks later under its typical tight security. He traveled by train cross-country from California last week, checking himself into the Washington Hilton one day before the dinner with a room reserved through the weekend.

The event had barely begun when officials say the 31-year-old Torrance, California, man, armed with a shotgun and pistol, tried to race past a security barricade near the cavernous ballroom holding hundreds of journalists and their guests, prompting an exchange of gunfire with Secret Service agents tasked with safeguarding the event.

“Violence has no place in civic life,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference. “We will ensure accountability is swift and certain.”

Allen was injured but was not shot. A Secret Service officer was shot but was wearing a bullet-resistant vest and survived, officials say.

Questions remain about how many shots Allen fired and how many officers discharged their weapons.

Blanche said investigators believe that a Secret Service agent fired five shots and that Allen discharged his shotgun at least once. But Blanche didn’t say whether authorities have confirmed it was Allen’s bullet that struck the agent in the vest, or whether any other officers used their weapons. Blanche said ballistics experts are still examining evidence to provide more clarity on those questions.

The Justice Department charged Allen with two additional firearms counts, including discharging a weapon during a crime of violence, but the affidavit does not directly say that Allen was responsible for shooting the officer.

Suspect's email sheds light on motive

The shooting resulted in the cancellation of the dinner, the first Trump had attended as president.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said the night was supposed to be one of joy but instead was “hijacked by a crazed anti-Trump individual who traveled across the country to assassinate the president and as many administration officials as possible.”

Allen invoked his constitutional right to remain silent after his arrest, but authorities say an email he sent to family members and a former employer helps shed light on a motive.

In the message, a copy of which was included in the affidavit, Allen referred to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin,” alluded obliquely to grievances over a range of Trump administration actions. The rambling text moves between confession, grievance and farewell, with Allen apologizing to family members, co-workers and even strangers he feared could be caught in the violence while at the same time seeking to explain the attack.

A magistrate judge granted a prosecutor's request to keep Allen locked up pending additional hearings, including a detention hearing set for Thursday.

Allen did not speak at length during the quick appearance, as is customary, though one of his lawyers, Texira Abe, noted that he has no criminal record.

“He also is presumed innocent at this time," she said.

The Associated Press called multiple phone numbers listed for Allen and relatives in public records, and there was no answer when a reporter knocked on the door of his home.

Records reveal that Allen is a highly educated tutor and amateur video game developer. A social media profile for a man with the same name and a photo that appears to match that of the suspect show he worked part-time for the last six years at a company that offers admissions counseling and test preparation services to aspiring college students.

Voter registration records from California lists Allen’s home address as his parent’s house on a tree-lined street in one of the most historic neighborhoods in Torrance, a city within the Los Angeles metro area. No one answered the door Sunday when an Associated Press reporter knocked. By the afternoon, several people who appeared to be law enforcement agents were canvassing the neighborhood, with one wearing an FBI sweatshirt.

A yard sign displayed at the family home supported a local candidate for judge who was endorsed by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. Federal campaign finance records show Cole Allen contributed $25 to a Democratic Party political action committee in support of Kamala Harris for president in 2024 and listed his employer as C2 Education.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in 2017 in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, according to his profile on the social networking site LinkedIn. The small university is academically prestigious with a very low acceptance rate. He also listed his involvement there in a campus group that battled with Nerf guns and a Christian student fellowship.

Allen’s profile photo on LinkedIn shows him wearing a cap and gown when graduating with a master’s degree in computer science from California State University, Dominguez Hills. The photo appears to have been taken May 2025.

___

Associated Press writers Gary Fields and Collin Binkley contributed to this report.

During an emotional hearing in a Queens courtroom packed by uniformed police officers and Officer Jonathan Diller’s family, the judge said Guy Rivera “most certainly will” die in a prison cell.

“Your sentence to me was determined the second you pulled that trigger,” Judge Michael Aloise told Rivera. “It took me five minutes to calculate the numbers. It’s going to take you a lifetime to calculate the damage you caused.”

A jury found Rivera guilty earlier this month of aggravated manslaughter and other charges in Diller's killing, but acquitted the 36-year-old Queens resident of murder.

The shooting happened on March 25, 2024, when Diller and other officers were on patrol in the Far Rockaway section of Queens. Authorities say one of the officers spotted a suspicious object bulging from Rivera’s hoodie as he and another man walked to a parked car and got in.

Police say the officers were questioning the driver when Rivera, who was in the passenger’s seat, suddenly pulled out a gun and shot Diller. The bullet struck the officer below his bulletproof vest, mortally wounding him. Another officer then shot and wounded Rivera.

At the time, Diller was the first NYPD officer to be killed in the line of duty in two years. The 31-year-old’s wake and funeral in his hometown on Long Island drew thousands of people, including President Donald Trump, and the case briefly became a focal point during his 2024 campaign to reclaim the White House on a message of “law and order.”

The Republican president hailed Diller an “unbelievably wonderful person and a great officer” in a March 2025 speech to a joint session of Congress.

Prosecutors had argued that Rivera was deserving of life behind bars because he was a “persistent felon” with prior criminal convictions who had made a “calculated, deliberate and evil choice” to inflict violence.

“This was not an accident,” Assistant District Attorney Kenneth Zawistowski said. “We ask that you honor Jonathan’s life. We ask that you honor his sacrifice."

Rivera's lawyer, Jamal Johnson, argued, as he did during the three-week trial, that Rivera was “not a murderer” because he did not intend to kill Diller.

He maintained the gun accidentally discharged as officers pulled the firearm from Rivera’s pocket. He pleaded with the judge not to issue a “sensational” sentence and complained that Rivera did not receive a fair trial.

Johnson, in a statement after the court hearing, said he intended to appeal his client's conviction.

“The fact that the court stated it had already made up its mind about sentencing well before the trial was conducted reveals the bias and uphill battle the defense faced throughout this case,” he said.

The second suspect, Lindy Jones, is due back in court Tuesday as he awaits trial on weapons charges.

On Monday, Rivera declined to address the court but members of Diller's family delivered tearful remarks.

Stephanie Diller, the officer's wife, said she and the couple's young son had been given a life sentence without their husband and father, so Rivera should also be given one.

“You took my husband and the life we were building,” she said speaking directly to Rivera through tears. “In a single moment, everything that was my life was gone.”

Fran Diller, the officer's mother, said she is haunted by her son's death every day.

“He had a future so incredibly bright,” she said. “My world has been completely shattered. Everything feels empty without him. All I feel is unbearable ache."

Patrick Hendry, president of the police officers’ union, said after the hearing that the manslaughter verdict “did not send the right message” to police officers but that the sentence had.

“He should never ever walk the streets again, and he won't,” Hendry said of Rivera.

___

Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo

That’s the mission of Renovation Alliance, and on Saturday, April 25, it was on full display.

“And one of the big things we did today was we had groups come and build components for handicapped accessible ramps, and these components will be used in the next couple of weeks to build ramps that are needed by homeowners in this area,” Ed Murray, a long-time volunteer, explained.

Murray, who has been with the organization since the beginning, explained the unique niche filled by Renovation Alliance.

“We work on homes of elderly and disabled, low-income people. And we do that in order to make sure that people can stay in their home. And we do everything. We do everything from new roofs to new HVAC systems, to new windows and doors, flooring, anything that’s needed. We always have said we want to keep the homes warm, safe, and dry, and that’s been kind of our goal to do that for our community,” Murray said.

Volunteers, working in Roanoke’s Smart Build Institute, built and assembled the makings of five ramps, which will help people with disabilities better navigate their home life. The work done on a weekend morning event to celebrate years of success and growth for the organization.

“You have a lot of people that are trying to age in place, and our social safety net isn’t what it used to be, and so nonprofits like this that bring the community together to be able to provide ramp access to help our aging neighbors,” said volunteer Danny Clawson.

“The biggest thing we see is we have so many people in all the communities across Virginia struggling to stay in their homes... So I really applaud the work that Renovation Alliance is doing,” said Chris McNamara, Senior Strategic Housing Officer of Virginia Housing.

The ramps were loaded onto trailers. And they will be installed at local homes in the next few weeks.

United moved three points above its rivals and took a huge step toward ensuring it will play Champions League football next season for the first time since 2024.

Casemiro, just weeks before he departs the club, sneaked in at the back post to head United into the lead after 11 minutes. It was his 11th headed goal since he joined United in August 2022, a record bettered only by Erling Haaland (18), Ollie Watkins (16) and Chris Wood (13).

Although Brentford was equal to the host in an entertaining first half it was United which doubled its lead on the cusp of the break.

Benjamin Sesko took a simple pass from Bruno Fernandes to finish off a swift counterattack and assure the talismanic midfielder of his 19th assist of the season, a league high, and only one away from equalling the Premier League record.

Both sides had chances in a quieter second half but Brentford especially was profligate in front of goal.

Mathias Jensen’s long-range strike in the 87th minute gave it some hope but United held on to ensure another disappointing result for Keith Andrews' men.

Brentford remained in ninth place, tied on points with Chelsea and Fulham, but it has not won in the league since February.

___

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

The new districts, which could net Democrats four additional seats, won narrow voter approval last week. But a Republican legal challenge contends the General Assembly violated procedural rules by placing the constitutional amendment before voters to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. If the court agrees that lawmakers broke the rules, it could invalidate the amendment and render last week's statewide vote meaningless.

The Virginia court proceedings mark the latest twist in a national redistricting battle between Republicans and Democrats seeking an advantage in a November midterm election that will determine whether Republicans maintain their narrow majority in the U.S. House.

President Donald Trump kicked off a tit-for-tat round of gerrymandering last summer when he urged Texas Republicans to redraw districts to their favor in an attempt to win several additional House seats. That set off a chain reaction of similar moves in other states, leading to the voter approval last week of Virginia's new map.

Next up is Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has proposed a congressional redistricting plan that could essentially cancel out Virginia's changes by giving Republicans an improved chance of winning additional seats. The redistricting is on the agenda for a special session of the GOP-controlled Legislature beginning Tuesday.

Virginia arguments focus on what counts as an 'election'

During Monday's arguments, the Virginia Supreme Court focused on whether the new congressional districts should be invalidated because of the process used by lawmakers. The justices issued no immediate ruling.

Because the state’s redistricting commission was established by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, lawmakers had to propose an amendment to redraw the districts. That required approval of a resolution in two separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between, to place the amendment on the ballot.

The legislature's first vote occurred last October — while early voting was underway but before it concluded on the day of the general election. Judicial questioning focused on whether that was too late, because early voting already had begun.

Attorney Matthew Seligman, who defended the legislature, argued that the “election” should be defined narrowly to mean the Tuesday of the general election. In that case, the legislature's first vote on the redistricting amendment occurred before the election and was constitutional, he told judges.

But an attorney arguing for the plaintiffs, Thomas McCarthy, said “election” means the entire period during which people can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia. If that's the case, then the legislature's initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to comply with the state constitution, he said.

Attorneys argue over the rights of voters

The purpose of Virginia's two-step amendment process, with an intervening election, is so voters can know whether legislative candidates support or oppose a proposed constitutional amendment, McCarthy said.

He pointed to the case of Democratic voter Camilla Simon, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit alongside Republican state lawmakers, who cast an early vote last fall for Democratic Del. Rodney Willett. After she voted, Willett sponsored the Democratic redistricting amendment, and Simon wished she could have undone her vote, McCarthy said.

“None of these voters had any idea this was coming, and that’s not how this process is supposed to work,” McCarthy told the justices.

Those defending the Democratic redistricting plan also contend that the voters' will should be respected.

The people voted to ratify the constitutional amendment, “and the challengers are asking to overturn that democratic result,” Seligman told reporters after the arguments.

Nationwide redistricting battle has no clear winner so far

So far, the two major parties have battled to a near draw in the states that have redrawn their congressional maps for this year's midterms.

Republicans think they could win up to nine more seats under revised districts in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Democrats think they could win as many as 10 additional seats under new districts in California, Utah and Virginia. But legal challenges remain in both Virginia and Missouri.

Virginia currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans who were elected from districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts, which won voter approval last Tuesday, could give Democrats an improved chance to win 10 districts.

Some candidates already have begun campaigning based on the new districts in advance of the state's Aug. 4 primary election.

More court battles could remain in Virginia

In January, a judge in rural Tazewell County, in southwestern Virginia, ruled that lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session last fall. Circuit Judge Jack Hurley Jr. also ruled that lawmakers failed to initially approve the amendment before the public began voting in last year’s general election and that the state had failed to publish the amendment three months before the election, as required by law. As a result, he said, the amendment is invalid and void.

The Virginia Supreme Court placed Hurley's order on hold and allowed the redistricting vote to proceed before hearing arguments on the case.

During Monday's arguments, justices also raised questions about the ability of lawmakers to expand the agenda for their special session and whether the three-month public notice requirement was important enough to thwart a voter-approved amendment.

Republicans have filed at least two additional legal challenges, which also are winding their way through the courts.

___

Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri. Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed in Richmond and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

A shooting at a Washington dinner attended by President Donald Trump on Saturday sparked a last-minute security review of the four-day state visit, intended to celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary, and the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship.”

Buckingham Palace said the king “is greatly relieved to hear that the president, first lady and all guests have been unharmed.”

Trump and first lady Melania Trump greeted Charles and Queen Camilla at the White House South Portico. The couples were to chat over tea in the Green Room before they go outside to see a new beehive in the shape of the White House that the first lady had installed last week.

Charles and Camilla both support beekeeping. He keeps at least three beehives at his private residence in England as part of his support for the environment and sustainability.

Trump praises the king but derides Starmer

A rift between the U.K. government and Trump over issues including the Iran war had already raised the political stakes for the British monarch's visit.

In recent weeks, Trump has lambasted Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his unwillingness to join U.S. military attacks on Iran, dismissing Britain’s leader as “not Winston Churchill,” the World War II prime minister who coined the phrase “special relationship” for the U.K.-U.S. bond.

It's part of a wider rift between Trump and the United States’ NATO allies, whom he has called “cowards” and “useless” for not joining action against Iran. A leaked Pentagon email suggested the U.S. could reassess support for the U.K.'s sovereignty over the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic. Britain and Argentina fought a 1982 war over the islands, also known as the Islas Malvinas.

The president insists the political chill won’t affect the royal visit. Charles “has nothing to do with that,” Trump said in March, meaning NATO.

The president has spoken in glowing terms about Charles, repeatedly referring to the monarch as his “friend” and a “great guy.”

He also continues to mention his “amazing” trip to the U.K. in September with first lady Melania Trump for an unprecedented second state visit. Starmer hand-delivered the invitation from the king in the Oval Office five weeks after Trump returned to office, in a very public attempt to woo the Republican president.

The U.K. royal family laid on pomp and pageantry for the Trumps, with scarlet-clad guardsmen, brass bands and a sumptuous banquet at Windsor Castle.

“President Trump has always had great respect for King Charles, and their relationship was further strengthened by the president’s historic visit to the United Kingdom last year,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Associated Press. “The president looks forward to a special visit by Their Majesties, which will include a beautiful state dinner and multiple events throughout the week.”

Trump, meanwhile, told the BBC that the king’s visit could “absolutely” help repair the trans-Atlantic relationship.

“He’s fantastic. He’s a fantastic man. Absolutely the answer is yes,” the president said.

Some have called for the trip to be canceled

Kristofer Allerfeldt, a University of Exeter professor specializing in American history, said the two governments have very different objectives for the trip.

He said that for Charles, the trip is about “reinforcing long-term ties, showcasing the monarchy’s soft power and reminding the world that Britain still carries diplomatic weight.”

For Trump, it’s more about “a media event,” with emphasis on the optics of a visit that resembles a meeting of “two gilded monarchs.”

Some U.K. politicians worry that the trip is fraught with opportunities for embarrassment. Trump’s recent broadsides at Pope Leo XIV have heightened those concerns.

Ed Davey, leader of the U.K. centrist opposition Liberal Democrats party, earlier this month called Trump “a dangerous and corrupt gangster” and implored the government to cancel the trip.

“I really fear for what Trump might say or do while our king is forced to stand by his side,” Davey said in the House of Commons. “We cannot put His Majesty in that position.”

Starmer defended the visit, saying “the monarchy, through the bonds that it builds, is often able to reach through the decades” and bolster important relationships.

Andrew and Epstein cast a shadow

Raising the stakes is the shadow of the king’s younger brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who has been stripped of his royal title of Prince Andrew, exiled from public life and put under police investigation over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. He has denied committing any crimes.

Epstein victims have urged the king to meet with them and other sexual abuse survivors. It's unlikely he will do so.

Charles has visited the U.S. 19 times, but this is his first state visit to the country since becoming king in 2022. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, made four state visits to the U.S.

The king, who is 77 and was diagnosed in early 2024 with an undisclosed form of cancer, will spend four days in the U.S. accompanied by Queen Camilla.

In Washington, the king and queen will have a private tea with the Trumps and attend a garden party and a formal White House state dinner. The president and the king will also have a one-on-one meeting.

The royal couple will also visit the Sept. 11 memorial in New York and attend a 250th birthday block party in Virginia, where Charles will also meet Indigenous leaders involved in nature conservation — a favorite cause of the environmentalist king.

Three centuries after Britain’s kings and queens gave up any real political power, the royals remain symbols of soft power, deployed by elected governments to smooth international relationships and send messages about what the U.K. considers important.

A key moment will be the king’s speech to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday. It’s only the second time, after Queen Elizabeth II in 1991, that a U.K. monarch has addressed a joint meeting of both houses.

Elizabeth praised liberalism on that trip, spoke against the idea that “power grows from the barrel of a gun” and praised the “rich ethnic and cultural diversity of both our societies.”

The king’s treasured causes, including the environment and harmony among religious faiths, are in contrast to Trump’s. He's unlikely to accentuate differences, but Allerfeldt said that, in the monarch’s subtle way, the king could use his speech to send a message.

“He does have an unorthodox way of looking at the world, and I think maybe he can actually have something valid to say when he addresses Congress,” Allerfeldt said.

___

Jill Lawless reported from London.

“May the Lord bless from his height, the meal our belly will take with delight,” they chanted in unison before beginning their lunch, a ritual that takes place three times a week in the dining hall adjacent to the church.

Among the nearly 50 elderly people was Carmen Casado, an 84-year-old retired chemical engineer who attends without fail. Her monthly pension of 2,000 Cuban pesos is equivalent to $4 at the informal exchange rate that people use on a daily basis. She lives alone, has no children and does not receive remittances from relatives abroad.

She says the church meals are a needed supplement to the meager rations, such as bread, rice and beans, that she can obtain for free from state-run stores, or bodegas.

“This is a lifeline for us retirees with small pensions," said Casado, speaking in a rapid-fire tone. “What we get from the bodegas alone is not enough.”

The elderly are among the hardest hit by the severe economic crisis on the island, which has worsened dramatically since the beginning of the year following an oil embargo imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Most are former government employees — teachers, doctors, nurses, technicians, custodians, lawyers — whose pensions are usually less than $10 a month and who must face cuts to the basket of goods that have been subsidized for decades, as well as the loneliness brought on by the growing emigration of young people.

They were young when Fidel Castro entered Havana and lived through all the major events on the island, from the Bay of Pigs invasion to U.S. President Barack Obama shaking the hand of Raúl Castro in 2016.

Now, their revolutionary spirit is being tested in the latest crisis, which is forcing them to sell cigarettes on the streets, line up for a loaf of bread and seek free meals offered by churches and some state institutions.

An aging country

After lunch, Casado walked the four blocks home to tend to household chores she still performs without assistance. Her home is on the second and top floors of a 19th-century building that, like many in the capital, is falling apart.

Born in 1942, Casado was a teenager when the revolution led by Castro triumphed. Her life has spanned the island’s most defining moments, from the 1962 Missile Crisis to the so-called Special Period following the collapse of the Soviet Union. She also lived through the 1970s and 80s, when the island's economy was heavily subsidized by the Soviets and when the Cuban system seemed to promise a brighter future.

“This is our life; we were born and raised here,” she said.

Even before the economic crisis worsened and before the wave of emigration over the past five years, Cuba was already one of the countries with the oldest populations in Latin America, a trend nudged further by high life expectancy and low birth rates.

According to Cuba's National Bureau of Statistics, by the end of 2024, almost 26% of the population was aged 60 or older. That is almost twice the regional average of 14.2% in the same year, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, CEPAL.

The last five years have seen a population decline in Cuba of nearly 1.5 million, primarily due to migration. The number of Cubans residing on the island, which stood at 11.1 million, has fallen to just 9.7 million.

The impact of the crisis and the exodus of youth is visible at a glance. Elderly people walk the streets alone —some rummaging through trash, others standing in long lines for the bread and rice provided by the ration book, the basic subsidized foods the state guarantees to every Cuban.

The plight of the elderly is so critical that the government recently authorized private entrepreneurs to operate elder care services and residential facilities, a move marking a significant departure from the island’s traditional model of total state control.

Casado insists that she is still privileged. She is mentally sharp and has no physical impairments — she doesn’t even use a cane — and manages entirely on her own. Her only medication is half a tablet for blood pressure, which, “so far,” remains available at the state-run pharmacies.

Despite the poverty and loneliness, she continues to have faith in the government and blames the country’s woes on the United States.

“We’re doing everything we can here to move the country forward,” she said. “But the thing is, we have a very powerful enemy, and he’s right there, right on our doorstep."

___

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

The 12 bipartisan bills, signed into law, are all focused on strengthening Virginia’s workforce and expanding opportunity. The hope is that these new laws will make it easier to get career and technical teachers into the classroom, while also expanding apprenticeship opportunities for high school students in fields like I.T. and culinary arts.

The measures also focus on supporting the healthcare workforce, improving low-performing schools and building on programs aimed at reducing youth violence.

The laws are expected to take effect this July.

The S&P 500 inched 0.1% higher to its latest all-time high, a downshift following weeks of big gains driven by strong corporate profit reports and hopes that the economy can avoid a worst-case scenario because of the war. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 62 points, or 0.1%, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.2% to its own record.

The moves were stronger in the oil market, where prices climbed more than 2.5% as tankers find the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed. That’s keeping crude stuck in the Middle East and away from customers worldwide, including oil produced by Iran that’s being blockaded by the U.S. Navy.

Iran has offered to reopen the strait if the United States ends its blockade, while proposing that discussions on the larger question of its nuclear program would come in a later phase. But U.S. President Donald Trump seems unlikely to accept the offer, which was passed to the Americans by Pakistan.

Over the weekend, Trump told U.S. envoys not to go to Pakistan, which has been playing a crucial mediating role. By saying the Iranians could call Washington with any proposal, Trump appeared to signal he’s content to try to continue to squeeze Iran with the blockade.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude to be delivered in June climbed 2.8% to settle at $108.23. Brent to be delivered in July, which is where more of the trading is happening in the oil market, rose 2.6% to $101.69 per barrel.

Brent prices were at only about $70 per barrel before the war and have briefly shot to nearly $120 a couple times when fears about the war have hit their heights.

Even with more expensive fuel bills, most big U.S. companies have nevertheless been reporting profit growth for the start of 2026 that’s even stronger than analysts expected. That in turn has helped the S&P 500 jump 13% since hitting a low in late March.

This upcoming week could be a blockbuster for the market, with several of Wall Street’s most influential stocks scheduled to deliver their profit reports. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft are all scheduled to report on Wednesday alone. Apple will report on Thursday.

Verizon Communications joined the list of companies topping analysts’ expectations on Monday, and its stock rose 1.5% after the company said it added more postpaid phone customers than it lost during a first quarter for the first time since 2013. It also raised its forecast for profit growth this year, even though its revenue for the first quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations.

Domino’s Pizza helped drag on the market and fell 8.8% after it reported weaker profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 8.83 points to 7,137.91. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 62.92 to 49,167.79, and the Nasdaq composite rose 50.50 to 24,887.10.

In the bond market, Treasury yields ticked higher following the rise in oil prices. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.33% from 4.31% late Friday.

The Federal Reserve will announce its latest move on short-term interest rates Wednesday, and the consensus expectation among traders is that it will hold the federal funds rate steady. Lower rates would give the economy a boost, but they would also threaten to worsen inflation when oil is more expensive and tariffs are threatening to raise prices for all kinds of other products.

Wednesday will likely be the final meeting where Chair Jerome Powell will lead the Fed. His term as chair is scheduled to expire next month, and Trump has already named a nominee to replace him, Kevin Warsh.

The European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and Bank of England will also be announcing their own interest-rate decisions this week.

In stock markets abroad, indexes slipped in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 2.2%, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.4% for two of the world’s bigger moves.

___

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

Members of the National Science Board received an email on Friday sent from the Presidential Personnel Office “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump" stating that their position was “terminated, effective immediately.”

“I wasn’t entirely surprised, to be honest,” said dismissed board member Keivan Stassun in an email. Stassun, who works at Vanderbilt University, added that the decision was “enormously disappointing.”

The National Science Board was created in 1950 to advise the president and Congress on science and engineering policy, approve major funding awards and guide NSF’s future.

It's typically made up of 25 members appointed by the president who serve staggered, six-year terms. The fired scientists hail from academia and industry and specialize in areas including astronomy, math, chemistry and aerospace engineering.

Every member of the current 22-person board was let go, according to terminated member Yolanda Gil. The board had planned to meet in person next week and was finalizing a report on the state of U.S. science, Gil said in an email.

“I think this is one more indication of the sweeping changes that the administration has in mind for the NSF,” said Gil, who works at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California.

Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, said in a statement the move was “a dangerous attack on the institutions and expertise that drive American innovation and discovery."

The Trump administration tried to cut the science foundation's $9 billion budget by more than half last year. Congress maintained NSF's funding, but a similar slash is once again on the table for the coming year.

Without an advisory board in the way this time, Stassun said, such cuts may be easier to execute.

It could “eviscerate investments in fundamental research and in the training of the next generation of scientists and engineers for our nation," Stassun said.

The science foundation's headquarters was also relocated to a smaller building. Last year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would be moving into the NSF's former base in Alexandria, Virginia.

The National Science Foundation directed a request for comment to the White House. In an emailed statement, the White House said the powers given to the National Science Board when it was created may need to be updated. The science foundation's work “continues uninterrupted,” the statement said.

___

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 case came before the justices after a tidal wave of litigation that included some multibillion-dollar verdicts against the global agrochemical manufacturer Bayer, which owns Roundup maker Monsanto.

Several justices seemed sympathetic to the company’s argument that it can’t be sued under state law because federal regulators have found Roundup likely doesn’t cause cancer. Others, though, grilled attorneys about whether that wrongly stops states from responding to changing research.

Roundup maker Monsanto is backed by the Trump administration, a legal position that's at odds with some allies in the Make America Healthy Again movement who want to rein in pesticide use.

The case before the court was filed by a Missouri man named John Durnell. His lawsuit said he developed a cancer called non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after more than 20 years of serving as the neighborhood association’s “spray guy,” using Roundup on parks in his historic St. Louis community.

A jury agreed that the company failed to warn him about possible cancer dangers and awarded him $1.25 million. It's one of thousands of similar cases, including some multibillion-dollar damage awards.

There's still fierce debate about cancer and Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified the chemical as “probably carcinogenic" in 2015, but the Environmental Protection Agency has determined that it's not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed.

The agency approved a label without a cancer warning, and Bayer argues that it’s required to follow those federal standards — not the state laws that Durnell and others have sued under.

EPA reviews its labeling determinations every 15 years, which can be a relatively long period in terms of scientific advancement, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said.

Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether waiting for EPA review ties the hands of state courts. “Throughout that long process, in response to information that suggests there is a risk that’s not on the label, the states cannot do anything?” he questioned.

Durnell's lawyers, on the other hand, say that federal law doesn't stop Bayer from putting a warning about possible cancer risk on its products under state law.

But Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Elena Kagan both seemed concerned that facing liability under a thicket of different state laws could make it tough for companies and undermine the purpose of federal regulations. “Do you think it’s uniformity when each state can require different things?” Kavanaugh said.

Bayer disputes the cancer claims but has set aside $16 billion to settle cases, and proposed a major settlement earlier this year. At the same time, it has tried to persuade states to pass laws barring new cases, and a few have agreed.

The company has faced more than 100,000 Roundup claims, mostly from home users. It has stopped using glyphosate in Roundup sold in the U.S. residential lawn and garden market. The company has said it might have to consider pulling glyphosate from U.S. agricultural markets if the lawsuits persist.

American Farm Bureau Federation said in court documents that removing it from the market would have an "immediate, devastating risk to America's food supply" at time when the industry is already under pressure.

Environmental groups say Bayer wants to keep juries out of the lawsuits because of its state court losses.

Meanwhile, pesticides have created a rift between the administration and members of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's MAHA movement, who were also frustrated with an executive order aimed at boosting glyphosate’s production.

Kennedy himself has said repeatedly that glyphosate causes cancer, even as he says he recognizes the executive order was necessary for food supply and national security reasons.

Dozens of MAHA activists and supporters on Monday gathered outside the Supreme Court for what they called a “People vs. Poison” rally to decry Monsanto’s efforts to shield itself from lawsuits.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide the case by the end of June.

__

Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

That’s according to Luminate, an industry data and analytics company that provides insight into changing behaviors across music listenership.

A blockbuster was the cause: “Michael,” the big-budget Michael Jackson biopic released Friday, earned $97 million in U.S. and Canada theaters its opening weekend, according to studio estimates. A few weeks prior, estimates for “Michael” were closer to $50 million. Last week, the studio estimated closer to $70 million.

As a result of the movie's incredible popularity, Jackson received 31.7 million streams on Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25 in the U.S. and 16.3 million streams the previous weekend, Friday, April 17 and Saturday, April 18. That's a 95% increase.

But before Michael Jackson was Michael Jackson, he was the youngest member of The Jackson 5. The classic boy group also received a huge jump in streams. The group earned 2.4 million streams on Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25 compared to 1.3 million streams the previous weekend, Friday, April 17 and Saturday, April 18. That’s an 85% increase.

Jackson also saw a boost in plays on Apple Music. According to the streaming giant, on Monday, Jackson had eight songs on Apple Music’s Daily Top 100 Global Chart. “Billie Jean” led the pack at number 11.

And Shazam found that Jackson streams were 140% higher in volume last weekend, April 24 through April 26, than the previous weekend. As a result, there are currently seven Jackson songs on Shazam’s global top 200.

“Michael” is a box office smash despite negative reviews from critics. In his review, The Associated Press' Jake Coyle awarded the film one-and-a-half stars out of four, describing it as “a kind of fantasy film, one that relives the extraordinary highs of Michael Jackson while turning a blind eye to the lows.”

Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind have agreed to end their offshore wind leases in exchange for reimbursements totaling nearly $900 million. Both companies have decided not to pursue any new offshore wind projects in the United States, the Interior Department announced Monday.

Bluepoint Wind is an offshore wind project in the early stages of development off the coasts of New Jersey and New York, while Golden State Wind is a floating offshore wind project proposed off California’s central coast.

Interior said it's following the model of its recent deal with the French energy company TotalEnergies, which is getting a $1 billion payout to walk away from projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York. TotalEnergies agreed in March to what’s essentially a refund of its leases, and will invest the money in fossil fuel projects instead.

The deals come after the administration's efforts to block offshore wind have been thwarted by the courts. A federal judge vacated Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects in December, declaring it unlawful as she sided with state attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, D.C., who challenged the order.

Two weeks later, the administration ordered that construction stop on five major East Coast offshore wind projects, citing national security concerns. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government didn’t show that the national security risk was so imminent that construction must halt.

Environmental groups and Democrats have questioned the legality of the TotalEnergies deal and said it could be harmful to the U.S. economy and environment.

Both Bluepoint and Golden State are co-owned by Ocean Winds, a joint venture of EDP Renewables and global energy giant Engie. Bluepoint's lease cost $765 million, while Golden State Wind will be eligible to recover approximately $120 million in lease fees, Interior said.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said companies were sold a product that was only viable when propped up by massive taxpayer subsidies when they bid for these offshore wind leases in 2022, under former President Joe Biden.

“Now that hardworking Americans are no longer footing the bill for expensive, unreliable, intermittent energy projects, companies are once again investing in affordable, reliable, secure energy infrastructure,” Burgum said in a statement. “We welcome each of the projects’ willingness to actually support baseload power and lower utility bills for American families.”

Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind were slated to be major offshore wind projects, each capable of powering more than 1 million homes when complete and helping the states of New Jersey, New York and California meet their clean energy goals.

Bluepoint Wind is a partnership between Ocean Winds and Global Infrastructure Partners. Global Infrastructure Partners, a part of investment giant BlackRock, has committed to invest up to $765 million into a U.S.-based liquefied natural gas facility. Interior said it would cancel the offshore wind lease and reimburse the company for the amount invested in the LNG project.

Golden State Wind is a joint venture by Ocean Winds and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Under its agreement, Golden State Wind can recover about $120 million in lease fees after the same amount is invested in oil and gas assets, infrastructure or projects along the Gulf Coast, Interior said.

The companies said they appreciated the constructive engagement with the administration.

Michael Brown, CEO of Ocean Winds North America, said the deal provided “clarity” for the company and its investors. "Our priority remains disciplined capital allocation and delivering reliable energy solutions that create long-term value for ratepayers, partners and shareholders,” he said.

In his second term, Trump has gone all in on fossil fuels, which he says will lower costs for families, increase reliability and help the U.S. maintain global leadership in artificial intelligence.

___

McDermott reported from Providence, R.I.

___

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.

Although the rain helped the firefighting efforts, it wasn't “nearly enough to put the fires out" and crews responded to 10 new blazes throughout the drought-stricken state Sunday, the Georgia Forestry Commission said Monday.

Blackened trees and charred palmetto fronds lined the shoulders of U.S. 82 on Monday in Brantley County, where Georgia's second-largest blaze, the Highway 82 Fire, has been tearing through the forest. Smoke poured from the ground in several spots beside the highway — a sign that fire still smoldered beneath the dirt.

Residents like Anna Beaver, who had to evacuate her home in the small community of Atkinson, are doing what they can to help each other. Beaver has been spending her time accepting and sorting donated clothing at her church, Southside Baptist Church in Nahunta, a community of about 1,000 people that is the Brantley County seat. The church has been offering shelter, food, diapers and other supplies to people displaced by the fire.

“My heart hurts for everyone who has lost their homes, and I just want to help any way I can,” she said.

Danielle and David Grantham have been hunkering down at their home in the Atkinson area. They live in a neighborhood that was under an evacuation order Monday, so they wouldn't be allowed back in if they left, and have been accepting donations of pet food and other supplies from friends.

“We haven’t left just because we’re trying to help other people out,” Danielle Grantham said.

All across Brantley County on Monday, there was praise for the efforts of firefighters and other emergency responders.

In the small community of Waynesville, a charred cinderblock shed stood near a wood-sided home that appeared unscathed. The house has been vacant and is being sold. Larry Ferrell, a carpenter hired to perform maintenance and repairs on the home before the owner closes with a buyer, returned there to work Monday.

“The firefighters got in here and saved it,” Ferrell said.

Georgia's biggest blaze, the Pineland Road Fire, has scorched more than 50 square miles (130 square kilometers) and at least 35 homes in a sparsely populated and heavily wooded part of the state about 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Florida, which is also dealing with wildfires. The area has been full of highly combustible dead trees and other vegetation since Hurricane Helene carved a destructive path northward in September of 2024.

About 60 miles (97 kilometers) to the northeast, the Highway 82 Fire has been burning since April 20. It has destroyed at least 87 homes and torched more than 35 square miles (90 square kilometers), according to figures released Monday. It is only 6% contained.

“The fire basically doubled last night in size,” Brantley County Manager Joey Cason said in a Facebook post Sunday. “It is a dynamic fire event that will be impacted by the wind.”

Authorities believe the Highway 82 blaze was sparked by a foil balloon hitting live power lines. That created an electrical arc that ignited combustible material on the ground. They think the Pineland Road fire was started by sparks from a welding operation.

An unusually large number of wildfires are burning this spring across the Southeast. Firefighters have been battling more than 150 other wildfires in Georgia and Florida alone. Scientists say the threat of fire has been amplified by a combination of extreme drought, gusty winds, climate change and dead trees and other vegetation.

No fire deaths or injuries have been reported in Georgia. But in northern Florida, Nassau County Sheriff’s Office volunteer firefighter James “Kevin” Crews died Thursday evening after he suffered an unspecified medical emergency while suppressing a brush fire.

Florida's blazes are smaller than Georgia’s two biggest, but the 139 Fire has burned 10 square miles (26 square kilometers) of the Apalachicola National Forest in Liberty County, southwest of Tallahassee, since March 17. No structures have been lost in that fire, and no serious injuries have been reported, federal authorities said.

___

Martin reported from Atlanta.

The trial, which started Monday with jury selection, centers on the 2015 birth of ChatGPT maker OpenAI as a nonprofit startup primarily funded by Musk before evolving into a capitalistic venture now valued at $852 billion.

The trial's outcome could sway the balance of power in AI — breakthrough technology that is increasingly being feared as a potential job killer and an existential threat to humanity's survival.

Those perceived risks are among the reasons that Musk, the world's richest person, cites for filing an August 2024 lawsuit that will now be decided by a jury and U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California.

The civil lawsuit accuses Altman, OpenAI's CEO, and his top lieutenant, Greg Brockman, of double-crossing Musk by straying from the San Francisco company's founding mission to be an altruistic steward of a revolutionary technology. The lawsuit alleges they shifted into a moneymaking mode behind his back.

OpenAI has brushed off Musk's allegations as an unfounded case of sour grapes that's aimed at undercutting its rapid growth and bolstering Musk's own xAI, which he launched in 2023 as a competitor.

Gonzalez Rogers questioned potential jurors Monday about their views on Musk, Altman and artificial intelligence. Some jurors said they had negative views of Musk, but most said they would still be able to treat him fairly and focus on the facts of the case.

Trial promises clashing testimony from two tech titans

Musk, who invested about $38 million in OpenAI from December 2015 through May 2017, initially was seeking more than $100 billion in damages.

But any damages now are likely to be much smaller after a series of pre-trial rulings that went against Musk. Musk has since abandoned a bid for damages for himself and instead is seeking an unspecified amount of money to be paid to fund the altruistic efforts of OpenAI's charitable arm. The money would be paid primarily by OpenAI's for-profit operations, and Microsoft, which became the company's biggest investor after Musk cut off his funding.

Musk's lawsuit also seeks Altman's ouster from OpenAI's board. Musk's decision to stop funding the company contributed to a bitter falling out between the former allies. Musk says he was responding to deceptive conduct that OpenAI's board picked up on when it fired Altman as CEO in 2023 before he got his job back days later.

But the trial also carries risks for Musk, who last month was held liable by another jury for defrauding investors during his $44 billion takeover of Twitter in 2022. Any damaging details about Musk and his business tactics could be particularly hurtful now because his rocket ship maker, SpaceX, plans to go public this summer in an initial public offering that could make him the world's first trillionaire.

However it turns out, the trial is expected to provide riveting theater, with contrasting testimony from two of technology's most influential and polarizing figures in the 54-year-old Musk and the 41-year-old Altman.

“Part of this is about whether a jury believes the people who will testify and whether they are credible,” Gonzalez Rogers said during a court hearing earlier this year while explaining why she believe the case merited a trial. The judge will make the final decision on the case, with the jury serving in an advisory role.

Evidence has included glimpses of the AI race's early days

Musk, whose estimated fortune stands at about $780 billion, has long been hailed as a visionary for his roles creating digital payment pioneer PayPal, electric automaker Tesla and rocket ship maker SpaceX. But he has also provoked backlashes with his social media commentary, unfulfilled promises about Tesla's self-driving technology and his cost-cutting role last year in President Donald Trump's administration.

Some of Musk's erratic behavior has been tied to allegations of taking hallucinogenic drugs, but Gonzalez Rogers ruled that he can't be asked during the trial about his suspected use of ketamine. But the judge is allowing Musk to be questioned about his attendance at the 2017 Burning Man festival in Nevada, a free-wheeling celebration known for widespread drug use. The judge is also allowing Musk to be questioned about his relationship with former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis, the mother of several of his children.

Altman, currently sitting on a roughly $3 billion fortune, didn't emerge in the public consciousness until the late 2022 release of ChatGPT. The tech boom triggered by that conversational chatbot has led some to liken Altman to a 21st-century version of the nuclear bomb inventor, J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Although Altman was initially hailed as trailblazer he is now facing blowback amid worries about AI's potential dangers. Earlier this month, the New Yorker magazine published a profile that painted him as an unscrupulous executive. Days later, a 20-year-old man worried about AI's effect on humanity was arrested on attempted murder charges after throwing a Molotov cocktail at Altman's San Francisco home.

The dueling testimonies of Altman and Musk are expected to open a window into some of the thinking that helped trigger the AI race, as well as the unraveling of their friendship. The kinship was forged in 2015 when they agreed to build AI in a more responsible and safer way than the profit-driven companies controlled by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, according to evidence submitted ahead of the trial.

Details of the bitter break between the two men were captured in a February 2023 email exchange that surfaced as part of the evidence leading up to the trial.

After letting Musk know “you're my hero,” Altman tells him: “I am tremendously thankful for everything you’ve done to help —I don't think OpenAI would have happened without you — and it really (expletive) hurts when you publicly attack OpenAI.”

Musk's response: “I hear you and it is certainly not my intention to be hurtful, for which I apologize, but the fate of civilization is at stake.”

A Cape Cod seafood company has donated a rare two-colored lobster to a science center, sparing the critter from the kettle because of its remarkable coloration. The lobster found is the typical brown color on one side and bright orange on the other, and the two-toned pattern goes all the way from its head to its tail.

Representatives for Wellfleet Shellfish Company in Eastham, Massachusetts, said Monday they have been fielding inquiries about the crustacean for days. The company gifted the lobster to Woods Hole Science Aquarium in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and it will be put on public display when the aquarium reopens, the company said.

“The lobster is now with Woods Hole Science Aquarium’s animals currently being housed in holding tanks at the Marine Biological Laboratory during the aquarium’s construction period. When the aquarium reopens, the lobster will be on display, offering visitors a rare look at one of the ocean’s most striking natural anomalies,” the shellfish company said in a statement.

Fishermen caught the lobster off Cape Cod on April 16. Oddly colored lobsters often make their way to New England's docks over the course of the spring and summer, but the two-colored specimen is rarer than most.

The American lobster is usually a mottled brown, but they can experience color abnormalities due to gene mutations that affect the proteins that bind to their pigments. Some are blue or orange, some are spotted calico and others are so brightly color they're called “cotton candy” lobsters.

A two-colored lobster can occur because two lobster eggs fused and grew as one animal, marine sciences professor Markus Frederich of the University of New England in Maine told The Associated Press in 2024. There are estimates about the rarity of different lobster colors, though Frederich has also cautioned that such figures are approximations.

On Cape Cod, Wellfleet Shellfish Company said it's treating the two-colored lobster as a “remarkable and exciting find.”

As of last week, nearly the entirety of the state was under severe drought conditions. The April showers were certainly lacking.

That changed on Saturday, and potentially happens again this week!

Tuesday could be a pretty wet morning, with a drier afternoon in store. There could be a few isolated showers in the afternoon following the initial line of downpours, but the most widespread rainfall happens in the morning.

Wednesday looks a tad bit more widespread in terms of rainfall coverage, with the chance of more thunderstorms. The initial round of rainfall passes in the middle of the day, before giving way to more isolated chances of thunderstorms in the late afternoon.

There COULD be a few more showers Friday night and into Saturday, but the totals are still a bit uncertain.

While it’s well known this will help with our drought conditions, this rainfall will also help with washing out some of that pesky pollen. If you’re like me and get hid hard with allergies, this is certainly some good news for you!

You can see how the pollen forecast drops on Thursday and Friday after we get that soaking rainfall.

It also may save you a brief carwash if your vehicle is coated...

Today we are a couple of degrees below average, but still nice! We will reach the lower 70s in the afternoon with skies clearing during the late morning and early afternoon.

Futurecast keeps us dry all day today with a few showers passing to our north. Besides that, there is nothing much to write home about in terms of active weather!

That does change tomorrow as widespread rain is back in the picture starting around 7 AM, so be sure to pack the umbrella for the morning and early afternoon.

Our temperatures will remain consistently below average for this time of year, in the upper 60s and lower 70s this week. After the rainfall on Tuesday and Wednesday, we get a break from the rain on Thursday before resuming with a few isolated showers for the latter half of the week.

Greetings Insiders!

I want to tell you about the latest reason to be excited about being a WSLS Insider. John Carlin’s Outdoors!

Two times a month, I’ll take you along as we shine a light on the amazing outdoors here in Virginia’s Blue Ridge and beyond. And two times a month, Insiders will be able to see this content first!

I’ll be taking you along as we explore the trails on foot and on a bike. We’ll go fishing. We’ll paddle local waters in a canoe or a kayak, and maybe even see how much fun we can have in boat with a motor!

Occasionally, I’ll talk with experts about the local wildlife, so maybe we know a bit more about the areas where we all love to play. And come winter, we’ll point our skis downhill and see how to have fun in the snow.

Competition is a big part of the way we interact with our woods, rivers, and mountains. At times we compete against one another in a race of some sort. But most of the time we are challenging ourselves to overcome the obstacles in front of us - to achieve some sort of personal ambition.

To attempt something difficult just to see if we can do it.

One thing I can tell you is that these places and activities always lead to a story. The people you meet and their rich accounts of their experiences in the outside world can be fascinating. My job is to find them and share their stories with you.

John Carlin’s Outdoors stories will be on 10 News Now, WSLS.com and on the air Sunday mornings on 10 News Today. But Insiders will always see them first!

Let’s get outdoors!

John Carlin News Anchor WSLS 10

P.S.: As a bonus we are bringing back a 10 News favorite – the annual summer fishing picture competition. Stay tuned as we tell you more about how to send in your best fishing pix from the summer of 2022. We’ll share them on air, on the web and social media – and maybe we’ll even choose the best picture of the whole summer season!

Inside the park, companies make everything from heavy machinery to beer.

But we are here for the trail and the lake. Specifically, to have wildlife photographer Garland Kitts show us that amidst this rural version of industry there is a substantial amount of wildlife.

Garland has a knack for finding that wildlife and capturing it through the lens of his camera.

After retiring four years ago, he’s been able to devote several hours a day to the quest.

He’s looking for pictures with a little something extra. It’s not enough to simply see the subject and record it. They must be downright interesting too.

“A win is a shot that is in focus it is a little bit on the unique side. Not just a flat-looking bird or an animal or anything else. It’s something like a bird has a worm in its mouth. Or it’s hanging upside down on a tree,” Kitts said.

After visiting a website called E-bird, where local birders report recent sightings of interesting birds, he’s hoping to photograph a small, somewhat uncommon duck, called a teal.

“I understand there’s probably a couple of Bluewing Teals out here. So hopefully will be able to see those,” Kits explained as we arrived.

On the way to his preferred spot – he suddenly stops, because he heard something.

“I’m looking for a yellow warbler to come flying back over,” Kitts said as a bird chirped somewhere in the cover of the nearby trees and bushes.

Three hours a day of looking for subjects is paying off. He knows a pretty bird when he hears it.

An app on his phone, called Merlin listens to the birdsong and confirms it is a yellow warbler. Kitts places a Bluetooth speaker on a branch and plays back the sounds of the chirping warbler.

Then it’s a waiting game.

And a couple of minutes later the bird homes in on the speaker.

Kitts sees the motion first, then spots the dash of yellow among the branches.

He looks through the lens and waits for an angle, one with no leaves in the way.

Moments later the shutter clicks at 30 frames per second. More than a few of those shots are “good” ones.

Kitts has captured the image of a beautiful yellow bird most people would have never noticed.

It’s a safe bet even the outdoorsiest people have never even seen a yellow warbler.

Say nothing of having taken a picture of one.

If bird photography were baseball, warblers would be single-A, while the mighty birds of prey would be the major leagues.

Songbirds are one thing, but photographing raptors – hawks, falcons, and eagles is a grade above. If bird photography were baseball, warblers would be single-A – while the mighty birds of prey would be the major leagues.

Kitts is just back from California where he captured images of peregrine falcons – which can dive at 180 miles per hour when seeking prey.

“When I first got there the first thing I saw was the male peregrine setting maybe 15 yards from me on a limb on the side of the cliff. I mean a perfect shot,” he said.

As good as that shot was, he went back the next day and struck photographer gold.

“The male went out. He caught a pigeon. Prepared it for the female, by pulling the feathers off of it. And then he launched off the cliff wall and flew in a circle in front of where the cave is - where the nest is,” Kitts said.

He was witnessing how the male and female falcons take care of their young. The male hunts and brings the food – in this case, a pigeon. But he doesn’t come straight to the nest. The birds do an amazing mid-air exchange of lunch for the young.

And Kitts captured the whole thing.

“The male is carrying the pigeon. The female comes under him, still flying and in mid-flight, he hands her (the food) out of his beak into her talons and she flies back into the cave to feed the youngsters,” he explained. “I’ll never have this happen again. What a dream this is to get this photo.”

Talk about a little something extra.

Kitts shares his images on his Facebook page and it’s clear he has an amazing talent.

Photos of water dripping from a beak of a loon, a pair of beavers, a mink along the Roanoke River.

And a den of foxes.

“I went over and kind of did the hiding thing in the weeds. … Sure enough one of the youngsters popped his head up. Got some pretty good shots of him.”

Another of his favorite images is a bald eagle scratching his head.

“I took several shots and he started doing all kinds of funny things moving around. I realized he was wet … then he starts scratching his head. It was very cool to watch. Almost comical and some ways,” Kitts said.

We walked on hoping to find those small ducks – but again birdsong interrupts.

Once again, the song on the speaker. Once again, the reward – a bird amongst the leaves comes into view.

It’s a sparrow-sized bright blue bird called an indigo bunting.

Not a first for Kitts but always worth the space on his digital media.

“Always looking for something I haven’t seen before. The beauty of birding is that you never know,” he said.

Kitts keeps a list of all the birds he has photographed. His life list includes more than 300 species.

We continued walking the Cherry Blossom trail, stepping into openings near the lake in search of the elusive teal. At one point he spotted them in the distance through his binoculars. But the little ducks are camera shy and never come into view when we are near enough for a photo.

“That happens,” Kitts said with a shrug of his shoulders.

After several hours we pack up and are almost back to the car when he hears something else. In the trees above us, is a Baltimore Oriole.

After a few chirps on the speaker, the bird comes into view, and Kitts records another gorgeous shot.

He makes it look easy. But that’s because he’s put in the time.

“You can’t expect to spend 30 minutes today looking for stuff and have it come to you. And have a lot of photos you just can’t do it,” he cautioned.

For Kitts – The Oriole is not one of those elusive birds he’s never seen – it’s not even a bird doing something special.

But once again it’s an example of what any walker or hiker might see if they slow down to smell the roses.

Or maybe listen to the birds.

Capt. Travis Patsell idled up to the dock as we unpacked the car. He had already been out to net the day’s bait, so the live well was full and we were ready to hit the lake.

The first thing you notice is that Patsell has the look of a man who knows his way around a fishing pole.

“I’ve been fishing this lake all my life. Thirty-eight years now. Been running charters since 2010. That was a catfish trip,” Patsell said.

Since 2010 he’s run more charters than he can remember. If anyone knows where the fish are, it’s him. That said, the thing about fishing is that when you leave the dock, no matter how pretty it is or how much experience you have, you never know if you’re gonna catch one.

And I really wanted to catch one.

More than just fishing

This outing is tinged with sentimentality. Along on the trip is the guy who first took me striper fishing in the late 1980’s, Steve Reynolds.

Known affectionately by his friends as just, “Reynolds,” Steve was my neighbor when I first moved to the area in 1988. We quickly learned of our mutual interest in fishing, and he offered to take me to the lake to catch stripers. Reynolds had already been fishing the lake a long time. He remembers when it was just a big body of water.

“It was when there were no houses on it at all... The first time I took my boat out I had one (a striper) that was like 18 pounds,” he said. “The fishing was really good. We had a lot of 15 to 30-pounders.

Just remember what all the bumper stickers say about fishermen and well, to say it nicely - exaggerating.

The fact is that back then, Reynolds and I seldom caught any fish.

And he blames me.

There was the time he fell in the water trying to get my line untangled from the motor and I had to pull him back in the boat.

Yes. My line was tangled. But it was Reynolds who failed to lock the motor in the upright position before leaning over it.

You decide.

Then there was the inevitable time I lost the big one. It was actually pulling the boat.

He thought it important to tell the story while Patsell searched for the right spot.

“I remember when you lost that big fish. ... I said you got a big one and you’re fighting and fighting it and the pole’s going crazy - and proof. Nothing. I said what the hell? You real it in - your not knot came untied.”

Sadly, he was right. My knot came untied.

Nice of him to remind me.

New day, new fishing stories

30 years later it’s time to update the stories.

And Captain Travis puts us on the fish.

The rod nearest me goes haywire and I grabbed it and began reeling. It’s a striper, but it’s small. Not what we were hoping for.

But it’s early.

As we troll slowly, Captain Travis steers the motor from a watch-sized controller on his wrist. He reminds us that fishing is about patience. He also tempts fate by telling us about all the big fish that might be around the boat.

“There’s a pretty good population of 30 to 38-inch fish in here,” he said.

The next fish would go to Reynolds.

It’s a bit bigger.

Reynolds is excited. He holds the fish up for a photo and even gives it a kiss for the camera.

The fishing slowed again and Capt. Travis moved us to another spot, where suddenly we were surrounded by other fishermen.

Naturally, all the other boats were catching fish, while we were left to watch the action.

But Travis, who spends most days on the lake, promises our time is coming.

A part of me wants to be Travis. Fishing all the time and being really good at it.

“It’s long hours but like I said it’s a pretty good office,” he said pointing to the water around us and the nearby mountains that rim the lake. “Where do you get that sitting in a chair?”

I asked him if he fished on his days off. “We plan our vacations around different fish. I love it,” he said. And he means it.

We move to a different spot and Reynolds catches a catfish – and begins talking smack.

“John Carlin has never out-fished the old man. Never,” he said laughing.

And then the rod nearest to me bends and the day’s promise is about to make good.

I begin reeling, but the fish is taking drag and refuses to be turned toward that boat. It tries to break me off by heading toward the propeller and some other lines in the water. A drone captures the fight for the TV story we are shooting.

There was a lot going on, but slowly I got the fish near the boat and Travis netted it.

Travis says it will go about 15 pounds.

That would be the biggest fish of the day.

Meaning I caught the biggest and the first. Just in case Reynolds is taking notes.

No matter.

There’s a saying that goes that most men spend their whole life fishing, never knowing it’s not really the fish they are after.

It’s great to have been on the water with Travis and Reynolds, who sold his own boat a couple of years ago.

“Fishing used to be my life. And I wish it still was. But I’m too old,” Reynolds said, smiling and knowing he just proved that he still has what it takes.

As a bonus we are bringing back a 10 News favorite – the annual summer fishing picture competition. To send in your best fishing pix from the summer of 2022, click here.

We’ll share them on air, on the web and social media – and maybe we’ll even choose the best picture of the whole summer season!

This was a snorkeling trip with a wicked bumpy and thrilling twist.

We would get to drive our own boats. In this case, 10-foot-long inflatables equipped with 40 horsepower outboards that would just plain fly.

We booked this excursion back during the cold winter months, and it turned out to be good planning because the trips are all booked this time of year.

I talked with Nani Atiles, one of the guides for Kayak Puerto Rico.

“Especially for summer, It’s fully booked, morning and afternoon,” Nani said.

My son, Ben, his wife, Alyce, and I left Pourto Chico Marina in Fajardo. In our little boats cruising past larger boats resting in their slips.

Once out in open water, it was downright rough

Waves running 3-5 feet made the boating more of an adventure, with the inflatables bouncing off the waves instead of cutting through them like a boat with a standard hull.

There were handholds for the passengers, and while Ben drove, Alyce and I white-knuckled it, trying not to be bounced out of our seats.

As difficult as it was, the unpredictability was an improvement over the previous day’s excursion.

We had hiked to a beautiful river in the rainforest, where we slid down a modest waterfall into a crystal clear pool of water. We later jumped from a small cliff, then dropped in from a rope swing. It made for great pictures and had we been on our own it might have felt more, well, adventurous.

But it felt soooo pre-programmed walking in a line of tourists wearing life vests and helmets. Doing what the guides said, when they said.

Yes, it was fun.

But this, with the unknown both on top of and under the water… was better.

Underwater, I saw sea fans, gorgonians and massive brain corals, while fish skittered in every direction.

Our guide had also issued a warning that we might see sharks or barracudas. He also pointed out fire coral, which can cause a burn if you touch it.

I’ve done enough snorkeling to recognize most of the fish and coral species I saw. And I took it all in until it was time to kick back to the little boats to head to our second stop of the day — Icacos Cay, a remote island.

We walked around and learned about the history and wildlife.

But the water was calling. We snorkeled a bit off the beach, but it was like looking at an underwater desert. With no rocks or corals to provide places for fish to hang out, there was nothing to see.

But Ben and Alyce discovered the underwater wreckage of some old machinery from the island’s industrial past. An old wheel – apparently a pulley of some kind, was home to lots of fish. We circled it for about 15 minutes and discovered a large puffer fish trying to hide beneath a large piece of rusted metal.

Ashley Martin of Los Angeles had been set up in the boat next to ours. She had never been snorkeling before.

“It was beautiful,” she said. “Beau-Tee-Ful,” she sounded out for emphasis. “I wish I could get back on and do it again.”

She had taken a GoPro with her, and never turned it on.

“Seeing it for real, and seeing it on camera, doesn’t do it justice,” Ashley said. She wanted to remember the version that came from her own eyes.

Soon, the snorkeling was over, but the boating back was still in front of us. As we started out, a wave almost bounced me into the water. While I was driving.

The unexpected bump sent one leg over the side of the inflatable while my arm flailed, looking for something to hold onto. It wasn’t easy since the inflatable had no hard edges where I could get a grip.

Though it was a bit of a struggle, I finally returned to my seat while Ben and Alyce looked back at me from the front of the boat. I’m sure Ben wishes he was back in the driver’s seat.

As for me – I’m with Ashley. I wish I could go back and do it again.

But remember what they say about judging a book by its cover.

There may be nobody on earth more familiar with Fenwick Mines than Woody Lipps, who visited as a child, then worked for the Forest Service for 35 years, helping to manage the property. Now he’s retired. But it’s clear he still sees the value in the place, which is managed by the U.S. Forest Service.

“The first time I came to Fenwick mines was in the 1960s. I grew up in Southwest Roanoke County and my dad and I used to come up here. There wasn’t much here then. It was called the Fenwick Forest walk. There was a little trail between the side of the road and into the waterfall and that was about it,” Lipps said.

Lipps agreed to give us a tour of the place, beginning with the waterfall, which is worth a trip all by itself.

Park your car and walk less than half a mile on an easy, flat trail, turn a corner, and there it is.

Mill Creek falls about 20 feet over the local sandstone, then forms a shallow pool surrounded by walls that look as if they were carved by stone workers. But Lipps says the space is all-natural.

One of the attractions of Fenwick Mines is that it isn’t crowded.

“I like just everything about it. The trees. The sound of the creek. I just love it,” said Sandy Grubbs, who was out for a 2 to 3-mile walk.

“Nature is a big part of it. I’ve seen salamanders, snakes - used to be beavers haven’t seen those in a long time. Deer of course. Never seen a bear but I know they’re here,” Grubbs said.

Fenwick Mines’ history has all but been erased

But there is more than nature here.

There’s a reason it’s called Fenwick Mines.

The area is green and tree covered. But from the late 1800s to about 1920, it was a thriving town that supported iron mining.

Photos from the Craig County Historical Society document a few of the buildings and people who called Fenwick mines home.

There is a map that shows the size of the town that supported the operations of the Low Moore Iron Company.

“There were hundreds of people. They had a playhouse here - a theater, entertainment. At least one possibly as many as three churches. Neighborhoods, with houses. It was huge. It was a boom town, but it’s all gone now,” Lipps said.

When the mines closed, the company took everything away – and today, there are scarce traces of what once was.

“There is almost no trace left... Even for the archaeologists to find what was here,” Lipps said.

But Fenwick Mines offers plenty to see and do

No trace of the town. But there’s a pond, wetlands, butterflies and wildflowers.

And don’t forget Mill Creek.

Anglers with a deft touch might just entice a native brook trout to take the bait.

“For me, it’s all about just being out here listening to the water, and if you catch one that’s a big bonus,” Lipps said as he rigged his fly rod with a tiny fly made from elk’s hair and designed to imitate an insect called a caddis fly.

We hiked about half a mile through some thick underbrush hoping we might have some luck.

It’s important to sneak into position to cast as the fish spook easily in the shallow, clear water.

Despite our best efforts, all we caught was a small minnow that also calls the creek home.

We can’t blame the fish or Mill Creek.

We’ll chalk it up to angler error.

No matter – at Fenwick mines – it’s just about being there.

Be it hiking, fishing, or just observing.

“Fenwick mines is more of a place for quiet contemplation,” Lipps said. “There comes a time about anytime that you can find yourself here alone. And it’s peaceful it’s quiet. You’re just here.”

10 News anchor John Carlin also had the chance to go for a short bike ride with her and do a sit-down interview.

Riding bikes with Kristin Armstrong is like riding with royalty.

Armstrong won Olympic gold in the time trial in Beijing in 2008, then again in London in 2012, then Rio in 2016. That makes her the most decorated female cyclist in U.S. history.

As we rode our bikes along Wiley Drive in Roanoke, I asked her what life is like now that her professional career has drawn to a close.

“I think when I look back at training and racing bikes - as much as I hate to say this - I think that was the easy life,” Armstrong said.

But even that life wasn’t so easy. And it wasn’t just the training required to be at the pinnacle of her sport.

After Beijing, Armstrong retired to start a family. Her son, Lucas now 12 was an infant when she decided to come back.

“So it was only about six weeks after having Lucas when I announced coming out of retirement. It was about 22 months before London,” she said.

Armstrong told the crowd of hundreds at the annual dinner for Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge, that she then had to break additional barriers.

“I mean to travel with my family? To show up with my baby? Just so you know it’s not allowed,“ Armstrong said.

But she made it. Even with new responsibilities.

“I was still breastfeeding, and I was traveling to the airport to my first race, and my husband would take him at the start line. Right when I cross the finish line of course you gotta do what you gotta do,” she explained. “It took a lot of dedication from my husband, my family. They traveled with me. I remember going to the airport with my pack and play and my stroller and I’m like now, do I have my bike with me?”

On race day she beat the world - and won several other battles.

“Not only did I get to stand on the podium, but I also got to stand on the podium with my son,” Armstrong told the Visit VBR audience with more than a few tears in her eyes.

Then came Rio and a new struggle. She was now over 40 – too old in many people’s eyes.

“So, when I turned 40 wasn’t necessarily viewed by everyone as a positive. But the difference is that when Lance Armstrong came back out of retirement over 40 it was the coolest thing ever. So, explain that to me,” Armstrong said

But we know the results.

Gold.

The day before her 43rd Birthday.

Few professional athletes have seen that level of success after 40. Armstrong said she is used to the comparisons people make to NFL quarterbacks Tom Brady and Brett Favre.

Armstrong lives in Boise, Idaho, which is known for its rugged scenery. Riding around Roanoke, she gushed about the quality of cycling in Virginia’s Blue Ridge.

“My gosh, you can’t beat the cycling around here. I was out on the Blue Ridge Parkway yesterday. [The mountains] are great. They’re very rolling,” she said.

What’s Next for Kristin Armstrong

Armstrong hasn’t slowed in the slightest, since retiring from competitive cycling.

She’s coaching individual cyclists, has opened two gyms, travels the nation speaking – and serves as a high-performance consultant and mentor to the now Roanoke-based VBR Team Twenty 24, which has produced 14 Olympians over its history.

“I continue to be a part of my dear friend Nichola Cranmer’s program which is Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty-24 cycling team. This is truly the next generation. The team is filled with junior development. It’s filled with elite athletes who are going to world championships. Winning national championships, going to the Olympics in Paris,” she said.

If anything, Armstrong upped her pace. She jokes that she has a Type AAA personality and simply cannot sit still.

She also admits it’s a mistake to challenge her. As many did when she twice came out of retirement.

She’s not bitter. But she does admit a bit of extra motivation that comes from being challenged.

“I learned a long time ago that if you’re in the sport or if you’re in business to prove something, you’re in it for the wrong reason. So, it does fuel my fire and so that is one thing but I’m not in the sport to prove people wrong. It does really accelerate my desire, Armstrong admitted as we rode through Roanoke’s Old Southwest neighborhood.

Through it all, she places being a mother first, from including Lucas in her Olympic endeavors, to picking him up at school.

“There are those who believe that you should stop doing anything, your goals that you have set out for yourself. And that everything should go towards your newborn or your children. I feel that continuing on with some individual goals will only provide more for my son because I’m leading by example,” Armstrong said. “I can’t imagine my career and having to explain to my son all before you were born ‘I used to be.’ Because he was able to live part of this experience with me.

What happens when someone devotes Olympic champion caliber training to regular life?

“People question me they’re like what are you doing aren’t you going to chill out and relax? And I would go home thinking should I be chilling out relaxing, but the minute I have like an hour of downtime I create, my mind creates, like five more things to do.”

Armstrong added, “A lot of times in life we complain about, we’re so busy, we’re so this, but you know for the person who thrives off being busy, try being bored. It’s horrible.”

Kristin Armstrong has broken records and barriers. And she still isn’t finished.

Want to know more about Kristin? Click the links below:

• Kristin’s address to the Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge Annual Meeting (RVTV)
• Kristin Armstrong USA
• Kristin’s Gyms
• Coaching

During a week of bicycle touring in Sonoma and Napa Counties in Northern California, one day stood out. Over the course of about 50 miles, I checked off two bucket list items and added one I didn’t even know I wanted.

There’s riding a bicycle, and then there’s riding amongst some of the world’s most beautiful and iconic scenery. This ride began from Bodega Bay, Ca. on the Pacific Ocean.

The first ten miles would be on California Highway One, which parallels the coast for 650 miles. It was thrilling to ride bikes along ten miles of the highway, with the blue ocean off to our left.

As we cycled, the high bluffs and rocky shoreline kept producing postcard-like scenery, forcing us to take our guide’s advice to stop for photos.

We toured with about 25 people from all over the U.S. and Canada, with a company called Backroads, which provided the bikes, gave us daily routes and support, made hotel reservations, and planned most of the meals. All we had to do was ride.

“It’s breathtaking. It’s absolutely spectacular. I’ve never been to the west coast to see this view of the Pacific. And it’s fabulous. There’s no comparison because you really take in the sounds and the scenery on a bike,” said Lucy Stephens of Charlotte, NC, a member of our group.

It would have been nice to stay on the coast longer, but that was not part of the plan.

So be it. Those ten miles crossed an item off that bucket list.

Ride Highway One. Check.

Riding to the Col. James Armstrong Redwood Reserve.

There was a good reason to turn off Highway One.

We would point our bikes inland along the beautiful Russian River on our way to lunch in an 805-acre park where the coastal redwood trees – the tallest trees on earth, are protected in a state reserve.

But first, coffee.

Thirteen miles into the day’s riding we pulled over in Duncans Mills, population 85, at a place called Gold Coast Coffee and Pastries.

The guides provided pastries, while we bought our own brew.

“It’s a great spot. They’ve got wonderful baked goods on top of coffee that they roast themselves,” explained Justin Helmkamp, one of the ride leaders.

“Next stop today… We’ve got about 10.7 miles and we are headed to our lunch location which is going to be in Armstrong Preserve which is a state preserve area that has some of the biggest trees on the planet,” Helmkamp said.

We started seeing a smattering of redwood trees almost immediately after our stop. About an hour from the reserve itself, we rode along on a small strip of asphalt called Moscow Road.

The trees towered above us, dwarfing the cottages and cabins that dotted the landscape and had me thinking about finding an Airbnb sometime in the future. It was magical, and yes, we stopped for pictures.

Soon we rode into the small town of Guerneville, turned north, and arrived at the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve.

The redwoods covered most of the region at one point, but 95 percent were cut down during the California gold rush.

Here 805 acres are preserved forever, donated in the 1870’s by Colonel James Armstrong, who ironically was a lumberman.

Another of our ride leaders, Jason Stawiski stood on a picnic table and told us about the trees.

“This is the tallest living species on earth which is 300 feet. They can live to be 2,500 years old, or even older,” Stawiski said.

“We are looking at like 12–16-foot diameters with these trees. And the cool thing is their root system, it only goes six feet deep. That’s why you had all those bumps biking in – They will go 100-plus feet out. And all these roots will connect with all their sister and brother trees here, and they can actually pass nutrients, they can pass water and they can help each other survive. So, this is the tallest living species on earth,” he said.

The oldest tree, Col. James Armstrong, named after the reserve’s benefactor, was a sapling when Europe was in the Middle Ages.

“As of last time it was measured – which was over 50 years ago, it was 308 feet and 1,400 years old. So it’s a substantial tree,” explained Ron Rahari, a park docent.

Three hundred and eight feet. A tree — taller than a football field is long.

Riding through the Redwood Forest, cycling among these giants is humbling. It creates a certain feeling of insignificance.

These trees have lived perhaps 20 human lifetimes.

As you ride, and the sunlight strains to reach the forest floor, respect competes with awe - and the feeling you are just lucky to be there, on a bicycle not just seeing the forest, but experiencing it.

Check another item off that bucket list.

Wine tasting our way to Healdsburg

We had ridden from the coast to the forest, and yet more was to come on this bike ride.

With the redwoods towering behind us, the scenery gave way to acres and acres of grapes.

Our ultimate destination was our hotel in the town of Healdsburg.

But first, wine.

What would a bike tour in Sonoma County be without a stop at a vineyard or two since the county boasts 425 of them?

Over the next 20 miles, we stopped at two tasting rooms. The first, Gracianna is a small family-owned vineyard whose micro-climate lends itself to the growing of pinot noir grapes.

A few miles down the road, and acres of vineyards later, we parked our bikes at Twomey, a tasting room with a modern design featuring winding, wraparound patios, and views of the surrounding mountains.

From there, it was a short, two-mile ride to the hotel, where there was time to contemplate all you could see in a single bike ride.

It may be surprising then that Elk are taking hold in eastern states like Kentucky, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and even Virginia.

A member of the deer family, larger than white-tailed deer, but smaller than moose, Elk are majestic creatures. This is especially true of the bulls whose antlers dwarf those of their white-tailed cousins.

“Elk are a native species to North America. So, a lot of people think about them as a western species. But they were native to all-over North America. When Europeans got here they would’ve been all over the place,” said Jackie Rosenberger a game biologist in charge of managing the Virginia herd for the State Department of Wildlife Resources.

“In fact, it was estimated that there were more elk than whitetail deer at the time when Europeans were arriving on the continent,” Rosenberger added.

Except for a couple of short-lived attempts to re-establish the elk herd in Virginia, there hadn’t been any in the Commonwealth until 10 years ago, when the state released 75 at a reclaimed coal mine in Buchanan County.

Even then it was controversial.

“It’s my understanding that the main concern with agriculture is disease because there are diseases that cattle and elk can share,” Rosenberger said.

Success in Kentucky and Tennessee opened the door in far southwest Virginia in counties where less than 6 percent of the land is used for farming.

“This is ground zero for the release,” said Austin Bradley, Superintendent of Breaks Interstate Park, located on the Virginia-Kentucky border. Bradley points to a reclaimed coal mine in Buchanan County, where several dozen elk can be seen grazing in a field.

It was here that the elk were released in Virginia and the place where many have stayed. A fact that is not surprising to those who know the animal’s tendencies.

“Elk habitat is really centered on reclaimed mine land. So, there’s two main components of elk habitat. It’s open fields kind of grasslands, early successional type areas that they like to feed in. But they need that in close association with forest land,” Rosenberger said.

From the original 75 Elk, the herd has grown to 250 plus.

“We’ve got about 200 in Buchanan County. In about 50 or so down in Wise County and there are some elk that are spread out in other counties as well and southwest Virginia,” Rosenberger explained.

Biologists consider this a success story.

It’s a far cry from the estimated 13,000 elk in Kentucky, but that has never been the goal in Virginia.

Nor is it the goal to see elk all over the Commonwealth.

The plan is to keep them essentially in coal country.

“The ultimate goal is just to keep growing the population. Until we have kind of maxed out or are approaching maxing out the space we have available for them, but to be honest with you we’re really not even close to that. We’ve got a lot of land within our management zone, which is Buchanan, Dickinson, and Wise Counties that aren’t being utilized by elk,” she said.

And it appears people like the elk, as much as the Elk like Virginia. Elk bus tours that originate at Breaks Park have grown steadily in popularity over the last decade and are sold out through the end of 2022.

“Over the course of the last 10 years what we have seen is that the tours had become so popular that we had to get a 32-passenger bus a few years ago,” Badley said.

Elk are a big draw. And others have found a way to leverage this newfound natural resource into tourist dollars.

“If it hadn’t been for the elk this building wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t have tried to do it,” said Billie Campbell who owns and operates Southern Gap Outdoor Adventure. The small resort features cabins, camping, and a lodge. Thirty-five thousand out of staters came here last year to see the elk.

“The elk have been a tremendous draw for our area. We’ve got other sites in southwest Virginia that do ATV riding of that kind of thing, but elk have been our one-off that we can say that we’re different from everyone,” Campbell said. “They’re all free-ranging but they’re very predictable. So, we’ve actually got some of them known by name.”

People from all fifty states, and six countries have come to Southern Gap to see the Elk – one of the few places you can regularly view them without being on a bus tour.

Despite amazing scenery, hiking, and attractions such as a zip line, it’s the Elk that are the star attraction at Breaks, even though they are not on the Park’s property.

“The elk viewing tours are the most highly rated activity that we have on TripAdvisor - all of our online reviews. Just constant mentions of the experience of the elk tours,” Bradley said.

And the chances of seeing an elk on the tour are better than good.

“Over the course of 10 years so far we have a 100% success rate for viewing elk on every single tour that we’ve ever taken,” he said.

Though the elk are there year-round, the best show is in the fall, when dominant males round up the cows into groups. It is also in the fall when the males let out a low mournful sounding howl known as bugling.

“Once you hear it, you never forget it,” Campbell said.

Rosenberger said that when mountain tops were removed to mine the coal, a side effect was that it created flat spaces in an otherwise steep landscape, creating perfect elk habitat.

And plenty of it.

“We can manipulate their numbers through hunting mostly. But we can also manipulate where we want them to go through habitat management. And so, there’s really good elk habitat here. So, these elk would be crazy to move off of this and go to these neighboring counties that are not being specifically managed for them,” Rosenberger said.

Re-introduced animals on reclaimed land. A growing success story in southwest Virginia.

If you don’t know what that is, think of a barracuda, with big teeth that lives in freshwater, and they can be up to 4 feet long, even in the James River.

“I wouldn’t say it’s typical, but it’s a great musky day. It’s musky weather,” said Austin Conrad, one of two guides from Virginia Trophy Guides, who specialize in Musky fishing – when they are not seeking huge trout, or guiding in Alaska during the summer months.

“Overcast. Low light. A little bit of precipitation keeping the river up and a little less clear that James River Green we all know and love,” Conrad said as he rowed the fishing raft out into the cold water.

Muskies — sulking predators among the biggest of freshwater fish — love cold water. The James and New rivers in particular are perfect for them. The water temperature doesn’t get too hot in the summer, and in the winter they are really in their element.

If you want to catch one of these monsters in Virginia, winter is the time to do it.

And even then – it’s not easy.

“We say, you know, you just gotta embrace the suck if you will. It’s not always fun,” admitted Josh Laferty, the other guide on the trip.

For many others, and me, it’s a bucket list fish. The top of the food chain — an apex predator. The only threat to a musky is a bigger musky.

The hunt

So here I was, watching the rain drip off my forehead as the low mist blotted out the nearby scenery, trying to solve the musky puzzle.

“It’s probably more akin to hunting than what a lot of people would traditionally think that fishing is. It’s uniquely challenging. The flies are big the lures are big,” Laferty said.

The hope was to catch one on a fly rod – which is somewhat flimsy compared to conventional fishing tackle and therefore more of a challenge for the angler. But in less than an hour, my arm was exhausted from trying to throw the massive fly.

This effort left me spent and produced not a single fish.

No real surprise since the musky is known as the fish of 10,000 casts.

In part because they often just aren’t hungry.

“They don’t have to eat all the time. So it’s not like us where we tend to think that we need three meals a day. These fish can eat the right meal once every 2 to 3 days,” Laferty said.

I just think of muskies as ornery.

“They are masters of their environment just like most big predators, whether they’re on land or in the water. They’re masters of their domain. They live in a tough place. It’s a tough world out here and they’re kind of one of those things, they’re so ugly they’re beautiful,” Laferty said as if apologizing for the fish’s uncooperative nature.

If you are going to catch one in Virginia, however, the James and New Rivers are the place to try.

The state began stocking these big fish in these rivers back in the 1960’s – and now they are reproducing in the James to the point where stocking is no longer necessary.

Still. It sure seemed like a lot of casting.

Adding to my arm fatigue – something called the musky figure 8 thing.

Once you get the cast back to the boat, you always drag the lure through the water again in a figure-eight pattern – because they often strike right at your feet.

“These fish can come up off the bottom out of nowhere. So all of a sudden it’s ‘we haven’t seen anything and then bam there one is,” Laferty said.

Then, Josh’s musky senses flared a bit...

“I think we’re going to get one between here and that last Sycamore that’s in sight there,” he predicted

And before I knew it, there was a musky on the end of my line.

I got it to a net that seemed big enough to hold a human, and there was instantly a lot of high-fiving and fist-bumping.

The fish was about 30 inches long. A big fish, but a small musky. It was a beautiful shade of light green, with camouflage-type markings on its side.

“These fish, it’s a northern strain that the game department stocked in here and they’re pretty diverse. A lot of times when they’re small or younger like this, you’ll see more of the sparring and coloring in them see how those colors just change,” Laferty explained.

I released the fish unharmed, and it swam back into the cold depths of the James.

With my heart racing, we returned to fishing, hoping to see the larger cousin to my fish.

Despite the weather and my aching shoulder, it was important to keep the day’s activities in perspective. People come from all over to do this, despite the cold conditions.

“We have people from the West Coast even. It’s a fish that people travel for because it is a trophy fish. It’s a bucket list fish for a lot of anglers,” Conrad said.

The longer we fished, the harder it rained.

We headed for the car, knowing that somewhere in the upper James River there is a 40+ inch monster with my name on it.

Maybe next time.

For information of fishing for Muskies in Virginia, check out the Virginia DWR and Virginia Trophy Guides.

You have to believe that long before there were chair lifts, people had to get to the top of the mountain on foot in order to ski down.

But now, it’s gone full circle. A growing number of people are bypassing the lift, and skiing up the mountain, before they shoosh back down.

Mikey Valach is the outdoor adventure manager at Snowshoe Mountain Resort. A cyclist in warmer months, he says uphilling keeps him in shape more than simply skiing or snowboarding.

He says he pretty much fits the profile of an uphill skier.

“Your active cyclist, runner, that’s who it appeals to for sure,” Valach said.

He demonstrated the lengths uphillers go to so the skis don’t slip down while pointed up the mountain.

Special skins made of synthetic material are added to the base of the ski for the uphill trek. Unique bindings allow the skier’s foot to lift at the heel, making the motion more natural.

Once at the top, they are easily converted to conventional bindings.

Not to be left out, snowboarders have split boards – a conventional snowboard that breaks in half to simulate skis.

The bindings snap into a new position, so split boarders can ascend just like skiers. At the top the board is fitted back together, giving the snowboarder a conventional ride back down.

Though the equipment is somewhat complicated, the hardest part is still to come.

Walking up the side of a mountain — on skis.

We set off up the slope, and I was no match for the mountain regulars who left me in their dust.

They graciously waited for me a couple of times.

“Are you guys enjoying this?” I asked out of breath at a rest stop. The group responded with hearty “yesses” and laughter.

Upward we trekked. I used the advice to save some energy by sliding the skis instead of lifting them.

That helped. Some.

“I’m an avid snowboarder, and this was just another way that I could enjoy the mountain scenery, get a little bit of cardio and then get to the top enjoy view and then rip the mountain down,” snowboarder Lacy Burdette said. “I would rather work up a sweat, get my heart rate up and earn it. … Earn my turns,” she said.

“Like most everything, practice makes better. You know, and with fitness like the more you get out there and the more you do it, the easier it gets over time,” explained uphill skier Sterling Snyder, who admitted he enjoys the uphill as much as skiing down.

With our turns, “earned,” we now had to strip off the skins while riders had to also click the split boards back together.

It’s a bit of a process, but all part of a different way of thinking. A different way to approach the mountain.

“I try to enjoy ... a little bit of a mental break going uphill, put some music and listen to a podcast and just kind of you know, relax. And get away from everything,” Snyder said.

There is no doubt that going downhill is better than up. It’s the reward for the effort.

But those turns are just a bit sweeter when you’ve really earned them.

Roanoke-based runner Adam Shorter zips up his outermost layer of running gear and sets out on the Blue Ridge Parkway. As if the weather doesn’t make the run hard enough, he turns and begins the ascent of Roanoke Mountain, one of three famously difficult climbs that allow the Foot Levelers Blue Ridge Marathon to claim the title of America’s Toughest Road Marathon.

He’ll join thousands of runners in Roanoke on the starting line downtown on April 22 before they begin the leg-numbing climbs that both attract and repel runners.

“This right here and as you see it just keeps going and going and going and going,” Shorter says, pointing to the seemingly ever-winding and steep road that leads to the top of the mountain. In actuality, it is only two miles long. But runners are fond of the notion that it goes on forever.

Shorter has completed the full 26.2-mile Blue Ridge Marathon four times.

He’s 60 pounds lighter than when he started his running career about ten years ago. No surprise when you hear how often he works out.

“Literally all seven days a week. It’s all seven days a week thing. It’s important to cross train do other things besides running like riding bikes or swimming or yoga,” Shorter said.

When Roanoke began hosting the Ironman 70.3 Virginia’s Blue Ridge – which means swimming 1.2 miles, cycling 56 miles and then running a half marathon. He decided to do that too.

So when he’s not swimming, or running – he’s riding his bike.

This year he’ll run the Blue Ridge Half Marathon in April – a meager 13.1 miles since he’s also training for the 70.3 miles of Ironman in June.

Metal is his motivation.

But Adam runs to the beat of a different drummer - a very hard-paced, in-your-face kind of drummer.

Since he was 13, he’s listened to the loudest, most irreverent form of Rock and Roll – heavy metal, also called thrash metal, or death metal.

Bands with names many would consider offensive. Names like Toxic Holocaust, Municipal Waste and Dying Fetus Suffocation. Somewhat surprising taste for the otherwise mild-mannered Shorter.

“I don’t know what it is myself. But it’s just it’s an amazing feeling when I just turn on my music and the first thing you hear is that hard-hitting sound and then all of a sudden the vocals hit. Again. I don’t know what it is but just love it. I love that sound that drives me and makes me feel strong makes me feel powerful,” he said.

Powerful enough to run up Roanoke Mountain.

And somewhere in that loud music, is a message – that’s seeped into the core of Shorter’s life. A message so essential to his being – it’s even on his license plate, which reads OBLITR8 or “Obliterate.”

“It’s a kind of a double meaning for me is it reminds me of obliterating obstacles... And I actually got it from (a band called) Hatebreed, on Destroy Everything where he says ‘obliterate what makes us weak and I rise.’

Obliterating.

And rising.

Meeting a challenge head-on.

Feeling pain, that somehow makes him feel …

Better.

“Oh, this hurts. So that hurts right now. It just really takes my mind off. But again, the driving point of it. It makes me feel so strong and feel so powerful,” he said.

Shorter says with the music blasting through his earbuds -- he has the strength to put one foot in front of the other until he’s exhausted.

“Especially when you get near the finish line. Everything hurts you you’re suffering but you’re just you’re so alive. I mean you reflect on all the mountains that you just came across and climbed... You feel like - you feel amazing after maybe not immediately once you get to the finish line but you just feel absolutely incredible. You feel like you can do just about anything.”

You might question the part about “hidden.” After all, it’s well-known in some circles.

Many circles even.

Yet in Virginia, when it comes to fishing or floating we think more of the James, New and Shenandoah Rivers.

Cold tailwater rivers like the Smith are best known for trout fishing, which at the end of the day is a bit of a niche pursuit.

“This is a brook trout guys,” intones Brian Williamson of the Dan River Basin Association, as he addresses two busloads of elementary school children, who had just arrived at the Great Road River access in Henry County. They are on shore, while he, in waders stands facing them about 10 feet into the river, holding up a clear plastic cup, with a three-inch trout swimming inside.

“We are going to put them in the water here. Say goodbye to ‘em,” Williamson tells the students as he gently releases the fish.

A similar group of students is gathered around a nearby picnic table peering into a large plastic bin where crayfish, stonefly nymphs and other small aquatic creatures are on display — thanks to Williams who had netted them from the river just minutes before.

Krista Hodges, also with the Dan River Basin Association, is giving the picnic table group a lesson in what trout eat. The children had raised the fingerlings in the classroom, and she tells the students that the only way they can grow to be adults once in the river is if they have the food they need, such as the invertebrates in the bin.

The not-so-obvious lesson, the one she hopes creeps into their consciousness, is how important it is to maintain clean water in our environment.

“So when they put them in the river, you know if they care about the river and they care about the trout wanting to make it then hopefully they’ll want to protect the river as well,” Hodges said.

Although many of the students are clearly unfamiliar with life in the river or perhaps even standing on a riverbank, Hodges says this is a big day for them.

“A lot of the students have never done this before. They say this is the best field trip they’ve ever been on,” she said.

If the number of macroinvertebrates is any indication, the water is in good shape, which wasn’t always the case – especially in the days of textile and furniture manufacturing, when according to Williams, chemicals were often dumped directly in the river, or into nearby streams, which essentially created the same result.

These days the river flows clear and cold.

“And that’s our Henry County water. We’re very fortunate to have really good water and this river is in really good shape,” Williams said.

Not only does Brian Williams educate school kids, he helped build 13 access points – all part of the Smith River Blueway, which makes the river accessible for the anglers who come from all over the country to fish for larger versions of those fingerlings the kids released.

With Smith River Outfitters – guides who make a living taking people fishing, we would drift six and a half miles of the river, starting at the dam, where the river flows swift and cold from the bottom of Philpott Lake.

“We’re running about 15 to 20 trips a month right now. And our busiest months are coming up May through July and probably run around 25 almost maybe 30 days a month this time of year,” said EJ Stern owner of Smith River Outfitters.

Stern seems to know every rock and turn in the Smith.

If trout fishing is a niche sport then fly fishing would be like falconry compared to all hunting. It’s harder, takes more time and skill and can register many magnitudes of frustration above all other ways of boating a trout.

When it works, it’s also more rewarding.

We are fly fishing – using nymphs or underwater flies that might fit on a quarter. Fashioned from pieces of animal hair, feathers and the occasional rubber leg tied to a hook with thread, the goal is to fool a trout into believing it’s one of those underwater insects the school kids were ogling in the bin on the picnic table.

Though it’s attached to fishing line, it must be presented as if it’s drifting naturally in the current.

Which isn’t easy.

And yet, the Smith gives you more opportunities for success than most.

“The trout are getting bigger every year. We’ve got great trout and we’re actually looking at about 2000 trout per mile in the Smith River, which is a lot of trout, Williams said. A fact with which Stern agreed.

“The catch rate is great. It’s one of the best catch rates in Virginia. You will catch trout when you come to this river,” promised Williams.

“We can confidently say everybody that comes with us at least catches a few,” echoed Stern.

Armed with that information, the casting came with confidence… and in fact, several trout fell for those imitation insects, as well as a few streamers, larger lures meant to imitate small fish as opposed to insect larvae.

The Smith River’s cold water extends about 31 miles from the dam south toward the North Carolina border. Beyond that, the water is too warm for trout.

The river holds three species of trout: rainbow trout, which are mostly stocked by the Game Department, brown trout and the occasional brook trout, like the ones the school kids raised in their classrooms.

For reasons best explained by biologists, brown trout are by far the most populous.

“Part of the attraction is the wild brown trout in the Smith. They make up 85 percent of the trout in the river and 75 percent of all the species of fish in the river,” Stern said.

He explained that the conditions for the food preferred by browns are perfect in the Smith, and that the trout are growing faster now than ever before. In part because of a change in the river’s flow patterns after flooding took out the hydroelectric generator at the dam a few years ago. Essentially, it’s led to less erratic changes in the water level and allowed the ecosystem to find the balance it never had before.

Yet, even with the knowledge that so many targets lurk just below the surface, it’s helpful to be with someone who sees the river every day and every season, in all kinds of weather.

Stern is that kind of person, and he makes his living telling people how to fish and taking them to the most likely places.

Even with so many fish and expert advice, it’s not like trophy browns were jumping into the boat.

But we can’t blame the river or the guide for the obvious angler error.

But as the trees and grasses hem in the river, creating a tunnel of isolation and wilderness, so valuable in a world devoted to our digital realities it’s an escape that’s never far away.

Whether you land big fish or not, there is hope that this waterway stays clean, wild and full of fish and those critters they need to thrive.

And that those lessons on the riverbank sink in, assuring a place to fool a trout for generations to come.

“Quick and easy. You have a power button,” Dan Lucas explained in the parking lot of Cardinal Bicycle’s Grandin Village location.

He’s giving me the e-bike basics, and though it seems obvious, the first thing is to switch it on.

“You’ve got three modes,” Lucas said. “Those modes will determine how much power you’re going to have at your disposal.”

On this bike, the modes are labeled in order from least boost to most, Eco, Trail, and Turbo. Each can be selected with a press of the button on the handlebar.

Turn on the power, choose your mode, and begin what can be effortless pedaling, compared to a normal bike. No wonder they are popular.

“E-bikes are still the fastest growing segment in the bicycle market globally,” said Whit Ellerman, owner of Cardinal Bicycle. “It’ll give a rider the ability to ride either longer or to ride terrain that they couldn’t ride before. You can ride maybe keep up with people that you hadn’t been able to keep up with.”

Riding with Lucas, Cardinal Bicycle’s Rider Experience Manager, and skills instructor, we would test e-mountain bikes in town, on the Roanoke River Greenway, and most importantly on the technical trails on Roanoke’s Mill Mountain, where the serious amount of climbing is always a part of the picture - and a situation where an electric assist would be appreciated.

The bikes are Turbo Levo Comp Carbon models - toward the top of the line from Specialized Bicycles.

In the bike lane near Grandin, it was immediately noticeable how much easier it was to pedal. I could immediately see the value of an e-bike for commuters who might not want to walk into the office drenched in sweat, or perhaps with enough energy to take on their day.

The same could be said on the greenway. Whereas casual cyclists will have more fun with less effort. It’s worth noting also, that this model has a sensor or a “brain” according to Lucas, which shuts off the power assist when the rider reaches 20 miles per hour. Meaning the bike virtually demands riders behave themselves on a greenway where there are other cyclists, runners, dog walkers, and others.

“After City Council opened up the greenways and trails to e-bike riding in summer of 2020. We’ve seen bike sales really take off,” Ellerman said.

While our bikes are e-mountain bikes, with rugged knobby tires, a wide range of gearing, and front and rear suspension, there are other options.

“There’s all sorts of e-bikes. All shapes and sizes. There’s hybrid e-bikes there’s road e-bikes even for super long-distance road rides,” Lucas explained.

Ellerman says his shop is seeing the most interest in e-mountain bikes. And as we approached Mill Mountain by climbing a steep alley, I began to understand why pedaling up a grade approaching 10 percent without the massive effort I’d remembered from the time I did it on my conventional mountain bike.

How much does the motor help?

“The easiest way to describe it is it’s about four times what you can do. So when you’re pedaling. you can get up to four times the amount of effort that you’re putting out, Lucas said.

Now for the fun part, riding up the Monument Trail on our way to the famous neon star atop Mill Mountain.

As we began climbing up the trail, the quiet whir of the motor was almost imperceptible as the bike’s advanced suspension handled the roots and rocks. Not heard – the sound of exercise-induced heavy breathing, because it wasn’t necessary.

At one point we came across a rider, climbing on a conventional mountain bike. His day was obviously much harder. He graciously pulled over to yield the trail and let us pass.

“You’re coming past a rider that is working hard and is earning their turns back down the mountain. And a part of me, when I usually come up on a ride like that, I feel a little bit guilty” Lucas admitted. I have to say that I did too.

Unlike a regular bike, there is a range with an e-bike before re-charging – just like an electric car, but for most people, it won’t be an issue.

“Today we’re going to do probably 15-ish miles and we could probably do that three or four times if we want,” Lucas said.

But that’s not to say you might now want to stay out there even longer. Considering you can earn your view from the top of Mill Mountain ...

... And only scarcely break a sweat.

The shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner attended by President Donald Trump on Saturday night played out in front of some of the nation's most powerful reporters and editors who snapped into action in real time to provide detailed accounts from the scene.

What resulted was a steady stream of facts from myriad reputable media outlets — hardly an information vacuum. Despite this, unfounded conspiracy theories from both the left and the right proliferated, chief among them that the shooting was staged. Some spread in spite of the facts, while others used real information to create false narratives.

Jen Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies conspiracy theories, said a lack of trust in institutions and an inability to sort fact from fiction create a “textbook recipe” for such rumors. But, she said, even when an abundance of information is available the entertainment value of conspiracy theories can still prevail.

“The thing about conspiracy theories that makes people enjoy them, even if they're not politically extreme, is that you get to go looking for breadcrumbs,” she said. “It's a way to feel smart and accepted when you come up with a nugget to contribute and people like it.”

Live reporting both helped and impeded

Some possible avenues of speculation were shut down before they could begin because of the live reporting being presented — and corroborated in real time — by hundreds of professional journalists at once. Plenty still made it through.

One prevailing (and unfounded) theory: The shooting was somehow staged, perhaps as a distraction from issues such as the Iran war, or as a push for the completion of Trump's White House ballroom. The latter has been tethered to the facts that Trump pointed to the incident as evidence his ballroom is needed and that the president's Justice Department is using it to try to pressure preservationists into dropping a lawsuit over the $400 million project.

Others speculated without credible evidence that the Israeli government or military played a role — an allegation often used as an antisemitic trope. And press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during an interview with Fox News before the dinner began that “there will be some shots fired tonight in the room" — a metaphorical reference to Trump’s planned speech that was used as evidence she had prior knowledge about the shooting.

Some connected it to Butler shooting

Many found parallels between what happened at the correspondents' dinner and during the attempted assassination of Trump in July 2024 during his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, such as the fact that after both shootings there was a delay before the president was removed from the scene. Some cited video of Vice President JD Vance being escorted out of the room first as evidence that Trump and the Secret Service knew the shooting was going to happen.

Emily Vraga, a professor at the University of Minnesota who studies political misinformation, said that sometimes more information is not necessarily better, especially in such a polarized time when people can pick and choose the facts they like and assemble their own narrative puzzles.

“We just can't process that much information,” she explained. “And so when there is just this flood of information and it's contradictory and ever-changing as new information comes in, that can actually reinforce this tendency to go to a simplified, understandable narrative. And that narrative can include conspiracy theories.”

She added, “Meaning doesn't have to be tied to reality."

In the Omnium, riders participate in four events on an indoor track, and the one with the highest score wins.

Jennifer Valente has figured out how to win.

She is doing training rides in Roanoke this week as part of her work with Virginia’s Blue Ridge Team 2024, a women’s development team of which she has been a part, since she was a teenager, racing in the junior division.

She agreed to do a riding interview with me to talk about the satisfaction of winning and her determination to win again.

She knows that at this point in her career, she is not sneaking up on anybody.

“Going into the Olympics as the reigning world champion is definitely — it has a different kind of target on your back. So I think there’s gonna be pluses and minuses about it but it definitely is a confidence booster as well, so I’ll take that as a positive,” Valente said as we rode bicycles on the Roanoke River Greenway.

Valente has also won Olympic silver and bronze medals in track cycling events, in addition to numerous world championships.

We’ll have more about Jennifer in an upcoming edition of John Carlin’s Outdoors, and remember WSLS Insiders get the first look!

This time, John is at Pipestem State Park in West Virginia, where you can do everything from ax throwing to e-biking to skeet shooting and if indoors is more of your thing, there’s even a spa on the premises.

But the best way to see all the fall colors is by taking a zip on the nearly four miles of ziplines, including one that takes you more than 300 feet in the air across the Bluestone River Gorge.

Here’s a deeper look at what you can do just two hours from Roanoke

“The best way to do it is just kind of, pow.”

The words of our tour guide Baylee Bentlee, describe how to throw an axe so it sticks in the target, and to a certain extent how one might approach their weekend of adventures at Pipestem State Park in West Virginia.

Bentlee demonstrated the technique and abruptly demonstrated that she is not all words.

“And then kind of follow through, and then you’ll stick it,” she said as the hatchet flew through the air and impaled itself in the bullseye.”

Bentlee makes it look easy, but when you throw the ax and it works, it’s kind of like magic. After just a couple of practice throws, my wife Mary and I were impaling the target with our own axes. It’s no wonder, that ax throwing is attracting lots of people:

“It’s been really popular the last couple of years,” Bentlee said. Enough so that the lifespan of the boards that make up the target isn’t very long.

“So I would say the new targets that we’ve designed last about 10 days,” she said.

Flying targets

And if you are really intent on hitting a target, you can try your hand at shooting clay pigeons with a shotgun.

Mary had never fired a gun.

Baylee patiently coached her through safety and loading techniques. She showed her how to stand and properly hold the 20 gauge over and under then let her have a few shots. Let’s just say that no clay pigeons were injured in the making of this story!

The point is that even a novice can feel comfortable shooting at and eventually hitting the clay “birds.”

For the record, I hit a few and missed a few, but I had a blast doing it. (Pun intended)

Resting at Pipestem

And if hitting your target means relaxing, Pipestem now offers on-premises spa treatments. So you can go from savage axe thrower to peaceful relaxation in just a matter of minutes.

If you really want to see the park close up, you can hike on the many trails, or you can go for a spin on an e-bike – where you only pedal if you want to.

Unlike the recent story I did in Roanoke, where we tackled Mill Mountain on e-mountain bikes, these bikes are ready to go for anyone who has ever ridden a bicycle. They are equipped with a throttle, and with a flick of your wrist, you are off and riding. You literally don’t have to pedal if you don’t want to.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a workout, the bike can be dialed back to offer less assistance and you can build up quite a sweat.

Dining at Pipestem

The park offers two dining options, but for dinner, we opted to drive to a restaurant just off the grounds at the Oak, a well-established fine dining eatery named after the massive Oak tree in the yard, estimated to be hundreds of years old.

After a day of the fresh outdoors, our hunger was rewarded with a fantastic surf and turf, complimented with a fantastic California Cabernet.

Zipping!

The real sweet spot is hanging from a wire for the park’s zipline tour.

After a safety briefing and a half-mile downhill hike, our guides had us gliding through and over the trees.

The tour evolves from a series of zips below the treeline to more and more elevation.

Taylor and Russell Nuckles of Huntington were zip-lining newbies. They joined our group willing to share their thoughts and face their nervousness.

All told it’s about 4 miles of touring on the wire.

“We’ve got nine zip lines out here and all of them combined is 3/34 miles, 4 miles. Our longest one is pushing 1700 feet long, 300 feet in the air,” said guide Jeremy Harsanye.

Each trek on the wire seems to get better, and after six, he says, you are ready for the big daddy – seven. “Seven is heaven,” he said.

It kind of is. You almost feel that high. Seven starts fast and in the trees, then all of a sudden you are there, 300 feet up over the Bluestone River Gorge.

“That was exciting, I thought the views were the best,” Taylor Nuckles said.

Just for grins it began raining for our final zips, which gets you wet and makes the zipping even faster.

A short rappel from the final platform rounded off the zip line adventure – and a gondola ride back across the river took us home.

“Going into an Olympics as the reigning world champion is definitely different. It adds a different kind of target on your back. So there are pluses and minuses about it. Definitely, it is a confidence boost as well. So I’m taking that as a positive,” Valente said as we rode bicycles along the Roanoke River before she departed for an earnest training ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Valente has already won three Olympic medals, including a gold in an event called the omnium – a series of races that take place on the track.

And in August she won two world championships. Barring something unforeseen, she will compete for the U.S. in the Omnium in Paris, and depending upon how selections shake out, she may participate in two team events as well. But that won’t be determined until much closer to the Olympics.

When she is not racing for the USA, she is a member of VBR Team 2024, a Roanoke-based women’s cycling team that has produced more than a dozen Olympic medalists.

“Jennifer Valente is one of the best riders in the world as current as current Olympic champion and current world champion. She literally is the best in the world at what she does,” said Nicola Cranmer, Team 2024 founder and general manager.

Cranmer has known Jennifer for a long time. She has watched her development and success as Valente has won more international championships than any other U.S. cyclist.

“She’s been with the team for a little over a decade actually. She started off as a junior and to be quite honest she’s just sort of reaching her performance level if you like,” Cranmer said. “I mean she’s just getting to be really, really good.”

Although she races indoors on the track, most of Valente’s training happens outside on the road. On this day she rode up Mill Mountain with her VBR 2024 teammates, reaching the top without showing any signs of significant exertion, in the process demonstrating the difference between world-class athletes and mere mortals.

Valente lets the bike do the talking

Quiet and reserved in person she is studying to be an engineer at Colorado State University. She says she knew early on that she wanted to be in the Olympics, but she didn’t know which sport. Then she found cycling.

“I think I knew I wanted to go to the Olympics I had before which is unique because I had to decide that before I had picked up the sport,” Valente said. And when I kind of realized I was good at cycling and started to fall in love with cycling a little bit more, and found track cycling ... it’s easy to have that grow when you are good at it and the opportunity is there.”

Once she found the bike, she found herself consistently on the podium.

Riding side by side through Wasena and Smith Parks in Roanoke, I asked what it was like to win gold.

“Winning an Olympic gold medal is pretty much a dream come true. I think so. Many kids dream of that when they were little. And I did too. I certainly dreamt of having an Olympic medal and having it be gold is really the pinnacle of what I could achieve in the sport. I don’t think there’s any other way to describe it other than a dream come true,” she said.

And Cranmer said she has a good chance of adding at least one more medal next year.

“She’s obviously one of the favorites. Reining gold champion from the Tokyo Olympics and also double world champion heading into the Omnium, and she’s definitely the favorite - and you know she will do everything that she can to prepare herself to win the event,” Cranmer said.

Valente seems to know this is her time. And she is still eager to win.

“Obviously, you always want to feel like you have accomplished everything you could and you’re the best that you can be. And you don’t want to have any doubts about that,” Valente said. “But I also think that every Olympic medal that you can win or that you’re trying to win has its own story and its own journey.”

“When we first started out he was about here on me,” said Henry’s Coach Chris Berry, pointing to his chest. “And I woke up one day a couple of years ago and he was towering over me and it’s kind of a startling experience.”

Berry estimates he and Henry have ridden 10,000 miles together in training. All those miles resulted in Henry’s greatest win yet.

In November, Henry took first in the National Interscholastic Cycling Association eastern regional championship, besting riders from 11 states.

“I was I knew I was one of the faster riders. I wasn’t sure how fast my competition would be. But coming across the finish line, seeing all my family on the sidelines and everybody outside the tape. It was really ... it made me happy … I couldn’t be happier with the result,” Schumm said.

Berry shared some of the reasons Henry had reason to be optimistic.

“Since the fall of 2019, he has raced in a total of 26 VAHS and NICA events, not including the regional championship. He won 18 of those races and finished second five times. He has five overall series wins and a second place overall. He has three series sweeps in which he won every race. In 26 races, he has only failed to make it to the podium twice. Once was a DNF [did not finish] with a flat tire. No other rider in the history of interscholastic cycling in Virginia has a record that comes anywhere close to that, and he is still eligible for three more seasons of racing,” Berry said.

“I just really liked it and then I decided to push it even further to reach the level I am now,” Henry said. “I just actually enjoyed going to practice and you know, I played soccer and it just wasn’t my thing.”

Henry’s dad said it doesn’t hurt that the family lives in cycling-rich Virginia’s Blue Ridge.

“We just feel like Henry’s grown up here in Roanoke. And we feel like he’s a real product of this city with all the cycling culture we have here. So we’re super grateful to be in Roanoke,” said Jonathan Harris, Henry’s father.

“Oh yeah, Roanoke it’s amazing. I got the Cove, I got Mill Mountain, Pandapas Pond (near Blacksburg) and there’s all kinds of trails everywhere,” Henry added.

Berry said he just knew Henry was special.

“I guess it was just a hunch in the early days. But he has consistently proven to me over the years that I made the right choice,” he said.

For years, Berry had been a volunteer coach for youth cycling in Roanoke. A few years ago he gave it up but continued coaching Henry.

Which led to him cheering Henry on during the NICA championship.

“As far as my nerves go, I was a basket case. I tend to be very nervous just because I know how much he has invested in it personally and I am fearful for the potential disappointment if things don’t go the way we hope they will,” Berry said.

“Oh, man. It was fantastic. His first regional championship up there and in Maryland. And so we were we were all over the moon for sure,” added Harris. “Super proud of him.”

Chris still rides with Henry when it works, but even though Berry rides a thousand miles a month, Henry is just too fast.

“Over the years, I’ve gotten older and he’s gotten stronger and we just don’t have as many opportunities to ride together anymore. So look forward to the days that I can make him ride at my pace,” he said.

As for Henry’s future, he moves into a tougher category next year facing older, stronger riders from across the country.

Is he worried?

“I think I think it’ll be okay. If we get in good training,” Henry said.

Testing at the Roanoke College Human Performance Lab suggests that Henry’s physiology is amazing. Berry says Schumm’s VO2 max, a test of an athlete’s cardiovascular system and aerobic endurance, is 73.4, which puts him in the elite category at only 16 years old.

On the racecourse, he’s passed all the tests so far. The question is how far does he want to go?

“I would love to ride my entire life,” Schumm said. “I’m not sure what level or how so but yeah, I’d be open to the idea of racing pro. Or, collegian. Or whatever. I just want to ride for my whole life,” he said.

And while these are first-world choices, for me it’s Montana, where hopefully the fish are biting.

But it’s not like the cruise is a bad option. It’s just not the outdoor experience that seems to be what populates most of my vacation time.

Family Time on the Disney Wish

We booked a family cruise on the Disney Wish for January of 2024, and I must say that it was great. Everything was as advertised, and of course, the time with my grandkids was amazing.

We had booked a snorkeling excursion months in advance so I anticipated a bit of time on a reef near Nassau for my outdoor fix in the midst of this paradise. Alas, a fierce wind turned the normally calm water frothy, and we canceled the outing.

Resolved and content to attend variety shows and other on-ship activities, I suddenly found myself with a second snorkeling option.

Snorkeling Castaway Cay

One of our planned days was at Castaway Cay, a Disney-owned island, with a gorgeous beach, every manner of Tiki hut vendor, and yes, a place to rent a mask, fins and snorkel.

When packing for the trip, I included a GoPro to capture some of the underwater world during the now-canceled Nassau excursion. But I left it on the ship, not realizing the opportunity on Castaway Cay. So, I bought a cheap waterproof phone case for my iPhone at one of the Tiki huts and hoped to be able to find some wildlife before saltwater penetrated the case and turned this potential opportunity into disaster.

As it turns out the swimming area is all part of a 22-acre lagoon that Disney is carefully cultivating for snorkeling. They have populated the bottom with structure to attract fish, and more than a few relics from Disney movies, such as the submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Once I found all of this, I found lots of fish and even a few corals.

The phone case did not leak, but only about half of my video came out clearly. I’ll chalk that up to user error. Fortunately, the parts that did come out were better than I expected.

I hope you enjoy the story of my little excursion into the wilds of Castaway Cay.

That’s exactly the reaction Dick Howard was looking for when he and his friend Hank Ebert set out to build the trail.

“You could call me the grandfather of mountain biking,” Howard said.

It would be hard to disagree. In the 1970s, Howard was the first to mountain bike in the Roanoke Valley. Long before mountain biking was even a term.

Decades later, now with a bit of wear on his tires, he created a place for today’s generation.

“I started thinking that perhaps this would be a good place for a beginner trail because there are no other places here in the valley,” he said, affirming a commonly known fact about off-road riding in the region, which tends to be a bit tough on the newest riders.

Howard enlisted the help of Board of Supervisors member Martha Hooker, who got the idea approved and paved the way for a small amount of signage.

“It’s in a small wooded area that is in the floodway and the flood plain. So it just made sense that this was a good use for this type of project,” Hooker said.

“And you know, it’s ready to go. Today’s sort of the grand opening,” Howard said.

The trail can be found off the parking lot on the immediate right, just after the park entrance.

On the night of the trail’s christening, Roanoke College cycling coach and former Olympian Shelly Olds gathered members of Roanoke Star Cycling to give them directions before they headed into the woods.

“Okay, first lap. It’s to see where the roots are [and] where the corners are. And then we’ll stop, and we’ll talk about the types of things we’re going to work on this trail, which will be cornering, braking, looking through the corners, level pedals over the roots, okay, it’s gonna be fun,” Olds said.

The trail is about a half mile of level, twisty track, and relatively free of rocks and roots – perfect for beginners, once they have mastered pavement.

“They love life. They love learning. They love being outside with each other, riding bikes in nature,” Olds said. “If you are standing here, you can hear them in the forest yelling screaming, laughing.”

Olds gets plenty of support from parents, who help shepherd the groups through the woods. Even here on this short trail. No easy task.

“Honestly, the fact that we have Roanoke Star Cycling to create mountain biking opportunities for youth here in Roanoke, where mountain biking is such an integral part of the community. I think it’s so important. So, so many young people on bikes, and yes, keep them off the phone,” said Ruth Cassell, a mother with two sons on the team. Cassell is here to ride her own bike, helping keep track of the riders.

“Well, I think it’s a lot of fun for like learning how to corner and the curves are fun,” said rider Lily Ackerman who is 13 years old.

“It’s a little bit easy,” said 8-year-old Ashby Cochran.

“There’s a lot of cool turns. There’s a lot of good, um roots you can go ahead and learn to ride over,” said Royal Reynolds.

“It’s turny,” said 8-year-old John Arney.

”They’re pretty hard, but I can still do it,” said Judd Copeland of the trails’ twists and turns. “That’s thankful so I don’t hit a tree,” he said.

“It’s just been a win, win situation for a bunch of people who have been involved in this thing. It was all free,” said Howard who donated his time and expertise.

A new generation – and a new trail, just as spring presents a new season.

Nowadays, just about anyone can get into or on a recreational kayak and go down the river — leaving canoes as a bit of an afterthought.

So, I thought the time was right to get a lesson in paddling a canoe via an obstacle course, with a professional instructor.

I found that situation at the Peaks Retreat and Adventure Center in Bedford County. It’s a place where the outdoors meets deep connections and shared experiences. There is room for 80 guests and lots of chances to learn from nature and one another. The Peaks is a nonprofit organization made up of people who describe themselves as adventurous educators and outdoor enthusiasts.

For me, it was a refresher on canoeing.

Getting to my paddling lesson

I took a very roundabout way to my lesson and how to properly paddle a canoe.

The team at the Peaks thought the best way to arrive at the pond was via zip line. And the best way to get to the top of the zip line tower was via a rock-climbing wall. I was game, and after a few minutes I whooshed to a spot where Center Director Susan Herndon-Powell coached me through the proper way to lower myself to the ground with a rope.

Now, time to canoe

You’d like to think you just get in and paddle. But there’s more to it than that.

“It can be challenging. You know a person that in the front provides the power typically in canoeing but the person in the back really needs to know how to steer,” Herndon-Powell said as we donned our personal floatation devices – AKA, life jackets.

If you want to get the most out of your paddling. You must do it right. Once in the boat, Susan gave me a lesson on the best way to move the boat, using your core instead of just your arms.

“And so you want to extend up, pull back to your hip, pop it up. We say like a pizza. Bring it back. Really bring the boat up to the paddle because what we’re really trying to do,” she explained.

When there are two people in a canoe, Susan said it’s important to work as a team. If the person in the front provides the power, then the person in the back steers, which requires its own set of techniques.

Susan walked me through several exercises, using a number of different strokes to guide the canoe in the proper direction.

In my case, it’s not like I never paddled before. But I was kind of like a golfer who never had a lesson. There were lots of bad habits to break.

The Peaks one-acre pond is a perfect place to learn. We paddled by a Canada goose nest complete with newly hatched young.

Then we took a shot at paddling between a series of buoys that required teamwork and for the person in the back to have a clue.

And after a few tries, I’d like to think at least a few of my bad habits had been left on shore.

“We’ve had anglers from all over the world come here to fish this river,” fishing guide Mike Rennie said.

And when they come, Rennie is one of the people who takes them.

“It keeps me busy pretty much from early spring until all the way through early summer,” he said.

I’ve been fishing my whole life, but the Jackson River trout are notoriously fussy. And I needed some help. That’s how I found myself floating down the Jackson with Rennie. He explained the rod and reel set up with which he’s had the most success.

“You’re gonna have two flies on there. So the big thing and fishing this is when we’re anchored up you always want to upstream cast,” he said.

It was already looking like a day of learning new techniques. The thing about old dogs and new tricks surfaced in my mind.

“I like the technicality of this river. Coming out here at shows your skill level as an angler sometimes,” Rennie said.

Ahhh yes. Your skill level as an angler. It’s not something you always want to know. The Jackson River felt like taking the SAT’s.

“Yeah they’re not forgiving on this river,” he admitted.

The river’s clear water and abundant insect life mean the trout are wary and not always eager to bite on a fly, which has to, therefore, be perfectly presented.

But, after a while it started to work.

A quick tug, and a nice rainbow came to net. “You fished that pocket perfectly,” Rennie told me.

Along the river, the late spring colors were showing off. There’s not much sound except for the flowing water and it’s hard to remember that lurking beneath the riffles are some seriously big fish — brown trout as big as your arm.

Mike’s client’s have caught them.

And while I was searching for that perfect presentation, I hooked onto one.

The rod bent over double and the fish began taking the slack line near the reel from between my fingers. Mike urged me to try and turn the fish, and to “get its head up.” I was trying to do all that, and manage the line so the slack was gone and I could play the fish from the reel. Alas, the fight didn’t last that long. One quick run and the brown had broken me off, resulting in some four letter fishing words.

“You broke off...that was a big fish right there,” Rennie said.

Suddenly the scenery and serenity meant nothing. The fish I just lost could have eaten the one I had already caught. I was out of my league. I failed the test.

“You need to be a little bit more controlling of that fish. You let that fish do what it wants and I can tell you it broke you off on those rocks,” Rennie said.

So now I was getting lessons from the trout and Rennie. I tried to soak it all in — but my day was turning to mush. If there is a fishing version of the yips, I had it.

What’s amazing is how many people want to risk feeling like I did right then, on the off chance they might catch one.

“Fishing brings a lot of money to this area of the world. Eco tourism in Virginia is huge and this being one of our premier trout fisheries draws a lot of people to the area,” Rennie said.

Mike tried to let me down easy. He pointed out that the water was low and clear like the sky — factors that always work against fishing.

We would catch one more little brown trout before taking out four miles downstream from where we started, Approximately at a store with the memorable name of Petticoat Junction.

But suffice to say most of the fish we drifted over were in no danger of being caught.

That’s OK, I’ve got plenty of time to study. And there’s a big brown with which I’d like to take a re-test.

The canal features a series of locks that lift and lower boats to get around rapids.

In Lockport, we went through two of them.

Most of the trip? Riding. Discovering. Like a Peppermint museum in Lyons New York.

And the people. Several youngsters, some as young as eight, rode the entire 400 miles.

We saw a 96-foot waterfall in downtown Rochester called the High Falls. And the impressive Cohoes Falls closer to Albany.

The ride -a moving lesson in history - anecdotes about the people and towns that developed along the Erie Canal- in 2024 199 years old -and serious lessons about the way it changed America. Moving goods and information at four times the speed of horse and carriage.

Though the riding is flat, and people do it on all kinds of bicycles, it’s not always a piece of cake in the often-unbearable summer sun. Made easier at rest stops by ride veteran Jim Robinson. (bite) the Watermelon man who slices up 25-30 melons a day for the riders.

Then in Syracuse, a tornado warning. News reports said there was relatively minor local damage, but it never found our tent city.

We woke up every morning at about 5:15 -- one morning in heavy fog, that would eventually burn off for a beautiful day.

The ride is an economic boost to the many small towns along the canal which increasingly depend upon tourism.

So nearly every community welcomes us with food, water and a smile.

Then in the middle of seemingly nowhere – a beautiful garden carved out beside the trail. A family tribute to Bryan Place a stand-out runner and cyclist who died unexpectedly from an aneurysm.

Though most of the trail which is part dirt and part paved, follows the canal, there are still gaps, where cyclists ride mostly back roads – Though we did deviate into places like downtown Syracuse and Rochester.

Along one country road, an Amish family offered riders ice cream.

There is an effort to connect sections of the Erie Canalway Trail – part of New York’s Empire Trail network. It’s about 85 percent complete.

“It really is at its core a connector. It connects people to the outdoors. It connects communities to one another. It just connects our whole state. It’s a history, a story that only we have here in upstate New York. And people will come from around the world. We’ve got 37 states, and four countries represented on the bike tour this year,” said Dylan Carey, Director of Policy and Planning for Parks & Trails New York, a non-profit that works to improve the state’s trail and park infrastructure. It also organizes the ride we are doing.

Whether it was music, antique engines, a car show, boats along the canal – or just the scenery of upstate New York. The Erie Canalway Trail is both inspiring and exhausting. A solid week of cycling with new revelations every mile – and a sense of accomplishment at the end.

Our 10 News cameras captured the action as the top disc golfers in the world practiced on the New London Tech Disc Golf Course, located in Bedford County. They made 300-yard throws through the woods look effortless. The discs traveled straight and true unless the players wanted them to curve.

“We just came back from Europe. I did a three-week tour there. I went to Norway, Finland and Estonia. I was able to actually win the European Open,” said Gannon Buhr.

At 19 years old Buhr is ranked number one in the world. He’s spent a week here practicing.

Time well spent.

“This year. So far in the pro tour, I made $105,000, which is very solid for myself. And you know, I’m looking hopefully get around $150,000 for the year, would be my goal. But you know, my sponsorships and my endorsements, you know, exceed double that,” Buhr said.

And the money is also important to Bedford County, along with Lynchburg which are co-hosts for the event.

“So we’re expecting around 300 athletes, professional athletes, to participate from 14 different countries, and then we have approximately 20,000 spectators that we’re expecting over the course of five days and economic impact of about 3.5 million dollars,” said Nicole Johnson, Bedford County Director of Tourism.

When you roll out the red carpet for the world – you want to make sure everything looks just right. So grounds keepers were manicuring every inch of the course.

“So really it was just fine-tuning, all the the weed eating and the redoing some tea pads and, you know, cutting out some dead trees and stuff like that,” said Brian Martin, Manager of Bedford County Parks and Recreation.

Martin says the Bedford Course designed by six-time world champion Paul McBeth ranks 32 in the world.

The Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) is the official, international governing body which sets rules and standards for the game and sanctions more than 10,000 annual competitive events at any of more than 14,000 courses around the world. A 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization for professionals and amateurs, the PDGA has more than 275,000 historical members. For Information on the 2024 PDGA Pro World Championships: PDGA.com/2024ProWorlds

Chris Thompson invited me to go fishing with a promise we would have a better-than-average chance of catching a big one. Maybe even a fish big enough to earn Virginia’s “citation” status. For smallmouth bass, that’s any fish of 20 inches or five pounds or larger.

“I like our chances a lot,” Thompson said as we pushed off from a landing not far from McCoy Falls, a set of rapids well known for tubing and kayaking.

When Chris Thompson likes your chances – you are in for a good day.

He’s boated more citation-sized bass this year than most anglers will in a lifetime.

“You’re not going to believe me, but you can go to our website and check out the videos. As of today, 54. 54 over 20 inches. 10 of those over 21, six over 22-inches,” Thompson said when asked how many he’s caught this year.

“I’ll just say that really, it’s (the New River) my absolute favorite for numbers and size. State record out of here is eight pounds and eleven ounces. We’ve caught several this summer pushing seven pounds. So I really look for the state record smallmouth in the next five years to get broke anywhere from above Claytor to the West Virginia line,” he said.

And the river lives up to its reputation. Though Chris was acting as a guide, he fished as well. Together be boated well over 20 nice-sized fish.

Thompson has been fishing since he was a child. But a couple of years ago he and his wife took a leap of faith, he quit his job and hung out a shingle, creating CT Outdoor Adventures of Virginia. He fishes for smallies when the season is right, but he also targets walleyes and muskies during other times of the year. If you want, he’ll also take you camping.

He has always enjoyed fishing and even worked charter boats at the coast for a time. Finally, his wife told him to pursue his passion.

“And February last year, we bought a boat, and we both decided the worst thing that could happen is we bought a boat, so we just launched, built the website and started fishing,” Thompson said. “And here our second year, towards the end of the season, our second year, we’re on track to grow 500 percent.”

Chris is one of those people who just thinks like a fish, and knows their moods and their seasons.

“It’s, it’s embedded in my blood. My dad’s a fisherman. His brothers, my granddad used to bring me out of school to go trout fishing back when they had Heritage Day on the Roanoke River. I just You cut me out bleed fishing,” he said.

So we fished. Looked at the wildlife and had lunch on an island in the river.

Despite the large numbers of bigger fish, Chris rated the day at eight out of ten.

None of those citation-sized fish came our way. Chris’ biggest fish missed by half an inch at 19.5 inches. My largest was a tick over 18.

But the wildlife was plentiful. The river was beautiful and catching fish almost seemed like a bonus.

Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: a TV adaptation of Isabel Allende’s beloved novel “The House of the Spirits” on Prime Video, the anime hit “Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc” on Crunchyroll and two Matthew Rhys projects — the movie thriller “Hallow Road” and the Apple TV horror comedy “Widow’s Bay.”

New movies to stream from April 27-May 3

— Emerald Fennell’s loose adaptation of Emily Brontë’s“Wuthering Heights” is on its way to heat up the small screen, streaming on HBO Max on May 1. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi play Catherine and Heathcliff in the hyper stylized film which lets its tortured characters do something about all that pent up lust. In my review for The Associated Press, I wrote “There are myriad pleasures to be had in the bold, absurd pageantry and devilish scheming. Yet for all the big swings, Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ amounts to something oddly shallow and blunt: garish and stylized fan fiction with the scope and budget of an old-school Hollywood epic.”

— Newly minted Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan voices a tiny woodland creature who switches bodies with his sworn enemy, a majestic bird (voiced by Juno Temple) in “Swapped,” streaming on Netflix on Friday, May 1. “Tangled” filmmaker Nathan Greno directs the movie, which also features the voices of Cedric the Entertainer and Tracy Morgan. If it sounds a bit like “Hoppers,” remember, that was an “Avatar” situation. This is “Freaky Friday.”

— The anime hit “Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc” will be streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursday. Tatsuya Yoshihara directed the film, based on the manga series by Tatsuki Fujimoto about a teenager who was murdered by the Yakuza and reborn with a unique ability: transforming body parts into chainsaws, which he uses to help fight devils now. It’s also a romance! And rated R.

— “Conbody vs Everybody,” about an ex-con attempting to rebuild his life in New York, might not technically be a movie (OK, it’s a five-part docuseries), but it’s from the great Debra Granik (“Winter’s Bone” and “Leave No Trace” ) and it’s debuting exclusive on the Criterion Channel on Friday, May 1. Filmed over eight years, Granik chronicles Coss Marte’s journey to building a New York gym that employs formerly incarcerated people.

—And finally, in the eerie “Hallow Road,” streaming on Hulu on Saturday, May 2, Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys play parents rushing to help their daughter after an accident late one night. I wrote in my review for The Associated Press that “it’s an effectively minimalistic thriller that leaves much room for interpretation and debate.”

— AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

New music to stream from April 27-May 3

— Hold her beer, Sabrina Carpenter. It’s time. Kacey Musgraves has returned to corner the market on too-clever, comedic country-pop songs about arousal. Such is the case of Musgraves’ “Dry Spell,” the first single from her highly-anticipated seventh studio album, “Middle of Nowhere,” out Friday, May 1. But a one trick pony she is not. The release was inspired by her home state of Texas, as evidenced by a song she premiered at Coachella earlier this month: “Uncertain, TX,” which on the album features the patron saint of the Lone Star State, Willie Nelson. Yeehaw and carry on.

— Many might know the Irish-language, Belfast-based hip-hop trio Kneecap from the headlines they inspire: From criticism for their political statements, which previously saw them banned in Canada and Hungary — they’ve accused critics of trying to silence them because of their support for the Palestinian cause throughout the war in Gaza — to their BAFTA award-winning self-titled biopic. But Kneecap is a hip-hop group with a DIY ethos, and a hip-hop group with a DIY ethos they remain. On Friday, May 1, listeners will be able to form their own opinions: They’ll release another new album, titled “FENIAN,” a reference to the 19th-century Irish revolutionaries dedicated to independence from British colonial rule. It opens with “Éire go Deo,” a rallying cry for the protection of the Irish language, and builds in intensity from there.

— Even if you haven’t heard of them, you’ve heard them — or the results of their legacy. American Football, like the cult classic film version of a rock band, have been undeniably influential in independent music circles for the last three decades. That’s namely for their role as progenitors of a very distinct guitar sound often referred to as “twinkly,” or with the genre term “Midwest emo.” It is an immediately recognizable sound, defined by it's characteristics: An unusual, complex time signature, intricate fingerpicking and tapping but with a clean tone, no distortion, generous reverb and so on. If that’s too technical an explanation, just press play on their latest album, “LP4.” It’s not too late to become obsessed. And “No Feeling,” which features Brendan Yates of the Grammy-award winning Turnstile, is not a bad place to begin.

— A new high-concept album from Tori Amos? Why not! On Friday, May 1, she’ll release “In Times of Dragons,” a 17-track release that sees the singer performing an alternative universe version of herself as she “continues her flight from a dangerous and powerful billionaire husband,” according to the record’s official press materials. It’s allegorical and political, to be sure, and she’s not going it alone. She’s joined by the “Gasoline Girls” — there’s power in numbers — which is also a jaunty piano number about not giving up the good fight.

— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

New series to stream from April 27-May 3

— Roku has a new program for younger first time home buyers. “This First House ” follows millennial and Gen Z families as they go through the daunting process of buying a home. They’re guided by renovation experts Zack and Camille Dettmore. The show is a spinoff of the PBS staple “This Old House.” It hits The Roku Channel on Monday.

— The TV adaptation of Isabel Allende’ s beloved novel “The House of the Spirits” debuts on Prime Video on Wednesday. The Spanish-language series follows the trials and tribulations of a multi-generational Latin family. The cast includes Alfonso Herrera, Dolores Fonzi and Nicole Wallace with Allende and Eva Longoria among executive producers.

— Matthew Rhys plays the mayor of a small coastal town that’s more creepy than charming in a new horror comedy for Apple TV called “Widow’s Bay.” He wants to make the island a tourist destination but the locals aren’t on board. The reason? They think it’s haunted. The series launches Wednesday.

— If you don’t scroll through real estate websites fantasizing about your dream home then what do you do with your downtime? HGTV’s “Zillow Gone Wild” is hosted by Jack McBrayer and takes you on a tour of some of these outrageous houses. A new season begins streaming Saturday, May 2 on HBO Max.

— Alicia Rancilio

New video games to play from April 27-May 3

— Artemis II made space travel look fun, but things get scarier the farther you get from Earth. Take Carcosa, the setting of Sony’s Saros. Not only is it filled with hostile life-forms, but the planet itself is a shape-shifter — meaning its geography changes with each new mission. Fortunately, you have an arsenal of high-tech weapons as well as a nifty shield that absorbs alien projectiles and sends them back as missiles. Housemarque, the Finnish studio that helped launch the PlayStation 5 with 2021’s Returnal, calls it “bullet ballet, evolved.” Start dancing Thursday on PS5.

— Aphelion hits a little closer to home. It takes place on Persephone, a frozen planet on the edge of our solar system. Two astronauts are separated after their spacecraft crashes, and they have to use their exploratory skills and sharp observation to figure out what went wrong and find each other. French developer Don’t Nod says it collaborated with the European Space Agency to create “a realistic depiction of near-future space exploration” — but don’t relax too much, because there’s a hostile life form on your trail here too. Break the ice Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S or PC.

— Lou Kesten

Former “Today” show co-anchor Hoda Kotb returned to Virginia Tech Monday, revisiting the campus where she studied journalism and meeting with students who have been testing her new wellness app, Joy 101.

Watch WSLS 10’s original story featuring students here.

It was a warm homecoming for Kotb, saying seeing familiar spots around campus brought back memories from her college years.

“It was great. I mean, I literally rolled in yesterday and I was like, wait, I saw the drill field, I saw all this stuff that just gave me this warm and fuzzy feeling. We walked by the duck pond, my sister and I, my niece is here, she’s a freshman, so we walked together. It was beautiful to be able to share it with her and to remember all the good old times,” Kotb said.

The trip wasn’t only nostalgic. Kotb has been working with Virginia Tech students who used the Joy 101 platform as part of coursework, providing feedback as the app prepares for a wider rollout.

Kotb said her goal is simple: to help people feel better — and she credited the students for offering honest reactions as they tried the app. Monday was their opportunity to meet with Kotb face-to-face and share their experience with Joy 101.

“She’s kind of someone that you really just look up to on the TV screen and the fact that she’s also coming here today is really mind boggling,” said VT senior Emma Roshioru.

Students in the project like Roshioru described the experience as a unique opportunity to apply public relations skills to a real product launch, while also testing wellness practices featured in the app.

“It’s really awesome,” said VT Senior Emily Waters. " I feel like growing up, I’m sure both of us grew up watching her doing all this sort of stuff, and it’s really cool to not only be a part of something she’s trying to launch, but do work for it in a coursework setting."

Both students said it was a dream to be able to meet Hoda, especially during their senior year.

Kotb watched WSLS 10’s original story where students were featured talking about the app.

“Girl, first of all, I was so impressed to see our app on your show,” Kotb said during an interview with WSLS anchor Rachel Lucas. “I was very excited, and I’m so thrilled that the kids here at Virginia Tech are trying it out. And, I mean, my whole goal is, like, to try to make people feel better. These kids are so on it. They are so top-drawer, so watching how they are with this app, and also, they’re giving me great feedback. I mean, pluses and minuses, and I love it. I just think it’s such a great group.”

Kotb also took time to meet students in person, posing for photos and talking with those who participated.

Learn more about the app: https://www.joy101.com/

With his last legal option exhausted, Householder will return to his efforts to seek a presidential pardon, his attorney said.

The high court's ruling leaves in place a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last May. Householder and Borges had appealed to justices after the lower court denied their requests for an en banc hearing before all active judges.

Householder's lawyer, Scott Pullins, said in a statement that it was “a sad day” for the Borges and Householder families and "even a sadder day for free speech and the rule of law.”

“Lower courts have asked for years for the Supreme Court to clarify its rulings and they have once again declined to do so,” Pullins said. "We will now return to our efforts to release Speaker Householder from his unjust, excessive incarnation via executive action.”

Pullins had floated the idea of Householder seeking a pardon earlier, then backed off.

The Department of Justice secured Householder's and Borges' convictions in March 2023 after a yearslong investigation and a more than six-week trial.

Householder, now 66, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for masterminding a scheme illicitly funded by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. to elect allies, secure power, pass a $1 billion bailout of two of its affiliated nuclear plants and then defend the bill, known as House Bill 6, from a repeal effort.

Borges, 53, got a five-year sentence for helping undermine the repeal effort. A former chair of the Ohio Republican Party, he was released to a halfway house in Cincinnati in October, from which he's to be released Nov. 12, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

The boundary-breaking Colombian singer and pop star has not commented on the death of the worker.

According to police, Gabriel de Jesus Firmino died on Sunday after being crushed by two stage elevators when the equipment was activated by another worker. Investigator Ângelo Lages told journalists that the Brazilian company that operates the stage is under investigation for alleged non-compliance with workplace safety regulations.

Shakira, who spent the last year on her first global tour since 2018, where she has made history, is to give a free concert on Saturday evening at the Copacabana. Last year, Lady Gaga gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach for the biggest show of her career.

Many beachgoers said they were sorry for the worker's death and that hey think the concert should still go on as planned.

"It is a sad thing that this happened,” said Anita Costa, a 41-year-old singer, as she strolled near the stage on Monday morning. “But the concert should go on.”

Concert organizers expressed support and solidarity with the company in charge of the stage construction, its “staff and the family of the victim” of the tragic accident.

___

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

The remark about the president's wife was part of a routine on Thursday's “Jimmy Kimmel Live” where the host pretended to deliver a comedy routine at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. That event two nights later was cut short when a man armed with guns and knives tried to enter the Washington ballroom where the Trumps and much of the nation's political leadership had gathered.

“People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate,” Melania Trump said in a social media post later echoed by her husband.

There was no immediate comment from ABC.

Trump has long been on receiving end of Kimmel's routines

Kimmel has long targeted the president in his comedy, and he doubled down after a run-in with the administration last fall. Kimmel was suspended by ABC and some of the network's affiliates said they would take him off the air following a comment made about assassinated conservative leader Charlie Kirk, moves encouraged by Trump's FCC chairman, Brendan Carr. ABC and the stations later brought Kimmel back.

Dressed in a tux and standing behind a podium Thursday, Kimmel pretended to deliver a comic routine for the WHCA dinner. His speech had false “cutaways” to the Trumps and others, taken from video clips.

He noted Melania in the “audience,” saying, “Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”

“I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel’s despicable call to violence, and normally would not be responsive to anything that he said but, this is something far beyond the pale,” the president said on his Truth Social platform. “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired” by ABC and its parent Walt Disney Co., he said.

His wife said Kimmel's “hateful and violent rhetoric” is intended to divide the country. “A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him," Melania Trump wrote. “Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand.”

White House press secretary also weighs in

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was part of a campaign of rhetoric from Democrats and some in the media that “has helped to legitimize this violence.”

“Who in their right mind says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband?” Leavitt said. There was no indication that Kimmel was referring to violence.

During his routine, Kimmel noted Melania Trump's birthday Sunday, saying, “She's planning to celebrate at home the same way she always does — looking out a window and whispering, ‘What have I done?’”

He also said: “Before we go any further, Melania, this is Donald. Donald, this is Melania. That was my impression of Jeffrey Epstein.”

Cole Tomas Allen, the California man arrested after charged with attempting to rush into the correspondents' dinner on Saturday, was charged with the attempted assassination of the president.

___

Associated Press correspondent Jesse Bedayn in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

She had spent three daystelling a jury that the ex-movie mogul raped her, explaining why she continued a relationship with him afterward and discussing other deeply personal aspects of her life, once sobbing so hard that court ended early. Weinstein had then been convicted, in a 2020 verdict seen as a victory for the #MeToo campaign against sexual misconduct.

Yet six years later, Mann again walked to a witness stand, passing Weinstein in court on Monday, and beginning — for a third time — to give a jury her account of what happened between them.

Mann testified that she met Weinstein at an acquaintance’s engagement party around the beginning of 2013. She said he was wearing a tuxedo and “looked very jolly, so I went up and introduced myself to him.”

Mann was living in Los Angeles and trying to break into acting, she said. Later that evening, she said, she ran into Weinstein again. She testified that he boasted about his moviemaking prowess and his ability to spot talent.

“He said I was really pretty, prettier than Natalie Portman,” Mann testified, echoing her prior testimony. She added that she ended up giving Weinstein her phone number, thinking she’d make a professional — not romantic — connection.

“He was interested in my look. I thought I just got discovered,” she said.

Weinstein denies sexually assaulting anyone. He watched from his wheelchair at the defense table as Mann testified, occasionally leaning over to talk with his lawyer. Mann only looked at Weinstein when asked to point him out in the courtroom.

Mann’s allegation of a 2013 rape in a Manhattan hotel is again up for consideration because of a series of legal switchbacks. First, Weinstein's 2020 conviction was overturned for reasons unrelated to her testimony. Then a jury failed to decide her part of a retrial that involved multiple accusers and allegations last year, leaving only her rape charge to be tried again.

“I am ready, willing and able to endure this as many times as it takes for justice and accountability to be served,” Mann said in a statement at the time.

That determination now stands to be tested.

Mann could face days of questioning by prosecutors and Weinstein's new lawyers. Like their predecessors, they have portrayed Mann as a canny wannabe who got involved with a Hollywood heavy-hitter, had entirely consensual sex with him, enjoyed his connections and invitations, then turned on him after news reports about other women’s claims about Weinstein. The 2017 reporting catalyzed the #MeToo movement.

Mann, 40, grew up in a small town in Washington state and trained as a hairstylist, but she yearned to pursue acting and moved to Los Angeles in her 20s. She was sometimes so broke that she lived in her car, but she had done some commercial and film work before she met Weinstein.

Thrilled that the Oscar-winning producer expressed interest in her career, Mann accepted invitations to get together, starting with a shopping trip for books about cinema, she testified. Within a couple months, she has said, Weinstein started making sexual overtures that she didn't invite but accepted.

She has said she embarked, with jumbled feelings, on a relationship with the then-married mogul. Sometimes she appreciated his encouragement, other times she resented his sexual demands, and she was always cognizant of his career-making power.

In March 2013, Mann and a friend traveled to New York, and she arranged to meet Weinstein for breakfast with her pals. She testified at prior trials that he got her alone in a hotel room, slammed the door shut when she tried to leave and ultimately raped her, though she told him “I don't want to do this” and “no.”

Afterward, Mann kept seeing and having what she has said were largely consensual sexual encounters with Weinstein. At points over the next roughly four years, she emailed him “miss you,” “there is no one else I would enjoy catching up with that understands me quite like you” and “I love you, always do. But I hate feeling like a booty call.”

Weinstein's lawyers have argued that the messages show there was nothing but a caring relationship. Mann has said she was trying to manage a complicated dynamic with a volatile man.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted, unless they agree to be named, as Mann has done.

Bueckers made a statement before taking questions from reporters during media day for the Wings on Monday at the University of Texas at Arlington, where the WNBA team plays home games.

The statement from Bueckers came 11 days after the Wings wouldn't let Fudd answer a question about her relationship with her former UConn teammate during Fudd's introductory news conference in Dallas.

The two went public with their relationship last year, after winning a national championship together in Bueckers' final season at UConn, and haven't addressed the status of that relationship since the draft.

“Quite frankly, I believe me and Azzi’s personal relationship is nobody’s business but our own,” Bueckers said. “And what we choose to share is completely up to us. But as media members, I understand you guys have a job to do. And you guys have to ask questions about the basketball aspect of it. So that’s what I’ll be addressing today.”

Bueckers, the reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year, said the Wings drafting Fudd had nothing to do with her. After winning a title with Bueckers, Fudd's UConn team lost to South Carolina in the Final Four this month.

“Me and Azzi have always been the utmost professionals,” Bueckers said. “We’ve always conducted ourselves as such. And we’ve never let anything that happens off the court carry onto the court.”

Fudd met with reporters about two hours before Bueckers did on media day and wasn't asked about the relationship.

Bueckers was a three-time Associated Press All-American at UConn, and Fudd joined that list last season. They were together for three seasons with the Huskies.

“Me and Azzi are not new to this,” Bueckers said. “We’ve been doing this for a long time. We have countless reps at it. We have a lot of experience with it. So we will continue to use that experience to show up and be professionals, great teammates, great leaders, the hardest workers and continue to show up and do our job and help the Dallas Wings win basketball games.”

When Fudd was introduced, Wings general manager Curt Miller said the club didn't hesitate on a decision that added to an already elite backcourt with Bueckers and four-time All-Star Arike Ogunbowale.

“Since the moment we secured the No. 1 pick, we set out on a plan to be deliberate, thorough, with intention, on evaluating where we got to ultimately in picking Azzi Fudd,” Miller said. “We traveled all over the world watching this incredible draft class, but it all came back always to Azzi.”

Bueckers was a runaway winner for the rookie award after averaging 19.2 points, 5.4 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game. But the Wings tied for last place in the WNBA, and their 34 losses were twice as many as Bueckers experienced in four seasons combined at UConn. It was the 13th losing record in the past 16 seasons for the franchise.

“The way she goes about things, she always sees it as a challenge, as an opportunity to grow,” Fudd said earlier this month. “So last year it was, she’s not used to losing, but how can she take those losses, continue to grow, continue to be a great leader, make everyone around her better. So if I can adopt anything from her, that’s definitely one of the things that I want to kind of use for myself.”

___

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

Lawmakers heard an emotional and sweeping review of a camp “obedience” culture that paired poorly trained teenage counselors with the youngest campers; was complacent about flood warnings; had poor communications; and critically delayed evacuation efforts.

“There was never any real training, no drills of any kind,” for counselors or campers of what do to or where to go in a flood threat, a special legislative committee's investigator, Casey Garrett, said. She was addressing the committee's first hearing on the July Fourth flood that swept through the all-girls Christian camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River.

Twenty-five campers and two teenage counselors were killed. Camp owner Richard Eastland was also killed as he desperately tried to evacuate girls to higher ground.

Garrett noted that most of the victims were under age 10, some attending camp for the first time, and that the counselors in the hardest hit cabins were among the youngest and most inexperienced at the camp.

Many of the grim details had already been made public through hearings, media reports and interviews, but the state report — including interviews with about 150 people including campers, counselors, the Eastland family and victims' families — presented them in a stark, streamlined review.

“The fate of those girls was set before any drop of rain fell." Sen. Charles Perry said during the hearing.

He continued: "The things that were common sense and the things that should have been done, didn’t get done.”

Families of the victims pack the hearing

Dozens of victim family members filled the committee room Monday. Some sobbed or walked out when photos of the victims and the destroyed camp site were displayed, or when they heard their loved ones' names read aloud.

The report noted some harrowing survivor accounts, including of a girl who was swept more than 6 miles downriver. She told investigators she was sucked underwater several times before she washed up on a debris pile and fell asleep. She was rescued the next morning by two women who heard her cries for help.

One girl recalled how the floodwater in her cabin rose so high that her chin touched the ceiling, Garrett said. One counselor told investigators she pushed girls underwater to get them through the door of a flooded cabin.

The committee saw video of water rushing into a building through cracks in the door. In cellphone video shot by a stranded camper, a girl can be heard yelling “Help!” in the dark, raging floodwaters.

Garrett played an interview with a counselor who said she climbed atop a two-story recreation hall with about 100 campers. She described their terror as rising floodwaters closed in on them.

Campers and counselors had no emergency training

Garrett, a Houston attorney who also helped with the Legislature's report on the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, several times noted the lack of emergency training for the teenage counselors and child campers.

There was no detailed evacuation plan, he said, and the only instruction for the girls in low-lying areas of the camp was a one-paragraph directive that told them to “stay in their cabins unless told otherwise by the office. All cabins are constructed on high, safe locations.” State inspectors approved that plan two days before the flood.

Eventually, some counselors took matters into their own hands and pushed girls through cabin windows to scramble up a hill.

“It wasn’t a plan. It wasn’t a safe plan, It was an option taken, thank God,” Garrett said. "It was very ad hoc.”

Camp Mystic’s owners are seeking permission to reopen in late May and have said they will only use parts of the camp that didn’t flood. They expect nearly 900 girls on campus this summer. The plans to reopen have angered victims’ families, and some prominent state officials have called for state regulators to deny or delay renewal of its license, which is under review.

Last year, Texas lawmakers passed new measures to demand more detailed planning and training, and the installation of emergency warning systems. The Legislature doesn’t meet again until January 2027 and the panel does not control the review of Camp Mystic's license.

Investigator describes the camp's formidable owner

Some counselors told investigators they feared getting into trouble if they were to take children to higher ground or out into the storm without explicit instructions.

Garrett described the camp's “obedience-encouraged” culture dominated by Eastland, the campus patriarch. Some members of the Eastland family and camp staff referred to him as “The General” and “The Eagle.”

“He ruled,” his wife Tweety told investigators. Several Eastland family members attended the hearing.

“He was running the show over there … You just really didn’t cross him,” Garrett said.

The camp relied almost exclusively on Eastland for how to act in a flood emergency. The owner's son, Edward Eastland, testified in a lawsuit last week that any detailed flood evacuation plan was simply inside his father's head.

Richard Eastland and several girls were was found dead in his vehicle after he tried to drive them to safety. Edward Eastland was swept by the floodwaters into a tree. Camp security officer Glenn Juenke survived although he was trapped in a flooded cabin with campers.

Garrett described Richard Eastland as a popular camp leader who taught generations of girls how to fish. He had a knack for comforting young campers who were nervous about their first time away from home.

“We do know Dick Eastland loved every little girl who came to Camp Mystic,” Garrett said.

Some 38 passengers were taken to hospitals for treatment, state-owned railway company PT Kereta Api Indonesia said in a statement.

The Argo Bromo Anggrek long-distance train crashed into the rear car of a commuter train that was stopped at Bekasi Timur Station. The car had been designated for women only, a common accommodation to help avoid harassment. Rescue teams worked to reach five passengers trapped in the damaged commuter train car.

All 240 passengers on the Argo Bromo Anggrek train were safe, officials said.

Police were investigating the cause of the accident, Jakarta Police Chief Asep Edi Suheri told reporters at the scene.

Local television footage and videos on social media showed passengers at the station panicking, while dozens of people rushed to the station for news of family members.

The state-owned railway company apologized to customers.

Accidents are common on Indonesia’s aging railroad network. In January 2024, two trains collided in West Java province, killing at least four people,

In October 2013, a passenger train slammed into a minibus at an unguarded crossing in West Java, killing 13 people. In 2010, a train from Jakarta plowed into the rear of a train that was sitting at a station in Central Java province, killing 36.

The events — one in each of the city's five boroughs — will include watch parties for the matches and other festivities. They will be staged at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, a shopping center near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and a minor league baseball stadium in Staten Island.

A separate fan event planned for Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, New Jersey, where the New York Red Bulls play, will cost $10.

World Cup matches will be played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where just getting to and from the matches on public transit could cost $150.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a noted soccer devotee, announced the free events alongside New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a fellow Democrat.

"Every fan should be able to watch the greatest tournament on earth without dipping into their savings," Mamdani said.

Similar fan events are being planned for other U.S. host cities.

According to officials, on April 23, during the early morning hours, an unknown individual unlawfully entered a building owned by Campbell County Schools. The suspect removed an undisclosed list of items from the property.

At the time of the incident, the individual was observed operating a small motorcycle.

The Sheriff’s Office urges anyone who recognizes this individual or has information related to this incident to contact the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office at (434) 332-9574.

Community members may also report anonymously by visiting the Central Virginia Crime Stoppers website at www.cvcrimestoppers.org, entering a tip online at http://p3tips.com, or using the P3 app on mobile devices.

The safety and cooperation of the community remain vital as deputies work to bring clarity and justice in this case.

According to VSP, the safety initiative will span the counties of Allegany, Bath, Botetourt, Franklin, Henry, Highland and Roanoke along 220.

Route 220 is one of the busiest and most accident-prone corridors in Virginia, according to officials.

The Virginia State Police, Alleghany Sheriff’s Office, Bath County Sheriff’s Office, Botetourt County Sheriff’s Office, Roanoke County Police, Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, Henry County Sheriff’s Office, Highland County Sheriff’s Office, Boones Mill Police Department, Rocky Mount Police Department, and the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles will be participating in a combined 24-hour project on May 1, 2026.

VSP said officers will focus on speeding, distracted driving, impaired driving and seatbelt violations. The goal is to reduce crashes and increase driver awareness along one of the region’s busiest corridors.

“When you’re on Route 220, every decision behind the wheel matters. Slow down, stay alert, and help us keep this roadway safe,” said Lieutenant Eric King, “Our agencies stand united in prioritizing safety along Route 220. This operation reflects our commitment to proactive enforcement and community protection.”

Motorists are urged to drive responsibly, avoid distractions, and follow the posted speed limits along Route 220.

It’s the third time in less than two years that a gunman has come uncomfortably close to Trump, renewing the central tension over how to accommodate the public-facing demands of the president's office while minimizing the risk of an attack.

Saturday’s episode, in which a man armed with guns and knives tried to storm the Washington hotel ballroom where the president was set to address the White House Correspondents’ Association, comes ahead of Trump’s expected participation in a stretch of large, high-profile events indoors and outdoors in the months ahead. Among them, he’s set to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary, oversee the U.S. co-hosting the World Cup and lead rallies meant to galvanize support for Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles will hold a meeting this week with officials from the White House operations team, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security to discuss security protocol at events with the president, according to a senior White House official. The meeting will examine security steps that were successful on Saturday while “exploring additional options” for future events, said the official, who insisted on anonymity to confirm private discussions.

Separately, a person familiar with the matter said the U.S. Secret Service was already reevaluating its security footing for the upcoming events. The agency’s posture was already elevated due to the extraordinary number of threats facing Trump — including two back-to-back assassination attempts in 2024 — and the realities of recent events such as the U.S.-Iran war.

“I can’t imagine that there’s any profession that is more dangerous,” Trump said of the presidency Saturday night from the White House.

Inside the Secret Service, agents on protective intelligence and threat assessment teams are also reexamining threats made against Trump in recent months. Copycat violence can follow high-profile attacks, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security planning.

The White House and Buckingham Palace said King Charles and Queen Camilla’s state visit Monday is going ahead as planned. Still, organizing around large-scale events deeper in the future — including the UFC bout on the White House lawn marking Trump’s 80th birthday in June, World Cup matches and the IndyCar race past the White House — could get more complicated.

An inherent tension in presidential protection is exposed

Lawmakers, event attendees and some allies of the president saw fault in the correspondents’ dinner security planning, questioning why someone like the shooter could reserve a room at the hotel to sneak in weapons around the outermost layer of security.

Republican Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman emeritus of the House Homeland Security Committee, said security protocols for Trump and Vice President JD Vance may need altering.

“I think the Secret Service needs to reconsider having both the president and vice president together at something like that,” McCaul told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Kari Lake, a former unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arizona and Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, complained about not having to show a photo ID to match her ticket to the event when entering the hotel for the correspondents’ dinner. “I can’t believe how lax the security was,” Lake wrote on X.

The Secret Service is charged only with the safety of its protectees, not of the event itself, and the agency immediately celebrated its response, drawing a high-profile endorsement from Trump himself.

“Our multilayered protection works,” director Sean Curran said Saturday.

“Those guys did a good job last night. They did a really good job,” echoed Trump on Sunday in an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”

Garrett Graff, author of “Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself — While the Rest of Us Die,” wrote in an analysis of the multiple layers of security around Trump during the dinner, “Seems like the system basically working as designed, amid the always necessary trade-offs of security in a free society.”

Retired Secret Service Agent Thomas D. Quinn, who helped pioneer Secret Service counterassault teams, posted on X that “the Secret Service security plan for the WHCD worked and the assailant was stopped.” He continued, “As long as we are a free people in a freedom loving Nation, the Secret Service responsibilities will continue to be immense.”

More security changes ahead

Ronald Kessler, author of “In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect,” said authorities are likely to consider placing bulletproof glass around where Trump speaks outside and inside — not unlike after the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt during the heat of the 2024 presidential campaign.

Attendees, Kessler said, will likely be more thoroughly screened going forward — exacerbating lines at entrances that can already take hours to clear. An example of what might happen came last fall, when Trump attended the men’s final of the U.S. Open tennis tournament and triggered massive security lines.

Such events underscore the complicated security questions surrounding presidential protection in a country where citizens expect their leaders to move through public spaces, hold rallies, attend events and appear before crowds.

“Presidents don’t like to have too much protection,” Kessler said. “I think, by their nature, they’re very outgoing. They want to meet people. They don’t want to be accused of being prisoners of the White House. And so, they’ll try to get around some of these improvements.”

Presidents can have love-hate relationships with security details

The Secret Service took over full-time responsibility for protecting the president during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, who came to office after an assassin killed William McKinley in 1901. Roosevelt found the constant security presence tiresome, however, and would sometimes slip away for unprotected hikes or horseback rides in Washington’s Rock Creek Park, according to the White House Historical Association.

Security personnel wanted President Ronald Reagan to exit the building where Saturday night’s shooting occurred, the Washington Hilton, through a covered garage in 1981, Kessler said. Reagan’s staff worried the optics would be bad, however, and the president was shot as he left an open-air exit, ultimately surviving.

After shots were fired Saturday, Secret Service agents surrounded Trump, who appeared to slip slightly as he was whisked away. Another team moved Vance so quickly it seemed as if it might haul him out while still seated in a banquet chair.

Trump told “60 Minutes” on Sunday that he “wasn’t making it easy” for the Secret Service by being “a little bit me.”

“I wanted to see what was happening,” the president said Sunday. “And by that time we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem — different kind of a problem — bad one.”

“I probably made them act a little bit more slowly. I said: ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. Lemme see. Wait a minute,’” Trump said. He said he started walking out but: “They said, 'Please go down. Please go down on the floor.′ So I went down, and the first lady went down also.”

Trump repeatedly praised the Secret Service and his detail, and he has pushed the correspondents’ association to reschedule the dinner. He said it would have “even more security.”

“And they’ll have bigger perimeter security,” he said. "It’ll be fine.”

___

Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Washington and Mike Balsamo in New York contributed.

The digital portrait represents a man whose remains, along with those of another person, were discovered as they attempted to flee the city toward the coast of what is now Italy during the volcanic eruption. Researchers believe the man died early in the disaster, during a heavy fall of volcanic debris.

The reconstruction was developed by the Pompeii Archaeological Park, which announced on its website that it was done in collaboration with the University of Padua and based on archaeological survey data from excavations near the Porta Stabia necropolis, just outside the walls of the ancient city.

The announcement shows the AI-generated illustration of what the man could have looked like. He is shown running along a rough, debris-covered road, holding a large, shallow bowl over his head and using it as a shield while Mount Vesuvius is seen erupting in the background.

Pompeii, a UNESCO World Heritage site near Naples, was buried under ash and pumice when the Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago, preserving the city and the remains of thousands of its inhabitants in remarkable detail.

Archaeologists found the man holding a terracotta mortar, which they interpreted as an improvised attempt to shield his head from falling small volcanic stones that rained down during the eruption.

Ancient accounts — including those of Roman writer Pliny the Younger — describe Pompeii's residents using objects to protect themselves as ash and debris blanketed the city.

The man was also carrying an oil lamp, a small iron ring and 10 bronze coins, personal objects that offer insight into his final moments as well as into daily life in Pompeii before the catastrophe.

The digital portrait was created using AI and photo-editing techniques designed to translate skeletal and archaeological data into a realistic human likeness.

“The vastness of archaeological data is now such that only with the help of artificial intelligence will we be able to adequately protect and enhance them. If used well, AI can contribute to a renewal of classical studies,” Pompeii park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel said in a statement.

The project aims to make archaeological research more accessible and emotionally engaging for the public while maintaining a scientific foundation, researchers said.

Phoenix resident Guillermo Sainz Gurrola was also fined $1,000 and will serve probation for three counts of solicitation of registration, which prosecutors described as offering financial incentives to canvassers who met quotas.

The attorney general's office said charges of forgery, unsworn falsification, public records tampering and violations of state elections and voter registration laws remain pending against six canvassers. One is also facing an identity theft charge.

Sainz Gurrola's defense attorney, Timothy M. Stengel, declined comment but said his client apologized in court. Authorities had previously identified him as Guillermo Sainz, but Stengel and the online court docket gave his name as Guillermo Sainz Gurrola.

Stengel said the plea on Monday involved registration drives in Lancaster, Berks and York counties.

In a court affidavit filed with the criminal charges, investigators said Sainz Gurrola, an employee of Field+Media Corps, “instituted unlawful financial incentives and pressures in his push to meet company goals to maintain funding which in turn spurred some canvassers to create and submit fake forms to earn more money.”

Field+Media was funded by Everybody Votes, which has worked to improve voter registration rates in communities of color. The court affidavit said Everybody Votes had fully cooperated with the investigation and that its contract with Field+Media prohibited payments on a per-registration basis.

Sainz Gurrola managed Pennsylvania operations from May to October 2024.

The investigation began in the weeks before the general election when election workers in Lancaster County flagged voter registration forms for potential fraud. Investigators said they appeared to contain false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses and other problematic details.

In the homestretch of the presidential contest, then-candidate Donald Trump seized on the case, declaring there had been “cheating” involving “2,600” votes. The actual issue in Lancaster was about 2,500 suspected fraudulent voter registration forms, not ballots or votes.

U.S. President Donald Trump seems unlikely to accept the offer, which was passed to the Americans by Pakistan and would leave unresolved the disagreements that led the U.S. and Israel to go to war on Feb. 28.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s national security team met Monday and was discussing Iran’s proposal. But she offered no detail about the discussion or how the proposal was received. She said Trump would address it later.

With a fragile ceasefire in place, the U.S. and Iran are locked in a standoff over the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas passes in peacetime. The U.S blockade is designed to prevent Iran from selling its oil, depriving it of crucial revenue while also potentially creating a situation where Tehran has to shut off production because it has nowhere to store oil.

The strait’s closure, meanwhile, has put pressure on Trump, as oil and gasoline prices have skyrocketed ahead of crucial midterm elections, and it has pressured his Gulf allies, which use the waterway to export their oil and gas.

Renewed demands to end blockade

Frustration among many nations is mounting, with renewed demands Monday to end the blockade that has had far-reaching effects throughout the world economy, including raising the price of fertilizer, food and other basic goods.

The Iranian proposal would push negotiations on the country's nuclear program to a later date. Trump said one of the major reasons he went to war was to deny Iran the ability to develop nuclear weapons.

The two officials with knowledge of the proposal spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations between Iranian and Pakistani officials this weekend. Iran's proposal was first reported by the Axios news outlet.

The offer emerged as Iran’s foreign minister visited Russia, which has long been a key backer of Tehran. It’s unclear what, if any, assistance Moscow might offer now.

Iran’s ability to choke off traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, has proved one of its biggest strategic advantages in a war that has often boiled down to which side can take more pain.

Oil prices have risen steadily since the war began, and tankers full of crude became stranded in the Gulf, unable to safely pass through the strait to reach global distribution points.

On Monday, the spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was trading at around $109 per barrel, about 50% higher than when the war began.

Dozens of nations push for reopening of strait

Dozens of nations repeated calls to open the critical waterway in a joint statement led by Bahrain.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Monday that the humanitarian toll is mounting.

“These pressures are cascading into empty fuel tanks, empty shelves — and empty plates,” he said.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticized the U.S. for going into the war with what he said was no strategy. “The problem with conflicts like these is always the same: It’s not just about getting in. You also have to get out,” Merz said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot blasted all sides. He said the crisis began after the U.S. and Israel struck Iran without clear goals "in a manner that flouts international law.”

But he said Iran is responsible for closing the passageway. “Straits are the arteries of the world. They are not the property of any individual. They are not for sale, therefore, they cannot be impeded by any obstacles, tolls, nor bribery,” he said.

Top Iranian diplomat meets Putin in Russia

Trump last week indefinitely extended the ceasefire the U.S. and Iran agreed to on April 7 that has largely halted fighting. But a permanent settlement remains elusive.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Russian state news agency Tass said. Putin praised the Iranian people as “bravely and heroically fighting for their sovereignty,” and he said Russia would do everything possible to bring peace to the Middle East, Tass reported.

Araghchi told a Russian state TV reporter that the U.S. and its leaders “have achieved none of their goals” in the war. “That’s why they ask for negotiation,” he said. “We are now considering it.”

Iran’s top diplomat said Iran and Russia “are strategic partners” and that their “cooperation would continue.”

The meeting came as Pakistan has been seeking to revive stalled talks between Iran and the U.S., and negotiations had been expected in Islamabad over the weekend. Instead, Trump called off a trip by his envoys and suggested the talks could take place by phone instead.

Iran wants to persuade Oman, which shares the strait with Iran, to support a mechanism to collect tolls from vessels passing through the strait, according to a regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Oman’s response was not immediately clear.

The official, who is involved in mediation efforts, also said Iran insisted on ending the U.S. blockade before new talks and that Pakistan-led mediators are trying to bridge significant gaps between the countries.

Trump says Iran offered a ‘much better’ proposal

Trump told journalists Saturday that after he called off a trip by his envoys to Pakistan, Iran sent a “much better” proposal.

He did not elaborate but stressed that one of his conditions is that Iran “will not have a nuclear weapon.” Iran insists its program is peaceful, but the U.S. wants to remove Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which could be used to build a bomb, should Tehran choose to pursue one.

Since the war began, at least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran and at least 2,521 people in Lebanon, where fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group resumed two days after the Iran war started. Another 23 people have been killed in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, 13 U.S. service members in the region and six U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon have been killed.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has been extended by three weeks. Despite the truce, both sides continue to strike each other.

Hezbollah has not participated in the Washington-brokered diplomacy.

___

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri in New York and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Felix, a mother of two, told Time Magazine she thought about coming back some four years after calling it quits and decided: “Let’s go after the thing. Let’s be vulnerable.”

“You know, at this age, I should probably be staying home and taking care of my kids, doing all that. And just, why not? Let’s flip it on its head," she said.

Felix has won 11 Olympic medals — the most by any woman in track — and has a record 20 medals from world championships.

She is a seven-time Olympic champion, with six in the relays and her lone individual gold coming in the 200 meters at the 2012 London Games.

Before retiring in 2022, she became an outspoken advocate for athletes who become mothers and want to keep their careers going.

Felix, who landed a spot on the IOC Athletes' Commission in retirement, has two kids — 7-year-old Camryn and 2-year old Trey.

She said she expects to start full-time training with her coach, Bobby Kersee, in October with the goal of competing in 2027. The Olympics will be in her hometown a year later.

“I totally get the person who sticks around too long and you’re like, ‘What are they doing?’” Felix said. “I know, at 40, I am not at my peak. I have no illusions about that. I’m very clear in what it is and what I want to see. And so I hope it’s seen that way.”

___

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

Rebel groups have staged 26 attacks with explosives and drones since Friday, including a deadly blast Saturday on a highway between the cities of Cali and Popayan, according to Colombia’s defense ministry. The death toll in that explosion rose to 21 people on Monday.

Violence in the region is nothing new. Illegal groups have sought to control the area for decades, deeming it strategic for illicit activities, such as illegal mining and drug trafficking, including the cultivation of coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine.

Authorities blamed a group known as the FARC-EMC for the lethal explosion, near a tunnel on the Pan-American Highway. The group is led by Nestor Vera — commonly known as Iván Mordisco — a former member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym FARC, who refused to join a 2016 peace deal with the nation’s government.

Sergio Guzmán, a political risk analyst in Colombia's capital, Bogota, said that Mordisco’s group could be trying to demonstrate that it has the capabilities to do serious damage, and is seeking to “establish its credibility” with Colombia’s next government as it positions itself for future negotiations.

“Part of what they are doing is establishing leverage towards the future,” Guzmán said.

Under President Gustavo Petro, a former member of a guerrilla group, the Colombian government has attempted to stage peace talks with the nation’s remaining rebel groups through a strategy known as " total peace."

The government has offered ceasefires to various groups in an effort to promote peace negotiations, but analysts say the strategy has failed, because these groups used the ceasefires to regroup, rearm and strengthen their grip over communities.

Groups like the FARC-EMC have been known to tax residents in areas under their control, and also forcibly recruit youth into their ranks.

“The government’s peace policy has been naïve,” said Javier Garay, a political science professor at Colombia’s Externado University. “They thought that if they had a condescending attitude towards these groups they would receive a positive response.”

In late 2023, the FARC-EMC entered peace talks with the Colombian government. But a faction led by Mordisco abandoned the talks in April 2024, and has been fighting the Colombian government since then.

Elizabeth Dickinson, a Colombia analyst at the International Crisis Group, said that Mordisco’s group is particularly strong in the provinces of Cauca and Valle del Cauca, where it's fighting for control of drug trafficking routes and illegal gold mines.

For the past two years, Mordisco’s group has also used drone attacks and car bombs, to respond to an offensive from the Colombian military in the Micay Canyon, a remote area covered with coca fields that is under the FARC-EMC’s grip.

Dickinson said that the latest attacks in southwest Colombia are one way for the group to show that it can sustain its “asymmetrical war” against the government.

Colombia’s defense minister on Sunday said that kidnappings and lockdowns enforced by rebel groups on communities had decreased in Cauca over the past year because of the government's actions.

But the government’s total peace strategy has come under fire from the opposition, whose candidates are hoping to benefit from the nation’s security woes, as they promise to take a tougher stance on crime.

Petro is barred by Colombia’s constitution from running for another term. But his party’s candidate, Iván Cepeda, has promised to continue peace talks with rebel groups.

Cepeda said on X that he rejected the recent attacks in southwest Colombia, and urged authorities to investigate whether they were part of an effort to interfere with the election.

“It is worrying that these terrorist actions are happening in a region where there is ample support for our political project,” Cepeda said.

Voters in Colombia will head to the polls on May 31 to choose from 14 different presidential candidates, including Cepeda, and conservatives Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia.

While Cepeda favors the continuation of Petro’s “total peace” strategy, his conservative rivals have said that they favor confronting rebel groups and putting more military pressure on them before resuming peace talks.

Guzmán said that while this weekend’s attacks “deepen the discomfort” with the security situation in Colombia — where a presidential candidate was killed last year — both sides will try to profit from this new wave of violence.

“Government supporters will use the attacks as an opportunity to say that that this is exactly why we need to reach urgent agreements with (rebel) groups,” Guzmán said. “Detractors will say this is why we need to more aggressively attack them.”

___

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

Winfrey's production company, Harpo Entertainment, struck a multiyear deal to give Amazon-owned Wondery exclusive distributing and advertising rights to “The Oprah Podcast," the companies announced Monday. Under the agreement, Winfrey's podcast will expand to two new episodes a week starting this summer — and Wondrey will distribute the show's audio and video across Amazon platforms.

Under the deal, Amazon has also obtained rights to the library of the widely-watched “The Oprah Winfrey Show” — which ran from 1986 to 2011 — as well as the talk show host's book club and "Favorite Things" franchises.

No financial terms of the agreement were immediately shared.

Winfrey's podcast joins a lineup of other celebrity-led shows now at Amazon. In 2024, for example, Wondrey similarly reached an exclusive distribution and advertising deal for “New Heights” — a podcast from Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and his brother, former Eagles center Jason Kelce.

Winfrey launched “The Oprah Podcast” in December 2024. In a prepared statement Monday, Winfrey said that hosting the show “allows me to continue the work I feel called to do – opening the door for conversations that matter.” She added that expanding its reach “is an opportunity I embrace.”

Wondery will begin distributing “The Oprah Podcast” across Amazon services like Prime Video, Amazon Music, Fire TV Channels and Audible in July, according to Monday's announcement. Winfrey's podcast will also continue to be available on YouTube and other popular platforms.

The strikes were the first violent incident since Chinese-mediated peace talks between the two sides earlier this month.

Pakistan and Afghanistan had been embroiled in months of deadly fighting that has killed hundreds of people since late February, when Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan. Islamabad had declared it was in open war with Afghanistan, in an escalation of violence that alarmed the international community.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting dismissed Afghan media reports and official statements about the strikes on the university as “a blatant lie.”

Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harboring militants that carry out deadly attacks inside Pakistan, especially the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. The group is separate from, but allied with, the Afghan Taliban, which took over Afghanistan in 2021 following the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led troops. Kabul denies the charge.

Afghan and Pakistani officials met in Urumqi in western China in early April, and had agreed not to escalate their conflict and “explore a comprehensive solution,” China’s government had said after mediating the talks.

Monday’s strikes marked the first major attack since the talks, highlighting the tenuous nature of peace efforts mediated by the international community. Apart from China, other nations that have been involved in mediation between the two sides at various times include Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

The fighting largely subsided in March, after the two sides declared a temporary truce for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The truce followed a deadly Pakistani airstrike on March 17 on a drug treatment facility in the Afghan capital, Kabul, that Afghanistan said killed more than 400 civilians. Pakistan denied targeting civilian facilities and disputed the death toll.

Still, sporadic cross-border fighting had continued even while delegations from the two sides were attending the talks in Urumqi.

Afghan deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said Monday’s mortar and missile attack struck the city of Asadabad, the capital of Kunar Province, as well as various areas in another district in the province on Monday afternoon.

Kunar Information and Culture Director Najibullah Hanafi said the death toll stood at seven, with 85 people wounded.

Fitrat said the wounded included women, children and students at the Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani University, and described the attacks as "an unforgivable war crime, barbarity, and provocative act.”

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Higher Education said about 30 students and professors were injured in the strike on the university, which it said had caused extensive damage to the facility’s buildings and grounds.

In a statement, Pakistan's information ministry said that “Pakistan’s targeting is precise and intelligence based. No strike has been carried out on Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan University. The claims are frivolous and fake.”

On Saturday, Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mutaqi described the recent negotiations in China as “positive.”

“You are all aware of our recent problems with Pakistan. The latest negotiations were held in Urumqi under the mediation of China, and these negotiations were positive,” he said during a graduation ceremony at the foreign ministry’s Diplomacy Institute.

The issues between the two countries “are very sensitive between neighbors and between two Islamic neighboring countries and should not be treated irresponsibly,” he added.

Earlier this month, the United Nations’ office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in Afghanistan said the conflict had displaced 94,000 people overall.

___

Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Pakistan and Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece contributed to this report.

Jay Bryant pleaded guilty to a federal murder charge, telling a judge that he helped other people get into a recording studio to ambush the DJ, born Jason Mizell.

“I knew a gun was going to be used to shoot Jason Mizell,” Bryant told a federal magistrate. “I knew that what I was doing was wrong and a crime.”

Bryant’s admission brings some closure — but also adds complexity — to a knotty case.

Bryant didn’t name the other people with whom he acted. But a jury in 2024 convicted two other men, Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington, yet a judge subsequently cleared Jordan.

Washington has also challenged his conviction. His lawyer, Susan Kellman, noted Monday that evidence against Bryant included his DNA on a hat at the crime scene and witness testimony that Bryant once claimed he fired the gun himself. Jordan's lawyers declined to comment.

Bryant, 52, is expected to face a sentence somewhere between 15 and 20 years in prison for killing plus unrelated drug and gun charges to which he pleaded guilty earlier. No sentencing date has been set.

He gave a thumbs-up to someone in the audience before leaving court. The person declined to comment afterward, as did Bryant's attorneys.

Prosecutors had no immediate comment.

Mizell handled the turntables in Run-DMC, a pathbreaking trio he formed with friends Darryl “DMC” McDaniels and Joseph Simmons, known as DJ Run and Rev. Run.

With such 1980s hits as “It’s Tricky,” “My Adidas,” and a version of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” they helped rap climb the ladder from an urban genre into mainstream popularity. Run-DMC was the first rap group with gold- and platinum-selling albums, a Rolling Stone cover, and a video on MTV. The trio was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2009. Mizell also mentored other hip-hop artists, including a young 50 Cent.

At 37, Mizell was gunned down in his studio in the Queens neighborhood where he’d grown up. His October 2002 death followed the late 1990s killings of two other hip-hop greats, Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. Authorities struggled with all three cases for years.

Jordan and Washington — Mizell’s godson and old friend, respectively — were arrested in 2020. Prosecutors said the men were bitter about losing out on a piece of a failed cocaine deal that Mizell had tried to line up. Though Run-DMC was known for its anti-drug message, prosecutors and a trial witness said the DJ moonlighted in the cocaine trade in his later years to cover his bills and keep being generous to friends after music money dried up somewhat.

According to prosecutors and trial witnesses, Jordan shot Mizell while Washington blocked the door during the shooting and ordered one of Mizell’s aides to get on the ground. Both men denied the allegations. Jordan’s attorneys said he was at his girlfriend’s home when the DJ was shot, and Washington’s lawyers said he had no incentive to kill the famous friend who helped him financially.

Nearly three years after their arrests, prosecutors abruptly brought Bryant into their picture of the killing.

Saying that Bryant’s DNA had been found on a hat in the studio and that he’d been seen entering the building, prosecutors added him to the murder indictment. He was already jailed on the drug and gun case.

Bryant knew someone in common with Jordan and Washington, according to testimony at their trial. But unlike them, Bryant had little, if any, connection to Mizell.

Bryant said in court Monday that he was connected with people who were involved in a cocaine deal with the DJ and that he "helped them kill Jason Mizell by helping them gain entry to the recording studio.”

Bryant’s uncle has said his nephew told him he shot Mizell after the artist reached for a gun. But no one else testified that Bryant even entered the studio.

Instead, prosecutors contended that Bryant was enlisted to make his way into the studio building and open a back fire door, allowing Washington and Jordan to walk in without buzzing up and alerting Mizell they were coming.

While neither Jordan’s nor Washington’s DNA was on the cap, then-prosecutor Artie McConnell suggested one of them had accidentally left it behind, and that Bryant had simply touched it at some point beforehand.

The proposal, backed by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time, 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, which would largely be used to offset federal funding cuts to healthcare for low-income people.

“California’s health is at stake,” said Liz Perlman, executive director of a chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a major labor union. “Hospitals are closing and people will die. Why? So billionaires can get another tax cut that they don’t need.”

The California Secretary of State still has to verify the signatures and officially place the measure on the ballot. Backers say they collected more than 1.5 million signatures, well over the roughly 875,000 they needed.

If the measure goes before voters in November, it could prompt one of the costliest ballot fights ever and will draw national attention as a litmus test for voter attitudes on raising taxes on the rich. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has already traveled to California to campaign for the idea.

Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and Silicon Valley tech moguls are adamantly opposed. They warn it will drive California's wealthiest residents out of the state. Nearly half of California's personal income tax revenue comes from the top 1% of earners. Some have already purchased properties out of state in case it passes.

“After playing with matches since October the SEIU has succeeded in lighting a ‘Tax the Rich’ wildfire by getting enough signatures,” said David Lesperance, a tax consultant who's advised some of his wealthy clients who left California because of the proposal. “The many billionaire targets of their efforts have already responded by executing fire escape plans by relocating to other states.”

Brian Brokaw, a longtime Newsom adviser who is leading a political committee opposing the tax, said the measure was poorly constructed and would deal a huge blow to the state’s budget.

“Enacting a so-called wealth tax in just one state wouldn’t target a small group -- it would impact all 40 million Californians,” he said in a statement. “This proposal trades a short-term revenue bump for long-term losses.”

At least 25 billionaires listed among Forbes magazine’s 2025 rankings of the world’s 500 wealthiest people either lived in California or had some significant ties to the state, based on a review by The Associated Press. But determining whether they were full-time residents or just frequent visitors could turn into a matter of dispute, since many of them own property elsewhere.

The big tax and spending cuts law President Donald Trump signed last year will cut more than $1 trillion nationwide over a decade from Medicaid and federal food assistance.

OpenAI relied exclusively on Microsoft's investments in cloud computing services to build the technology that helped make ChatGPT a household name. Microsoft, in turn, relied on OpenAI's technology to build its own AI assistant Copilot.

But the partnership has evolved as San Francisco-based OpenAI, founded as a nonprofit, has shifted to a capitalistic enterprise on a path toward an initial public offering on Wall Street and has balanced its reliance on Microsoft with other cloud partners like Amazon, Google and Oracle.

OpenAI said Monday it will continue to pay Microsoft a share of its revenue through 2030.

The two companies said Microsoft remains the primary cloud computing partner for OpenAI, and products made by the AI company will ship first on Microsoft's cloud platform, called Azure, “unless Microsoft cannot and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities.”

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy described it as a “very interesting announcement” in a social media post Monday and said that Amazon will soon be making OpenAI’s models “available directly" on Amazon's AI platform called Bedrock.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors Monday that the new agreement “puts OpenAI on a strong path forward to going public through IPO given its clearer opportunity in the cloud environment while reducing significant barriers from its original partnership with Microsoft.”

Ives said it's also important for Microsoft as it “looks to develop tech independence from OpenAI” in advancing Copilot's capabilities and partnering with other AI providers such as OpenAI rival Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude.

Backyard poultry include birds like chicken, ducks, geese, guinea fowl and turkeys. The animals can carry germs, including salmonella, that make people sick.

Illnesses were reported from Feb. 26 to March 31 and include 13 people who were hospitalized, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sick people range in age from 1 to 78, but more than 40% are children younger than 5, the CDC said last week.

Sick people have been reported in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin and West Virginia. But more illnesses in more states could be possible, CDC officials added.

Of sick people interviewed, nearly 80% reported contact with backyard poultry. Of people interviewed who owned backyard poultry, more than 90% had obtained the animals since January. People got the poultry from various places, including agricultural retail stores. Health officials are investigating the sources of the animals.

Bacteria from samples from 34 people showed they might be resistant to at least one drug used to treat salmonella infections. Of those, some also showed they might be resistant to four other common antibiotics. Infections that are unable to be treated with antibiotics can result in serious illness or death.

The CDC has investigated multiple salmonella outbreaks involving backyard poultry in recent years. In 2025, an outbreak sickened more than 500 people in 48 states, with 125 people hospitalized and two deaths.

Young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems are most likely to get sick from these germs. The best way to prevent illness is to wash hands after handling poultry, their food or items in their environment. People should avoid kissing or snuggling with backyard birds, the CDC says.

___

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.

Edwards had an MRI exam that confirmed the absence of structural damage, a relief to the Timberwolves after Edwards' injury occurred in the second quarter of their Game 4 victory over the Nuggets. Still, his availability for the second round if they advance will be in question. The team called his status week to week, so Edwards would likely miss at least the beginning of the next series before he's cleared to return.

“With the two injuries we had in one game, it was as positive as you can get it,” guard Mike Conley told reporters after the team's pregame shootaround in Denver. ”Obviously we want him to get healthy. We want him to be recovered as quickly as he can, but his health is No. 1. He knows his body. When his body’s ready, he’s going to fight through it. We know if we can get out of the series, we’ll get him back."

Minnesota, which took a 3-1 lead on Denver in the series into Game 5, lost their other starting guard, Donte DiVincenzo, for the rest of the postseason and much of next season with a ruptured right Achilles tendon he suffered in the opening minutes of Game 4.

Edwards averaged 28.8 points in the regular season, third best in the NBA behind Luka Doncic of the Los Angeles Lakers and reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder. He missed 21 games this season, by far the most of his career, mostly to a right knee injury.

___

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

He devised a unique way to greet NASCAR Nation after the first Cup Series win of his career.

During a daring victory lap that bordered on dangerous, Hocevar piloted his No. 77 Chevrolet while hanging out the window. He enthusiastically slammed the car's roof and saluted the crowd as he rolled down the Talladega Superspeedway frontstretch and performed a burnout.

“I thought, ‘Man, I have really long legs, and I wonder if I can hit the throttle and sit on the door and ride,’” Hocevar said. “I just wanted them to get as loud as possible. I felt like they would if they could see me seeing them. Hopefully, it was cool.”

Based on the cheers, the thousands in attendance loved the celebration.

Led by its new executive management team, NASCAR was just as eager to christen its newest star at the Alabama track known as the biggest party venue on the circuit.

A 23-year-old who embraces the quintessential Gen Z hallmarks of digital outreach and gaming, Hocevar also has an unvarnished and unapologetically aggressive side that has encouraged comparisons with Dale Earnhardt.

Just like “The Intimidator,” NASCAR broadcasters have affixed the Spire Motorsports driver with a nickname — “Hurricane Hocevar” — reflecting his willingness to stir up trouble as he relentlessly chases victories.

The day after being introduced as the first CEO in NASCAR’s 78-year history outside of the founding France family, Steve O’Donnell sat through Hocevar’s first news conference as a Cup Series winner Sunday and gave a thumbs up to the Portage, Michigan, native for “the coolest celebration I’ve ever seen.”

O’Donnell said his main goal is to bring fun back to NASCAR, whose popularity has eroded from a peak driven by charismatic personalities. Coming off a rough year that ended with settling a taxing lawsuit amid difficult testimony by Jim France (who turned over the CEO position to O’Donnell as nephew Ben Kennedy was named COO), NASCAR launched a “Hell Yeah” marketing campaign intended to emphasize its roots in moonshine running and rabble-rousing.

Hocevar seems the relatable star to carry that message while bridging the gap to a 21st-century audience.

“He’s one of those guys we’re going to rely on as a sport,” O’Donnell said on the “Inside the Race” podcast Sunday night after Hocevar’s win. “What we just watched, the excitement and enthusiasm, that emotion is what fans want to see. They want to embrace a guy like Carson Hocevar, who is not only winning but looks like they’re enjoying themselves.”

Hocevar often hangs out in the grandstands and pits during lower-tier races. On Saturday at Talladega, he cheered wildly from the pits as Garrett Mitchell, a popular YouTube automotive influencer known as “Cleetus McFarland,” nearly won an ARCA race.

“A lot of race fans, they probably always dream of racing,” Hocevar said. “Maybe they vicariously get to drive through me. I’m online a lot and in the stands. I’m not playing a character. I’m not acting for anybody.”

Hocevar said the idea for his Talladega celebration came from his win last November in “The 2.4 Hours of LeMullets,” an event at Cleetus McFarland’s Freedom Factory in Bradenton, Florida, that features souped-up Crown Victorias that once were police vehicles.

This isn’t quite the way Earnhardt would have done it, even if the victory lap evoked an iconic image of him leaning out of his cockpit to clean his windshield as the late seven-time champion drove under caution in a 1986 race.

Hocevar said the mimicry was unintentional, and he has resisted attempts to brand him as a successor to any NASCAR superstar.

“There’s no mold for Carson Hocevar,” said Luke Lambert, Hocevar’s crew chief. “Nobody had a focus group to decide what a driver should look like and came up with Carson Hocevar. He is unapologetically himself. I’ve never met anybody that’s exactly like him.”

When he hired Hocevar straight out of the Camping World Truck Series three years ago, Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson believed the team had “a star in the making.” Dickerson noted the juxtaposition of Cup champions who can’t stand Hocevar (who has feuded with Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney) with the fans who love him.

“This kid knows how to stand on the gas,” Dickerson said. “He has probably the most irrational confidence of a driver I’ve ever seen.”

The brashness is natural for Hocevar, who enjoys quoting the comedy film “Talladega Nights” while wearing a goofy firesuit designed to make him look like a cowboy with a big belt buckle and jeans. Smiling widely and sporting a black 10-gallon hat, he gleefully relished the thought of his Talladega ride going viral.

“I”m going to be on my phone all night just watching this stuff,” he said.

Team shake-up

A day after Kyle Busch delivered the first top 10 this season for Richard Childress Racing, the team announced a new crew chief for the two-time Cup Series champion.

Taking the reins of the No. 8 Chevrolet starting at Texas Motor Speedway, Andy Street was reassigned from the role of RCR performance director to replace Jim Pohlman, who will move into a leadership position. Pohlman was the crew chief for only 10 races with Busch, who is mired in the worst slump of his two-decade career and ranked 27th in the points standings.

“This move is about putting our people in the best position to succeed,” team owner Richard Childress said in a release. “We have strong talent across this organization, and we’re focused on having each person in the right position to help deliver the results we expect.”

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

U.S. President Donald Trump seems unlikely to accept the offer. The existing ceasefire keeps the U.S. and Iran in a fragile standoff over the strait.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Russia Monday for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin as part of a trip that included two stops in Pakistan, where leaders are scrambling to reignite stalled talks between Tehran and Washington.

Airlines worldwide have begun canceling flights as the war in the Middle East strains jet fuel supplies and pushes up oil prices. Here’s what to know if your flight is canceled.

Here is the latest:

Netanyahu says Hezbollah is down to about 10% of its arsenal

Meeting with army commanders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah’s ability to fire into Israel has been sharply degraded, estimating the group retains about 10% of its arsenal. He did not clarify whether that figure refers to the Lebanese militant group’s stockpile from before the current war, or since the Gaza war began back in 2023.

Iran-backed Hezbollah is believed to still have tens of thousands of rockets, missiles and drones despite decades of efforts by Israel, U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanon’s government to disarm it. Despite Israeli pressure, it’s unclear whether Lebanese authorities have the capacity or political will to disarm Hezbollah.

Netanyahu said Israeli forces’ occupation of parts of southern Lebanon — which he described as a “security zone” — has made northern Israel safer. He said deals brokered with the U.S. and Lebanon gave Israel a “freedom of action” to counter threats inside that country. Beirut has not acknowledged any such right, and Hezbollah says it will keep firing as long as Israel does.

Trump national security team met and discussed Iranian proposal on Strait of Hormuz

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s national security team met Monday and was discussing Iran’s proposal on reopening the key waterway. But she offered no detail on what came of the discussion and how the proposal was being received. She instead said that Trump would address it later.

Israel cancels major holiday gatherings over fears of a Hezbollah attack

Typically, around 100,000 mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews would gather next week on Mount Meron in northern Israel to celebrate the Lag BaOmer holiday.

However, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the large festival will replaced with a smaller symbolic ceremony, citing concerns about the gathering being attacked by Hezbollah. Similar restrictions were imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic and previous wars.

Mount Meron is only about 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the border with Lebanon. People normally light bonfires, dance and have large meals there in honor Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a 2nd-century sage and mystic who is believed to be buried on the mountain.

Across Israel, even in secular areas, people often celebrate Lag BaOmer with barbecues and bonfires in parks and forests.

US and Iranian officials clash during a UN nuclear weapons conference

Officials from the United States and Iran clashed over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions at the opening of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review, a dispute almost certain to continue during the four-week meeting.

At issue was the election of Iran as one of 34 vice-presidents of the conference. Iran was a candidate of the Nonaligned Movement, comprising 121 mainly developing countries.

The United States was backed by Australia and the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom, France and Germany also expressed “concern.” Russia objected to singling out Iran.

The U.S. representative, whose name was not immediately available, said the Trump administration was “deeply shocked” that a country that has demonstrated “contempt” for the treaty is now a vice-president.

Iran’s Ambassador to the U.N. in Vienna, Reza Najafi, categorically rejected the U.S. statement, calling the allegations “baseless and politically motivated.”

Iran’s top diplomat says the US wants to negotiate because it failed to achieve its war aims

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told a Russian state TV reporter on Monday that despite the U.S. being a superpower, its leaders “have achieved none of their goals” in the war against his country.

“That’s why they ask for negotiation,” Iran’s top diplomat said. “We are now considering it.”

Araghchi was in St. Petersburg on Monday, meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top officials.

Asked by another reporter about Russia’s support, the minister said only that “Iran and Russia are strategic partners,” and that the two counties “have always supported” each other. “Our cooperation would continue,” Araghchi said.

French FM says international waterways are ‘not for sale’ while blaming the US, Israel and Iran for Hormuz crisis

At a U.N. Security Council meeting on maritime security, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the energy and humanitarian crisis caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz began after “operations launched by the United States and Israel without a clearly set of goal, which were conducted in a manner that flouts international law.”

But Barrot added that Iran now holds responsibility for what it is doing with the critical waterway.

“Straits are the arteries of the world. They are not the property of any individual. They are not for sale, therefore, they cannot be impeded by any obstacles, tolls, nor bribery, neither by Iran, nor by any other party, and under no pretext,” he said.

UN officials and dozens of countries call for immediate action in releasing Iran’s hold over the Strait of Hormuz

In a joint statement led by Bahrain, dozens of countries reiterated their weekslong “call for the urgent and unimpeded opening” of the critical waterway as negotiations between the U.S. and Iran remain stalled.

Antonio Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, told the Security Council on Monday that given the impasse in the negotiations, the world body should support an emergency framework in the meantime put forth by the International Maritime Organization.

The U.N. chief warned about the consequences of waiting to address the “worst supply chain disruption since COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine.”

“These pressures are cascading into empty fuel tanks, empty shelves — and empty plates,” he told the 15-member council. “The humanitarian toll is mounting.”

UK doesn’t support US blockade of Iranian ports, deputy minister says

Stephen Doughty, minister of state for Europe and North America, said that while the U.K. doesn’t support the U.S. blockade, it supports working with the United States and others to reopen the Strait of Hormuz — where he said the Iran is holding “the rest of the world to ransom.”

Maritime traffic must flow safely and unimpeded through the strait, he said, “and that includes no tolls, no security risk and, of course, adherence to the international laws on freedom of navigation.”

Diplomacy is crucial, Doughty told a small group of U.N. reporters ahead of a Security Council meeting Monday on the safety of navigation in the critical waterway, through which around 20% of the world’s crude oil normally passes.

He said de-escalation and a ceasefire are also crucial, stressing that Iran can’t be allowed to block the strait, attack its Gulf neighbors and civilian infrastructure, and develop nuclear weapons.

Rubio says a purported Iranian offer on the Strait of Hormuz is not acceptable

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says a purported offer from Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz under strict conditions is not acceptable to the United States or others.

Speaking in a Monday interview with Fox News, Rubio said Iran has a different view of the strategic waterway than most of the rest of the world.

“What they mean by opening the straits is, yes, the straits are open, as long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission, or we’ll blow you up and you pay us,” Rubio said.

“That’s not opening the straits. Those are international waterways. They cannot normalize, nor can we tolerate them trying to normalize, a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use

Lebanon’s Health Ministry raises death toll there to 2,521

The ministry added Monday that 7,804 people were wounded since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war started March 2.

Despite a ceasefire that’s been in place since April 17, there have been repeated violations by both sides.

Merz says the American nation ‘is being humiliated’ by the Iranian leadership

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Monday criticized the U.S. for going into the Iran war without any strategy, saying this also makes it harder to end the conflict.

“The problem with conflicts like these is always the same: it’s not just about getting in; you also have to get out. We saw that all too painfully in Afghanistan, for 20 years. We saw it in Iraq,” the chancellor said while speaking Monday to students in Marsberg in the Sauerland region of Germany.

The lack of U.S. strategy and the fact that the Iranians are stronger than previously thought made it hard to end the conflict now, he said.

“Especially since the Iranians are negotiating very skillfully — or rather, very skillfully not negotiating,” he added. “And then letting the Americans travel to Islamabad, only to send them back without any results. An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards.”

Germany, he said, maintains its offer to send minesweepers in order to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but only after the fighting is over.

Pakistan clears transit of third-country goods to Iran

Pakistan has cleared the way for Iran to import goods from third countries through its territory by opening new transit routes.

According to a government notification issued Saturday, six routes have been designated linking ports including Karachi, Port Qasim and Gwadar with key border crossings in southwestern Balochistan province.

The notification was issued during a visit to Islamabad by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who met Pakistani officials for talks amid tensions between the United States and Iran.

The order took immediate effect.

Analysts said Monday the new policy allows cargo bound for Iran to move across Pakistan swiftly without facing delays due to bureaucratic hurdles. They said it could also help Pakistan strengthen its role as a regional transit route and improve connectivity with Iran and beyond the region in future.

Iran turns to the Caspian Sea for food with Persian Gulf routes choked by the US blockade

With the United States trying to squeeze Iran by blockading goods from entering or exiting its ports, food suppliers are rerouting imports via the Caspian Sea to ensure food keeps getting into the country.

The head of the Association of Iran’s Food Industries said Monday that alternative import routes are being “incorporated into the supply chain for essential goods.”

“At present, there is no problem with the country’s food security, but maintaining this situation requires careful planning,” Mohammad Reza Mortazavi said, according to the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.

The Caspian is the world’s largest inland body of water and its southern coastline stretches more than 430 miles (700 kilometers) in northern Iran. Iran is a net importer of food staples like grain and cooking oil.

US stocks are mixed as their record-breaking rally slows, while oil prices rise

The U.S. stock market’s record-breaking rally is slowing Monday after uncertainty rose over the weekend about what will happen next in the Iran war, while oil prices are rising.

The S&P 500 edged down by less than 0.1%, coming off its latest all-time high driven by strong profit reports from U.S. companies and hopes that the United States and Iran can avoid a worst-case scenario for the economy because of their war. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 86 points, or 0.2%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq was 0.3% lower after setting its own record.

The moves were stronger in the oil market, where prices climbed more than 1.5% as tankers still find the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed. That’s keeping crude stuck in the Middle East and away from customers worldwide, including crude produced by Iran that’s being blockaded by the U.S. Navy.

▶ Read more

Israeli military videos show weapons discovered and homes leveled as fighting in Lebanon grinds on

It released videos Monday showing troops operating in Lebanon, including coordinated explosions in unnamed villages, toppling homes it said were infrastructure used by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Footage also showed a brigade discovering a cache of rifles and missile launchers stashed in a children’s room, which it said were hidden beneath toys, beds and elsewhere in kids’ rooms.

Despite a ceasefire nominally in place in Lebanon, both Israel and Hezbollah continue to strike each other, while Israeli forces occupy a buffer zone in Lebanon and have been demolishing neighborhoods in towns and villages in that area.

The military says it destroys buildings that were used as outposts by the Iran-backed militant group, but the wide scale of destruction has Lebanese officials and residents increasingly worried that displaced people will have nowhere to return.

Bahrain strips 69 people of citizenship

The island kingdom’s interior ministry said it revoked citizenship rights “of those who expressed sympathy and praise for Iran’s hostile and criminal acts.” It noted the move also applied to the families of individuals accused.

Bahrain is among several countries in the region that tightly controlled information about Iranian strikes during the war, arresting residents and foreigners who filmed them. The Sunni-ruled monarchy, like Iran, has a majority Shiite population and saw pro-Iran demonstrations early in the conflict. Authorities arrested protesters and those who filmed demonstrations en masse, charging dozens with misusing social media, inciting hatred or treason, an offense that can carry the death penalty.

The country is also one of several in the Gulf with laws allowing courts to strip citizenship from people convicted of certain crimes, potentially rendering them stateless. Such measures in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have drawn criticism from rights groups, which say the laws are tools of repression, used to squash and punish dissent.

For ships stuck in the Gulf, crew changes are difficult

Fleet Management Limited usually communicates multiple times a day with dozens of stranded ships that are staffed by more than 400 seafarers, its CEO Capt. Rajalingam Subramaniam said.

Stock checks are regularly maintained for food supply, and pickups have been arranged to ensure availability by moving vessels to the nearest points where they can pick up fresh and dry provisions, he said.

Some crew changes were still happening, but in limited numbers. “Who wants to go on the ship?” Subramaniam said. “The inbound crew has the right to refuse and we respect (that).”

Most of the stranded mariners have been in the Gulf since the war began. “(For) mariners who did not sign up to be in warlike area, they also (need) to be respected so that they do not become the unintended collateral,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi

The meeting happened Monday in Saint Petersburg, Russian state news agency Tass said.

Putin praised the Iranian people as bravely fighting for their sovereignty and said Russia would do everything possible in the interest of Iran and other countries in the region to bring peace to the Middle East, Tass reported.

Tired and worried, seafarers have been stranded in the Persian Gulf for weeks

Around 20,000 seafarers on hundreds of vessels, including oil and gas tankers and cargo ships, have been stuck in the Gulf, unable to cross the Strait of Hormuz. Normally about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas transits the waterway.

Roughly 80 vessels passed through the strait in the week of April 13-19, according to the maritime data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence, compared to approximately 130 or more transits per day before the war. Dozens of ships have come under attack since the war started, and the U.N. says at least 10 seafarers were killed.

Even as U.S. President Donald Trump last week extended the ceasefire indefinitely, the U.S. kept the blockade of Iranian ports. In response, Iran fired on ships in the strait and seized two.

▶ Read more

Israel and Iran spent less on defense in 2025 than 2024, tracker says

Military spending in the Middle East plateaued in 2025, even as it climbed in other parts of the world, according to a report released Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The think tank, which goes by the acronym SIPRI, said regionwide spending increased 0.1% but actually fell in both Israel and Iran.

Israel’s military spending fell 4.9% to $48.3 billion, reflecting a less intense year of fighting than in 2024 after it entered ceasefires in Lebanon in November 2024 and in Gaza in October 2025. Even as large-scale combat subsided, Israel continued carrying out lethal strikes and maintained a ground presence in both. Spending remains sharply elevated — up 97% compared with 2022 — and the war has strained public finances, with Israel reporting wider deficits and increased borrowing since it began.

Iran’s spending fell 5.6% to $7.4 billion. SIPRI attributed that to inflation and broader economic strain, though researchers warned that government reports are likely understated.

“Iran also uses off-budget oil revenues to finance its military, including the production of missiles and drones,” SIPRI researcher Zubaida Karim said.

Lebanon president blasts Hezbollah for rejecting talks

Lebanon President Joseph Aoun blasted militant group Hezbollah on Monday over its rejection of direct talks with Israel.

Lebanon’s decision to hold negotiations with Israel is not “treason,” Aoun said in a statement, adding that treason is when “someone takes the country to war to achieve foreign interests.”

Harshly criticizing Hezbollah without naming it, Aoun asked whether there was a “national accord” when the Iran-backed group took Lebanon to war last month.

Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel on March 2, two days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. The fighting has killed over 2,500 people, wounded more than 7,000 and displaced over 1 million people.

Aoun asked how long people in south Lebanon will pay for the wars of other nations or groups, “the latest of which was the war for backing up Gaza and the war for backing up Iran.”

“I totally reject this war” when the goal is to benefit others, he said.

Aoun said he wants to end the state of war with Israel in the manner of the 1949 Armistice Agreements that brought calm along the border for years without normalizing relations.

“Was the armistice agreement humiliation? I will not accept reaching a humiliating deal,” Aoun said.

French airline Transavia cancels flights over fuel costs

Transavia France said late Sunday it is canceling some flights in May and June because of rising fuel costs.

The low-cost airline, part of the Air France-KLM group, said in a statement “the current geopolitical context in the Middle East and its repercussions on the price of aviation fuel” forced the cancellations.

French media reported the cancellations represented less than 2% of the company’s May and June flight program.

Transavia said affected passengers would be able to choose between a voucher, full refund or free rebooking, which will be offered within 24 hours for the majority of canceled flights.

China opposes US sanction on oil refinery

China said Monday it opposed a decision by the United States to sanction one of its refineries for purchasing Iranian crude oil shipments.

The U.S. announced Friday it would sanction Hengli Petrochemicals in China’s northeastern port city of Dalian.

The measure blocks the company and others that transport Iranian oil from accessing the U.S. financial system.

Hengli Petrochemicals is among dozens of Chinese buyers of Iran’s oil. China is Iran’s largest overall oil customer.

“China always opposes illegal unilateral sanctions that lack a basis in international law and urges the U.S. to stop its wrong practices of abusing sanctions and exercising long-arm jurisdiction,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lin Jian said.

“We will firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies,” Lin said.

World’s largest condom company raising prices due to strait closure

Karex, the world’s largest manufacturer of condoms, said it has raised prices by up to 30% to cope with escalating costs due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which is a vital channel for petrochemical supplies.

CEO Goh Miah Kiat said the company has little choice but to pass higher costs to customers for condoms, personal lubricants, probe covers and catheters as raw materials, logistics and production expenses surge.

Karex produces 5 billion condoms annually, or about a fifth of global market share, with its biggest market in the United States, according to company data.

The Malaysian firm believes demand will rise at least 30% this year as “people use more condoms during periods of economic uncertainty,” Goh said.

Karex faces rising costs for nitrile latex, silicone oil and lubricant materials, natural rubber latex and aluminum foil packaging, Goh said, adding that freight costs and supplier delays have forced Karex to hold larger inventories of key materials.

Iran offers proposal to US to reopen Strait of Hormuz without nuclear agreement

Iran is offering to end its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz without addressing its nuclear program, two regional officials with knowledge of the proposal said Monday.

Iran also wants the United States to end its blockade of the country as part of its proposal, according to the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations.

The new proposal, passed onto the U.S. by Pakistan, is not likely to receive the backing of U.S. President Donald Trump, who wants to end Iran’s atomic program as part of an overall deal including the Strait of Hormuz to make the ceasefire permanent.

“We have all the cards. If they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us,” Trump told Fox News Channel on Sunday.

Axios first reported Iran’s proposal.

— By Samy Magdy

Iran’s foreign minister says Russia trip an opportunity to coordinate after war

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Monday that his trip to Russia offered an opportunity to coordinate with Moscow after the war with Israel and the United States.

Araghchi made the comments in a pretaped interview posted by the state-run IRNA news agency.

“It is a good opportunity for us to consult with our Russian friends about the developments that have occurred in relation to the war during this period and what is happening now,” he said.

Araghchi said it was America’s approach that “caused the negotiations to be delayed” that had been planned in Islamabad.

“The previous one, despite the progress that had been made, could not achieve its goals,” he said, blaming what he called Washington’s “excessive demands.”

Trump has questioned who is in charge in Iran at the moment and said confusion within its theocracy made it difficult to reach a deal.

Iran’s foreign minister arrives in Russia

Iran’s top diplomat arrived Monday in Russia ahead of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The state-run IRNA news agency said Abbas Araghchi landed in St. Petersburg for his meeting with Putin.

Araghchi has visited Islamabad twice and Muscat, Oman, on the foreign trip as negotiations with the U.S. appear stalled over the Iran war.

The justices heard nearly two hours of arguments in an appeal from Okello Chatrie, who pleaded guilty to robbing a bank in a suburb of Richmond, Virginia.

Chatrie eluded the police until they turned to the geofence warrant, a powerful technological tool that erected a virtual fence and allowed them to locate cellphones that were near the bank around the time it was robbed in May 2019.

The justices did not appear to embrace arguments offered by Adam Unikowsky, Chatrie's lawyer, that geofence warrants are too general to comply with the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the warrant that led to Chatrie's identification as a suspect did not seem to be general. “This isn't that. It identifies a place, a crime, a timeframe,” Sotomayor said.

The federal appeals court in Richmond upheld Chatrie's conviction in a fractured ruling. In a separate case, the federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled that geofence warrants “are general warrants categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.”

The case is the court's latest contemplation of how a constitutional provision ratified in 1791 applies to technology the nation’s founders count not have envisioned.

The justices seemed eager to avoid a broad ruling. They could limit the time and geographic area covered by such warrants, and they might even decline to say whether what police did in Chatrie's case even amounted to a search that requires a warrant.

Instead the court might rule that, assuming a warrant is required, police can constitutionally conduct geofence searches.

A ruling for Chatrie, who is serving a prison term of nearly 12 years, might not ultimately help him. Even the federal judge who ruled that the search violated Chatrie’s rights allowed the evidence to be used because the officer who applied for the warrant reasonably believed he was acting properly.

Ross died at home Sunday, according to the singer's daughter, Nedra K. Ross, and the Ronettes' official Instagram account. “Nedra’s voice, style and spirit helped define a sound that would change music. Her contribution to the group’s story and their defining influence will live forever,” a statement read.

The Ronettes’ sexy look and powerful voices — plus songwriting and producing help from Phil Spector — turned them into one of the premier acts of the girl-group era, touring England with The Rolling Stones and befriending the Beatles.

“Show business is a thing that can be great, but it can be bad, too,” Ross said during her acceptance speech to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. “For us, we had a family that gave us a core to help stabilize us in a very difficult crazy world. It was a fun time. I thank God truly for it.”

Ross, born and raised in New York City, together with sisters Veronica “Ronnie” and Estelle Bennett, released their debut album in 1964, “Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes, Featuring Veronica.” Five of its 12 tracks had made it to the U.S. Billboard charts, and it was listed in Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest albums of all time. It was the only studio album for the trio.

They also did a memorable version of “Sleigh Ride” that appeared on Spector’s “A Christmas Gift for You” album and was recently highlighted in the “Roofman” soundtrack and on “The Bear.” But their string of hits had tailed off by the time they split around 1967.

In March 1963, Estelle Bennett managed to arrange an audition in front of Phil Spector, known for his big, brass-and-drum style dubbed the “wall of sound.” They were signed to Philles Records in 1963. After being signed, they sang backup for other acts until Spector had the group record “Be My Baby” and “Baby I Love You.”

Martin Scorsese used “Be My Baby” to open his 1973 film “Mean Streets,” and the song appears in the title sequence of “Dirty Dancing” and the closing credits of “Baby Mama.” It also appeared on TV in everything from “Moonlighting” and “The Wonder Years” to “How I Met Your Mother” and “Money Heist.”

When the Ronettes were inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones remembered opening for the trio in England in the mid-1960s. “They could sing all their way right through a wall of sound,” Richards said. “They didn’t need anything. They touched my heart right there and then and they touch it still.”

After the Ronettes disbanded, Ross turned to Christian music, including the album “Full Circle” in 1978. Ross was married to DJ and television personality Scott Ross from 1967 until his death in 2023.

For nearly 15 years, the women waged a lengthy, and ultimately unsuccessful, court battle with Spector over royalties. A judge ordered Spector to pay $2.6 million in past royalties and interest, but New York State’s highest court threw out that ruling on appeal in 2002.

Ronnie Spector died at 78 in 2022. Bennett died at 67 in 2009. Ross is survived by four children.

During these events, Spanberger is expected to highlight her Affordable Virginia Agenda, a package of bills focused on addressing housing, health care and energy costs. The agenda was first introduced by the governor and the General Assembly in December.

At 1:30 p.m., Spanberger will sign a series of education bills at the Roanoke Higher Education Center alongside state, local and education leaders. The legislation is intended to expand apprenticeship opportunities for high school students, increase the number of instructors qualified to teach career and technical education courses, and make the Roanoke Community Builders Pilot Program permanent.

Spanberger will be joined by Sen. David Suetterlein, Sen. Christopher Head, Del. Sam Rasoul, Del. Lily Franklin, Del. Ellen McLaughlin, Roanoke Mayor Joe Cobb, Roanoke Superintendent Dr. Verletta White, and Roanoke College President Frank Shushok.

Texas Tech and Sorsby announced the move in a statement released on Monday.

The school said it is “committed to supporting Brendan through his recovery process and to ensure his long-term health and well-being.”

Sorsby was one of the biggest names in this year’s transfer portal. He transferred from Cincinnati, which then announced on Feb. 26 it would sue the quarterback for breaching his name, image and likeness contract.

According to the lawsuit, Sorsby signed an NIL agreement in July 2025 covering the 2025 and ’26 seasons and that there would be a $1 million buyout if he transferred, payable within 30 days. Sorsby announced on Dec. 15 that he was entering the transfer portal and announced on Jan. 4 that he would play for Texas Tech.

Sorsby received the most lucrative deal of the portal period — a reported $5 million — to return to his home state for his final season.

It was not immediately known how Monday’s announcement could impact Sorsby’s availability for the season.

“We love Brendan and support his decision to seek professional help,” Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire said in a statement released by the school. “Taking this step requires courage, and our primary focus is on him as a person. Our program is behind Brendan as he prioritizes his health.”

In the statement, Texas Tech said its “primary focus remains on fostering an environment where student-athletes feel empowered to prioritize their mental health and seek professional assistance.”

The school said it would have no further comment on Sorsby’s status “to protect the integrity of the recovery process.”

Sorsby began his career at Indiana before transferring to Cincinnati. In 35 career games, including 31 starts, he has passed for 7,208 yards and 60 touchdowns, along with 1,295 rushing yards and 22 TDs.

___

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

The activists, all of whom were Kazakh nationals, protested near the border with China in November, burning Chinese flags and portraits of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and calling for the release of a Kazakh citizen detained in Xinjiang last year.

Eleven activists were sentenced to five years in prison for “inciting discord,” while the other eight were given restrictions on their movement. Shinquat Baizhan, a lawyer representing the activists, confirmed the sentences, which were also reported in local media.

Though Kazakhs speaking out against China’s policies in Xinjiang have long faced pressure, advocacy groups say this is the first time such a large group of Xinjiang activists has been imprisoned in the country.

“This is unprecedented,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It signals that Kazakhstan is willing to sacrifice freedom of its people to maintain good relations with Beijing.”

The Chinese government launched a brutal crackdown in Xinjiang starting in 2017, sweeping a million or more Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other predominantly Muslim ethnicities into prisons and internment camps. Though many have since been released, the region remains under tight control, with strict limitations on religious and cultural practices.

Xinjiang has long been a touchy issue in neighboring Kazakhstan, a Central Asian country of 20 million people that relies on China as a major trading partner. The Kazakh government opened criminal investigations targeting the protesters after receiving a diplomatic note from the Chinese consulate in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, Uluyol said.

The note, which The Associated Press obtained and reviewed, called the protest “an open provocation against the national dignity of the People’s Republic of China and an insult to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese leader.”

In a statement, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the sentencing an “internal affair” and praised Kazakhstan as a “friendly neighbor” that is “familiar with China’s policies on governing Xinjiang."

The Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

The protesters were members of Atajurt, an organization that advocates for the rights of Chinese-born Kazakhs facing repression in China. Xinjiang is home to over a million ethnic Kazakhs, thousands of whom were detained and many more who face restrictions on their movement to this day.

Atajurt has long faced pressure from the Kazakh government, an authoritarian state with little tolerance for dissent. Authorities arrested Atajurt’s founder Serikzhan Bilash in 2019, releasing him into exile after extracting a promise not to engage in political activities.

But the Kazakh government remained tolerant of the organization’s activities to a certain extent, mindful of widespread sympathy in Kazakhstan toward the Chinese-born Kazakh population,

That appears to have changed, Uluyol said, as Kazakhstan has edged closer to China and authorities in Kazakhstan show less tolerance for groups protesting Beijing's policies.

Bilash, Atajurt’s founder, says the arrests would have widespread ramifications. The group's work included providing financial support for the relatives of people who were detained in Xinjiang, writing letters supporting them to embassies and the United Nations, and taping hundreds of testimonies by people looking for missing loved ones.

“The world will lose more than just a human rights organization; it will lose the biggest window into the humanitarian disaster in neighboring Xinjiang,” said Bilash, who is now living in exile in the United States.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the Chinese diplomatic note said that the protest was an insult to the “Chinese leader," not the “Chinese people."

In a one-line statement, China’s National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top planning agency, said it was prohibiting the foreign acquisition of Manus and had required all the parties to withdraw from the deal. It did not specifically name Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook and Instagram.

Manus, which has Chinese roots but is based in Singapore, provides a general-purpose AI agent that can autonomously carry out sophisticated tasks like coding an app, doing market research or preparing quarterly budgets.

The decision was made by the commission’s Office of the Working Mechanism for Security Review of Foreign Investment in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations, the statement said. It came after Chinese authorities said they were looking into the deal earlier this year.

The commission did not elaborate on the reasons for the ban. The announcement came less than a month before U.S. President Donald Trump's planned visit to Beijing to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May.

Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, on Monday said in a statement that the Trump administration “will continue defending America’s leading and innovative technology sector against undue foreign interference of any sort.”

Meta announced in December that it was acquiring Manus, in a rare case of a major U.S. tech group buying an AI company with strong links to China. Its deal with Manus was expected to help expand AI offerings across Meta’s platforms.

Meta had said there would be “no continuing Chinese ownership interests in Manus” and that Manus would discontinue its services and operations in China. But China said in January that it would investigate whether the acquisition would be consistent with its laws and regulations.

China’s commerce ministry said at the time that any enterprises engaging in outward investment, technology exports, data transfers and cross-border acquisitions must comply with Chinese law. Meta had said most of Manus’ employees were based in Singapore.

Before the deal, Manus’ parent was Singapore-based Butterfly Effect Pte, but the AI startup traces its roots back to Beijing-registered entities with similar names that were established several years earlier.

Manus did not respond to a request for comment. Its website says the company “is now part of Meta," indicating that the deal had already been completed.

Meta said on Monday that the Manus transaction “complied fully with applicable law.”

“We anticipate an appropriate resolution to the inquiry,” the California-based company said in a statement.

Analysts said the decision is a sign that China’s communist leaders are tightening scrutiny of the AI industry amid intensifying geopolitical rivalry with the U.S. over the technology.

“China is showing the world that it is willing to play hardball when it comes to AI talents and capabilities, which the country views as a core national security asset,” said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at the technology research and advisory group Omdia. “It is strongly indicative of what Chinese authorities may do going forward regarding acquisitions involving Chinese deep-tech companies.”

Beijing’s acquisition ban could deter similar acquisition plans by U.S. tech giants going forward, he said. “In the context of rivalry, it mirrors U.S. export controls, entity lists, and investment curbs on China,” said Su.

Meta’s interest in Manus reflects a broader tech industry race to lead in the development of AI agents that can go beyond a chatbot’s capabilities to take computer-based actions on people’s behalf.

Meta last month acquired Moltbook after it attracted viral attention as a social network built for AI agents to make posts and interact with each other. That was after OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, hired the creator of AI agent OpenClaw, formerly called Moltbot and the technology upon which Moltbook was built.

___

Chan reported from London. AP Technology Writer Matt O'Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, and writer Didi Tang in Washington contributed to this report.

Rapid development has been shrinking the jungle habitat of the critically endangered species, and fatal conflicts with people have been increasing.

The fleeting scene, captured by a motion‑sensitive camera, showed a young Sumatran orangutan pause at the forest’s edge, grip a rope with deliberate care and step out into open air. Halfway across, it stopped, casting a glance down at the road below. Moments later, it crossed.

Conservationists said that it marks the first documented case of an Sumatra orangutan using an artificial canopy bridge to cross a public road that had divided its habitat.

“This was the moment we had been waiting for,” Erwin Alamsyah Siregar, executive director of Indonesian conservation group Tangguh Hutan Khatulistiwa, or TaHuKah, told The Associated Press. “We are very grateful that the canopy here provides benefits for orangutan conservation efforts."

He said that the bridge spans the Lagan–Pagindar road in Pakpak Bharat district, a vital corridor connecting remote villages to schools, healthcare and government services. But the road also cuts directly through prime orangutan habitat, splitting an estimated 350 orangutans into two isolated forest areas: the Siranggas Wildlife Reserve and the Sikulaping Protection Forest.

When the road was upgraded in 2024, the gap in the forest canopy widened, eliminating natural crossings for tree‑dwelling wildlife.

“Development was necessary for people,” Siregar said. “But without intervention, it would have left orangutans trapped on either side.”

TaHuKah, working with the Sumatran Orangutan Society, or SOS, and local and national government agencies, proposed a simple solution: rope bridges suspended between trees, allowing arboreal animals to cross above traffic.

Five canopy bridges were installed each with a camera trap, carefully positioned after surveys of orangutan nests, forest cover and animal movement. The structures were designed to support the orangutan’s weight — no small feat for the world’s largest tree‑dwelling mammal.

The program is closely monitored, with camera traps on every bridge and regular patrols to prevent forest encroachment. Conservationists hope more orangutans will follow the first pioneer.

They waited two years for the first orangutan to cross the bridge. Before the accomplishment, only smaller animals used it. Camera traps recorded squirrels, langur monkeys and macaques, followed by gibbons — a promising sign.

The orangutan’s approach was slower, building nests near the bridge, lingering at its edges and testing the ropes over time.

“They observe,” Siregar said. “They don’t rush. They watch, they try, they retreat. Only when they’re certain it’s safe do they move.”

Then, one day, he crossed fully — a first not just for Sumatra, but for the species globally on a public road, conservations say.

Similar bridges have been used by orangutans elsewhere, but usually over rivers or on private industrial forest road. Conservationists say public roads — noisy, busy and unpredictable — pose a far greater challenge.

For orangutans, the stakes are high. Isolation leads to inbreeding, genetic weakening and eventual population collapse. Restoring connectivity gives them a chance to survive.

Once widespread across southern Asia, the animal now only survives on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. Fewer than 14,000 Sumatran orangutans remain in the wild, alongside just 800 Tapanuli orangutans and about 104,700 Bornean orangutans, according to conservation groups

“These bridges allow orangutans to move, to mix, to maintain healthy populations,” Siregar said. “It reduces the risk of extinction.”

The 29-year-old Kenyan pulled off the feat that was long considered unthinkable when winning the London Marathon on Sunday in a time of 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds.

There have been a slew of high-profile doping cases involving Kenyan runners in recent years, notably women’s marathon world record-holder Ruth Chepng’etich getting a three-year ban in October.

So, in agreement with his coaches and management team, Sawe said he volunteered to undergo “multiple” doping tests to dispel any suspicion around his own performances, including victories at last year’s marathons in Berlin and London.

“Doping has become a cancer in my country,” Sawe told reporters on Monday.

Sawe said he and his team decided to implement the stringent testing regime because the possibility of people looking at his results “with a lot of doubts was not good,” and he wanted to “show the world that we can run clean and also run fast.”

The BBC, which holds the broadcast rights for the London Marathon, reported that Adidas provided $50,000 to the Athletics Integrity Unit, track and field’s anti-doping body, to frequently test Sawe over a 12-month period, including 25 out-of-competition tests leading up to the Berlin Marathon in September and a similar number ahead of the London race.

The Athletics Integrity Unit didn't immediately respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment on Sawe's testing regime.

Sawe is urging other runners to volunteer for more doping tests.

“Everyone will feel comfortable running with his fellow athlete because there will be no doubt thinking (that) someone is using what he’s using," he said. “And so, it’s important to run clean and to show the world (that) talent, with hard work, discipline and patience,” can lead to big achievements.

Sawe also credited his footwear for helping him break the marathon record by an astonishing 65 seconds in Sunday’s race.

He wore an Adidas shoe that weighed less than half the weight of an average running shoe. After the race, he held up the shoe, which had his winning time written next to it.

“The shoe is very nice, very light, comfortable and so supportive,” he said, “and is pushing (me) forward.”

Sawe was already a superstar in marathon running but has suddenly become a global sensation, something the softly spoken Kenyan is going to have to get used to.

“Being in the history books is not something easy,” he said. “So it means a lot to me in my life and I’m so happy.”

Sawe said he kept things simple after his world-record run.

“I just celebrated in style — I just relaxed and slept well and woke up,” he said.

___

Douglas reported from Sundsvall, Sweden.

___

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

On Sunday, the state passed the threshold of 42 days with no new outbreak-related cases. In the end, 997 people were sickened by the vaccine-preventable disease since October and at least 21 of them were hospitalized, based on voluntary reports to the state. State health officials estimate the outbreak response cost $2.1 million.

“The outbreak was predominantly contained to one area of one county and never went statewide, thanks to timely investigations, identification of those exposed, and people’s willingness to stay home,” said Dr. Edward Simmer, interim director of the South Carolina Department of Public Health.

Measles is one of the most contagious viruses known to medicine. Most recover after a high fever, cough, runny nose and a telltale rash. But some, including very young children and people with weak immune systems, can get pneumonia, brain swelling or even die. Measles can also cause health problems later in life for those who recover. The vaccine is safe and 97% effective after two doses.

Outbreak spurred some to get vaccinated

Centered in northwestern Spartanburg County, the measles outbreak was the fastest-growing the U.S. has seen in decades, state health officials said. Public health officials confirmed more than 650 cases in January alone, and the outbreak quickly eclipsed the 2025 outbreak in West Texas that sickened at least 762 people and killed two school-age children.

But a sooner-than-predicted decline in cases came as welcome news to doctors and health workers. A few things may have helped, Dr. Brannon Traxler, chief medical officer for the state health department, said last week. To some extent, it's possible that the outbreak waned as more people got sick, she said, but more people also got vaccinated.

While uptake was slow to begin with, public health workers, doctors' offices and pharmacies administered nearly 82,000 measles vaccines from October to March. That was an increase of more than 30% from the same time period a year prior. Spartanburg County saw a 94% increase in vaccinations.

The public health department also worked to contain the spread, sending nearly 2,300 quarantine letters, making more than 1,670 case investigation calls and working across seven school districts to quarantine 874 students.

The US is on pace for more cases than last year

Measles continues to spread nationwide. So far this year, the U.S. has logged 1,792 cases — nearly 80% of 2025's record-breaking total — and 22 new outbreaks. Florida has confirmed 134 cases this year and Texas has 180, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of greatest concern now is an outbreak that started on the Arizona-Utah border and has since spread across much of Utah. Since August, 607 people have been sickened in Utah. Mohave County, Arizona, has also confirmed 282 cases. Genetic analysis indicates the outbreak could have started six weeks earlier and may have been much larger than reported, according to research presented at a CDC conference last week.

Cases have slowed a bit, but it’s still too soon to say an end is in sight, said Dr. Ellie Brownstein, a Utah pediatrician and president-elect of the state’s American Academy of Pediatrics chapter. State data show that southwestern Utah still has the most cases — 258 — but each of the state's 13 local health districts has logged at least one case.

“It has marched through the state and is everywhere,” Brownstein said.

South Carolina officials are still on guard

In South Carolina, the end of the outbreak has given health workers only a slight reprieve. Last week, a case linked to international travel in Saluda County, west of Columbia, led to 41 people having to quarantine.

“We are certainly not letting our guard down, and I don't think that South Carolinians who are still vulnerable to the virus, that don't have immunity, should let their guard down,” Traxler said.

The virus has resurged across the Americas since a major outbreak started in Canada in fall 2024. In the U.S., childhood vaccination rates against the measles have fallen for years, as more parents opt out of shots required for school. In November, international health officials will determine if the U.S. has lost its measles elimination status, which it has maintained since 2000.

Dr. Martha Edwards, president of the South Carolina chapter of the AAP, said the end of the outbreak brought a mix of gratitude and anger.

“I’m angry that many children and their parents had to worry about contracting or suffering through a disease that should have been nearly 100% preventable,” she said.

___

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.

A stomach virus or food poisoning has affected Coco Gauff, Marin Cilic and a few others, causing some concern.

World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka avoided an upset by Naomi Osaka on the court on Monday and said she's trying to avoid illness by sticking to a simple diet of chicken breast, rice and salad.

The rumor among the players was bad shrimp tacos were to blame.

Sabalenka knocked on wood and said, “So far, so good. I heard that I have to avoid those tacos (laughing). I stick to the same food, same meal that I’ve been having since the very beginning of the tournament.”

Sabalenka said she was spending as little time as possible on site at the Caja Magica tennis complex.

"I try not to stay for too long," she said. “Extra vitamin C, I guess, extra IM8, and I’m good to go, hopefully."

Gauff vomited on the court on her way to a victory over Sorana Cirstea on Sunday. The American didn't show signs of illness on Monday in her 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (5) loss to Linda Noskova, last year's runner-up to Sabalenka.

Cilic couldn't play his match against João Fonseca on Friday.

“Unfortunately, I got food poisoning,” Cilic said. “After trying to recover all night my body is unfortunately exhausted and not at the proper level to get into the battle.”

Sabalenka rallies

Sabalenka rebounded from a set and a break down against Osaka in their fourth round contest.

She prevailed against No. 15 Osaka 6-7 (1), 6-3, 6-2 in 2 hours, 20 minutes to reach the quarterfinals and stay on track to defend her title.

“Oh my God, that was an incredible level,” Sabalenka said. “She played incredible tennis. I feel like I just got lucky in a couple of shots in the third set, that’s why it went that fast. I’m happy she brought that fight, I had to fight through to level up my game.”

Sabalenka won her 15th straight match and advanced to her 17th consecutive quarterfinal. She hasn't lost before that round since February 2025 in Dubai. The Belarusian said her team kept pushing her to “keep fighting, keep going.”

“I'm really happy that I didn't give up and I was pushing until the very last point,” Sabalenka said.

Longest tiebreaker since 2024

Sabalenka will next face American Hailey Baptiste, who defeated Belinda Bencic 6-1, 6-7 (14), 6-3 after losing the second set in the longest tour-level regular tiebreaker since 2024, according to the WTA.

Baptiste broke the racket on her leg in frustration after the loss in a set in which she wasted six match points, including five during the tiebreaker.

The 32nd-ranked American was able to rebound and clinch the victory in 2 hours, 42 minutes.

Rybakina's line-calling frustration

World No. 2 Elena Rybakina said she has no trust in the electronic line-calling system in Madrid. She complained to the chair umpire after her opponent, Zheng Qinwen, was awarded an ace in the second set. Rybakina said the mark on the court was out. The umpire refused to inspect the mark and backed the system. Rybakina eventually won in three sets on Sunday.

“Well with this thing, I won’t trust it at all,” Rybakina said. “Because there was no mark even close to what the TV showed."

She felt it was a similar situation to what happened to men's player Alexander Zverev last year in Madrid, where he ended up grabbing his cell phone and taking a photo of a mark of an alleged wrong call. Zverev was warned for unsportsmanlike conduct.

“You can’t not see it,” Rybakina said. "It’s kind of a stolen point. I understand it was her serve and she was serving really well, but it’s really frustrating.”

Jódar only Spaniard left

Daniel Mérida lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 6-2 and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina lost to defending champion Casper Ruud 6-3, 6-1 on Monday, leaving 19-year-old Rafael Jódar as the only Spaniard left in the tournament.

Jódar, one of the promising stars on tour, needed three sets to get past Fonseca, another teen sensation.

World No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz, Spain's current top player, withdrew from the home tournament because of a right wrist injury.

Unusual rally

There was an unusually long rally in the Rudd vs. Davidovich Fokina match when the Spaniard resorted to 15 straight lob shots to the back of the court.

The high returns in the 32-shot rally kept Rudd from attacking until one shot came up a little short and allowed him to power a forehand and take the point.

In the match between Francisco Cerundolo and Luciano Darderi, Cerundolo won a point after reaching over the net to get to a high return that spun back into Darderi's side of the court. Cerundolo won the match 6-2, 6-3.

___

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

Trump and other conservatives have made a renewed push for the ballroom in the wake of Saturday's media dinner shooting, arguing it exposed the difficulties in ensuring presidential security at large events outside the White House grounds, and urging the National Trust for Historic Preservation to drop its lawsuit.

Top Justice officials said the government would ask a court to dismiss the lawsuit “in light of last night’s extraordinary events" if the Trust did not voluntarily drop it.

Trust attorney Gregory Craig declined that request, writing to the Justice Department that the legal issues at the heart of the lawsuit are unchanged.

“What Saturday’s awful event does not change is that the Constitution and multiple federal statutes require Congress to authorize construction of a ballroom on White House grounds, and that Congress has not done so," Craig wrote.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

The preservation group sued in December, a week after the White House finished demolishing the East Wing to make way for a ballroom that Trump said would fit 999 people. Trump says the project is funded by private donations, although public money is paying for a below-ground bunker and security upgrades.

In its lawsuit, the Trust argued that Trump had overstepped his authority by moving forward with the project without first getting approval from key federal agencies and Congress.

A federal appeals court has allowed Trump to continue the project, ruling a day after a lower court judge continued to block above-ground construction on the site and scheduling a June 5 hearing to review the case.

___

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone strike killed two people in the Russia-occupied part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, Moscow-installed Gov. Vladimir Saldo said Monday. A man and a woman in their 70s died in the village of Dnipriany, he said.

In Odesa, drones hit residential neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure, said Serhii Lysak, the head of the city’s administration. Russia has repeatedly targeted Odesa, a key Black Sea port for Ukraine, since Moscow launched the war more than four years ago on Feb. 24, 2022.

Five of the wounded, most of them with shrapnel wounds, were hospitalized, according to Oleh Kiper, the head of the regional military administration.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that Russia has fired approximately 1,900 attack drones, nearly 1,400 powerful guided aerial bombs and around 60 missiles of various types at Ukraine over the past week.

Ukraine’s wartime development of cutting-edge military technology means that it's intercepting more than 90% of the drones that Russia launches, Zelenskyy said in an X post. However, Ukraine needs more American-made Patriot air defense missiles, which are able to shoot down Russia’s ballistic missiles.

Ukraine has recently been helping Middle Eastern and Gulf region countries counter attacks on their territory by Iranian drones.

Norway is the latest European country to enter into a joint drone manufacturing agreement with Kyiv, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Monday.

In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that his government plans to build a “drone armada” with Ukraine’s help, to defend both itself and the rest of Europe.

Zelenskyy also announced that Ukraine is massively scaling up the production of ground robots that can deliver supplies, evacuate injured soldiers and fire automatic weapons. The uncrewed vehicles can help to ease the pressure on Ukraine's short-handed infantry along the roughly 1,250-kilometer (770-mile) front line.

Ukraine has ordered 25,000 ground robots for this year, twice as many as in 2025, and the number is set to grow, he said in a separate post on X.

Zelenskyy noted a recent raft of good news for Ukraine: NATO partners, excluding the United States, have contributed to a financial arrangement to buy American weapons; the European Union has approved a 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) loan to Ukraine; and the EU intends to place more sanctions on Moscow.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has been assailing oil terminals and refineries deep inside Russia with long-range drones and missiles, aiming to disrupt Moscow’s economy.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said late Sunday it has seen geolocated evidence that Ukrainian forces conducted at least 10 strikes against Russian oil and gas infrastructure in the past two weeks.

___

Claudia Ciobanu contributed to this report from Warsaw, Poland.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Chad's deputy prime minister, Limane Mahamat, said another 10 people were wounded in Saturday's clashes in Igote village in Wadi Fira province near the border.

The situation is under control after the army intervened, Mahamat said Sunday, adding that a mediation process in the village had begun, as well as judicial proceedings to determine criminal responsibility.

Such clashes over resources are common in the Central African country. Last year, clashes between farmers and herders in southwestern Chad left 42 people dead and homes burned.

Mahamat said the government will take “all necessary measures” to prevent a destabilization of the border area.

In February, Chad closed the border with Sudan until further notice, calling it an attempt to limit the spread of that country's war into its territory after multiple crossings by fighters with warring Sudanese factions.

“I was confident that this combination, which would have been about adding and not subtracting, creating a truly great airline that customers love, could get regulatory approval,” Kirby wrote in a press release. “I was hoping to pitch that story to American, but they declined to engage and instead responded by publicly closing the door.”

The stocks of both airlines soared two weeks ago when reports surfaced that Kirby had floated the idea of combining two of the biggest U.S. airlines to the White House. Kirby said Monday that he had approached American directly about a tie-up, but it's unclear whether that was before or after the White House meeting.

Days after the meeting in Washington, American shot down the idea of a merger.

“American Airlines is not engaged with or interested in any discussions regarding a merger with United Airlines,” the company said in an April 17 press release. Additionally, a combination of the two carriers “would be negative for competition and for consumers” and possibly raise antitrust concerns, the company said.

Fort Worth, Texas-based American Airlines is itself the product of a 2013 merger with US Airways Group.

President Donald Trump also said last week that he was against a merger of the airlines.

In his press release Monday, Kirby argued that a merger between the iconic airlines would expand service, create a globally competitive airline and boost the U.S. economy by creating millions of jobs and strengthening the aircraft manufacturing sector.

Shares of Chicago-based United shares fell 1.4% on Monday, to $91.72. They are down about 20% since the war in Iran began in late February, sending fuel prices soaring. American shares were down 2% in morning trading Monday, to $11.84. American is down about 15% since the war began.

For filmmaker Christopher Nolan, “The Odyssey,” out July 17, isn't just a story. It's the story: A foundational piece that deserved to be done on the biggest possible scale, with all the resources modern Hollywood had to offer.

“There’s a massive amount of pressure,” Nolan told The Associated Press. “Anyone taking on ‘The Odyssey’ is taking on the hopes and dreams of people for epic movies everywhere and that comes with a huge responsibility.”

It's a familiar feeling, though. He did three Batman films after all.

“What I learned from that experience is that what people want from a movie about a beloved story, a beloved set of characters, is they want a strong and sincere interpretation,” Nolan said. “They want to know that a filmmaker has gone to the mat for it. I really tried to make the best film possible.”

Three summers ago, “Oppenheimer” made nearly a billion dollars. “The Odyssey” has battles, gods, creatures and an army of movie stars — Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya and Tom Holland included. It's also the first movie shot entirely on IMAX film. Tickets for some IMAX 70 mm showings sold out in under an hour a full year in advance.

“The Odyssey” will be shorter than “Oppenheimer”; Three hours is the longest they’ve been able to get onto an IMAX film projector, after all.

“It’s an epic film, as the subject matter demands,” Nolan said. “But it is shorter.”

Summer movie season's fashionable kickoff

Hollywood may not save all its blockbusters for the hottest months anymore, but the 18 week corridor running from the first weekend in May through Labor Day remains the industry’s most important, accounting for around 40% of the year’s box office. And it's only surpassed $4 billion once since the pandemic, in 2023.

Marvel movies often kick off the season, but last year filmmaker David Frankel got a call from Disney: “Avengers: Doomsday” wasn’t going to be ready by the first weekend in May; Could “The Devil Wears Prada 2” step up?

May 1 is just days before the Met Gala and it would give the movie a long runway to play, he figured. It would also require a bit of a sprint — they finished the film just weeks ago. But the enthusiasm was motivating, from fans snapping photos of Hathaway and Meryl Streep on the New York streets, to support from Anna Wintour.

Love for “Prada” isn’t the only thing that’s changed in 20 years; Magazines have also become an endangered species.

“How does Miranda Priestly deal with this changing world and what’s her future?” Frankel said. “The same with Andy Sachs: If all your ambition has been funneled in this one direction, what happens when you have to pivot and how do you adapt?”

The $4 billion question

The movie industry is also adjusting to a new paradigm. Box office is down over 20% from pre-COVID levels. The rise in streaming, the pandemic and shifting theatrical windows altered people’s moviegoing habits, perhaps permanently. And there may be one less major studio if Paramount acquires Warner Bros.

But, as James Cameron said, “hope springs eternal.

“We still have a very robust theatrical industry at a time when it was kind of almost pronounced dead,” Cameron said.

The gap is not widening. Studios are committing to longer exclusive theatrical windows. Original movies and premium formats are drawing crowds. And the market continues to expand globally.

Cameron is behind one of those only-in-a-theater experiences with the 3D Billie Eilish concert film (May 8). Using new technology, they used 17 camera systems to capture four nights of her Manchester shows last year.

“Seeing it in 3D is astonishing,” Cameron said. “You really feel an intimacy with her and yet you feel the scale of the spectacle.”

A summer for heavyweights

Nolan isn’t Universal’s only giant of cinema on its summer roster: Steven Spielberg is also returning to one of his most beloved genres with “Disclosure Day” (June 12). There are superhero movies as well, with “Supergirl” (June 26), which DC Studios co-head Peter Safran said is “is something cool and original and we haven’t seen before,” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” (July 31). The last Spidey film, which made over $1.9 billion, ended with Holland’s Peter Parker erasing himself from everyone’s memory.

“This is a blockbuster action movie with all the humor and emotion we love about Spider-Man,” director Destin Daniel Cretton said. “But at its heart, it’s a story about learning how to reconnect with the ones you love.”

A lot of power recently has shifted to PG-rated offerings. This summer has “Toy Story 5” (June 19), “Minions & Monsters” (July 1) and a live action “Moana” (July 10), which could all very well hit a billion dollars each.

One non-franchise family friendly film is “The Sheep Detectives” (May 8), in which the animals (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston) investigate the death of their beloved owner (Hugh Jackman). Writer Craig Mazin understands the hurdle: There have been a lot of stupid talking animal movies. But this one is different, he said, it's not just silly sheep doing silly things.

“There are some really beautiful moments and themes and things that parents can talk about with their kids,” Mazin said. “And most importantly, it is legitimately a movie that is meant for everyone.”

Then there's “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” (May 22), which is rated PG-13 but has an impossibly cute alien going for it. It’s also one of several made for IMAX.

“People have got great TVs at home,” said director Jon Favreau. “You’ve got to give them a reason to go out.”

The scary movies

Movie studios also continue to lean into horror and this summer has both franchises, like “Evil Dead Burn”(July 10) and “Insidious: Out of the Further” (Aug. 21) and unnerving indies, including the “conversion therapy” horror “Leviticus,” “Rose of Nevada” (both June 19), “Backrooms” (May 29) and a new Jane Schoenbrun, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” (Aug. 7).

And then there is “Scary Movie 6" (June 5), which sees the return of Regina Hall and Anna Faris, as well as Marlon and Shawn Wayans, who haven't been involved in the franchise they helped create since the 2001 sequel. And there were so many movies ripe for parody, like “M3GAN,” “Get Out,” “Weapons,” the just-released “Michael,” and “Sinners,” which Marlon Wayans was most excited about.

“Mockery is the greatest form of flattery,” Wayans said. “Sending up their movie was definitely tipping our hat to them.”

The festival darlings and other gems

Audiences want more than brands and blockbusters though. This year moviegoers have already proven they’ll turn out when the buzz is right, whether it’s for a big crowd pleaser like “Project Hail Mary” or for something more challenging like “The Drama.”

One that has the potential to break through is Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite” (June 26), a chamber dramedy about two very different couples (Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton) over one wine-filled night that sparked a bidding war at the Sundance Film Festival. Wilde was heartened that most studios were offering theatrical releases, and ultimately chose A24. They’ve even made a 35 mm print.

“The whole project for me is really tipping my hat to Mike Nichols,” Wilde said. “We thought of the audiences that have always loved those films.”

There are plenty of indies and originals to choose from throughout the summer, including Daniel Roher’s “Tuner,” about a piano prodigy turned safecracker, Boots Riley’s colorful shoplifting movie “I Love Boosters,” (both May 22) a John Carney musical with Paul Rudd (“Power Ballad,” June 5) and David Wain’s wholesomely raunchy comedy “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” (July 10).

As Wilde said, there’s room for both originals and franchises.

“The audience really likes to recognize risk,” she said. “There’s something exciting about that.”

___

For more coverage of this summer’s upcoming films, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/movies

Leslie John feared she had killed her career. Instead, it became an asset.

“Those two grand poo-bahs, they became my closest mentors,” said John, a Harvard business professor and author of “Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing.” “And it’s not in spite of my having shared my embarrassing story with them, because they’ve told me it’s because of it.”

John acknowledges that she may have gotten lucky, since her openness caused the professors to see her as different from other junior colleagues. But the experience illustrated a point.

Most people worry about the risks of oversharing, but in reality, opening up often builds trust and leads to stronger relationships, she said. (Her advice is for in-person relationships; sharing online is something different, carrying different risks.)

So, how do you know when it’s TMI or if you’re not sharing enough?

Context is key

Kathryn Greene, a communications professor at Rutgers University, has been studying what’s known in academia as "disclosure" since the 1980s. She said people may not realize how often they make decisions about whether to disclose something personal.

“We’re constantly making these evaluations in all of our relationships and reassessing as it goes along,” Greene said.

She said context is key. Telling your doctor about a sexually transmitted infection is clearly different from telling your boss.

Being open about personal aspects of your life can bring people together, but if you reveal too much too soon, it will turn people away.

Greene offered the example of when two people start dating. They first offer only a trickle of information to test if their values align.

“There’s a pretty predictable pattern as we test for a positive rather than neutral or negative reaction,” she said. “It’s going to lead to us potentially sharing more.”

Why you share is as important as what

John suggested analyzing why you want to share and questioning if it’s with the right person at the right time, which “requires a lot of self-honesty.”

When she was pregnant during the pandemic, she told her landlord because she was dying for connection. The landlord, apparently wary of tenants with children, put the place up for sale the next day, and she had to move.

“If I had been honest with myself, why do I want to reveal this? Because I want love and excitement,” she said. “Well, the landlord is not the right person to reveal to.”

When to share

People rarely think of the risks of revealing too little information, however, John said. Without opening up to acquaintances, they’ll never become close friends. If you don’t tell the love of your life that you love them, it’s a missed opportunity that’s hard to recover from.

On the other hand, revealing too much is recoverable. John argues that the answer to feeling like you’ve overshared is to share more, not less.

For instance, if you think you may have offended someone at work, it presents an opportunity to stop by their office to clear things up.

“What feels like overcommunicating is just communicating,” she said.

What not to share

Greene said one kind of oversharing won’t get you anywhere — the kind where someone dumps personal information on another person without letting them speak.

Over time, such an imbalance will degrade a relationship.

“Most people will try to distance themselves if they’re finding time after time that this balance doesn’t ever shift,” she said.

Gossip is another. John’s research includes examining what’s called “spontaneous trait transference.” Essentially, that means that when you share someone else’s personal information, or if you speak badly about someone, the recipient of the information will implicitly associate those negative things with you and your character, John said.

“It happens automatically, outside of conscious awareness,” she said. “Literally, it makes you look bad.”

But she said anything else is fair game, especially if the goal is to feel more known. Besides, sharing feels good.

John pointed to studies that have shown that pleasure centers in the brain light up when people self-disclose.

“Nature has a way of making what’s good for us pleasurable,” she said. “In moderation.”

___

EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about wellness, travel and food. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com

In Roanoke and surrounding counties, emergency department visits for COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, have all declined since last week. COVID-19 is at very low levels, while influenza and RSV are at low levels.

Officials are seeing the same pattern across Virginia, with all three viruses continuing to trend downward, according to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Health Security.

Pulaski County, Giles County, Montgomery County, the city of Radford and Wythe County continue to report high levels of RSV-related emergency department visits as of April 17. COVID-19 and influenza remain low across those areas.

What to know about tick season

Ticks are most active from March through October, when people also tend to spend more time outdoors. Ticks are present throughout the Blue Ridge Health District and are commonly found in wooded areas, brushy fields, along trails and around homes, according to the Virginia Department of Health.

Ticks can spread diseases including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever and ehrlichiosis. The CDC recorded Virginia as one of the top 10 states with the highest number of tick-borne illness cases in 2023.

As of April 19, the Northeast has recorded 35 emergency department visits for tick bite incidents, the most of any region in the country so far this year. That region includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.

Using insect repellent on skin and clothing, especially near the ankles, is one of the best ways to protect against tick bites. Because ticks can take up to 24 hours to transmit disease, checking for ticks daily after spending time in tall grass or brush can significantly reduce the risk of infection.

How Virginia compares nationally

The number of acute respiratory illnesses prompting people to seek medical care continues to remain very low nationally.

RSV activity is elevated but has peaked in most regions of the country. COVID-19 activity remains low in most areas of the country, according to the CDC.

Isle Royale is a 134,000-acre (54,200-hectare) national park in far western Lake Superior between Grand Marais, Minnesota, and Thunder Bay, Canada. The island is a natural laboratory, offering scientists a rare opportunity to observe wolves and moose largely free from human influence.

Researchers have conducted wolf and moose population surveys on the island since 1958. The surveys had been an annual winter event when the roadless island is closed to visitors, but researchers have run into obstacles in recent years.

The pandemic in 2021 forced scientists to cancel the survey for the first time. The National Park Service ordered researchers to evacuate the island during their 2024 winter survey after weeks of unusually warm weather left the ice surrounding the island unsafe for ski-plane landings. Researchers rely on the planes for easier wildlife tracking but the island has no runway, forcing them to land on iced-over Lake Superior. Things didn't go much better last year when researchers were forced to scrap the effort after their pilot suffered a last-minute medical issue.

But this year a team of researchers led by scientists from Michigan Tech University were able to conduct a survey from Jan. 22 through March 3. Their findings led them to estimate the island's wolf population at 37 animals. Data gathered before researchers evacuated in 2024 showed the population at 30.

The 2026 estimates are the highest since the late 1970s and represent a marked improvement since the population dwindled to just two wolves a decade ago. Researchers believe inbreeding led to depressed survival rates in pups.

The island's moose population, though, is declining dramatically. This year's survey put the population at 524 moose, down 75% from a high of 2,000 in 2019. Wolves likely killed almost a quarter of the moose population over the last year, scientists estimated. For the first time in almost 70 years, researchers observed no moose calves during the winter survey.

Sarah Hoy, a Michigan Tech researcher who specializes in predator-prey interactions and one of the survey's co-leaders, said scientists had to brave wind chills that dipped to minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 45.5 Celsius) and it was difficult to keep warm with the woodstoves in their cabins.

But clear skies facilitated exceptional observations. The scientists spotted wolves on all but one survey flight, she said. One of the highlights was watching a pack snuggle up together on the ice on Valentine's Day, she said.

“It's always such a privilege to get to see wolves interacting, witnessing courtship behavior, pups playfully tugging on each other's tails, or a pack working together to take down a moose,” she said.

Scientists plan to conduct summer research on the island with an eye toward how the burgeoning wolf packs can maintain balance with the rest of the ecosystem.

The 7-footer from Cameroon became so debilitated by the ailment that he struggled walking, stayed awake deep into the night and even going to the bathroom became a chore. Embiid was finally forced to tell team officials this sickness was worse than food poisoning or any other malady he suspected, and he required a hospital visit.

The test results almost seemed preordained for bad news for Embiid around NBA playoff time.

One of the dominant big men of his era when healthy, Embiid has had a postseason career curtailed by a cornucopia of injuries — sprains, fractures, even facial paralysis — and this April was no exception.

Embiid had an appendectomy in Houston on April 9 after the two-time NBA scoring champion was stricken with appendicitis overnight and sidelined indefinitely.

No Sixers' stretch run. No play-in tournament game. He watched from the bench as the Sixers went down 2-1 to Boston in their first-round series.

“You probably go through a couple of days where you feel bad for yourself,” Embiid said late Sunday. “Then it’s right back to it. Are you going to give up or are you going to try and come back as early as possible?”

Embiid indeed returned early and was welcomed by a roaring ovation in Game 4 only 17 days after having surgery, desperate to give the Sixers the punch — scoring, rather than gut — needed to try to upset a Celtics team that beat the Sixers by 32 points in a Game 1 victory.

The result was familiar, the 76ers again lost by 32, 128-96 on Sunday night and now trail the series 3-1 headed into Game 5 on Tuesday night in Boston.

Embiid had 26 points and 10 rebounds in 34 minutes, a gutsy effort in his latest return from injury that the Sixers otherwise did little to suggest they could win the next three games. The numbers were brutal: Boston hit 24 3-pointers to the 76ers' nine; the Celtics won the rebounding battle 51-30; and Boston at one point had a 13-0 edge in second-chance points to build a 21-point lead.

Give the Sixers this much: They know how to get blown out.

With All-Stars in Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George on the roster, the Sixers this season were the first team in NBA history to lose three home game by 40-plus points. Throw in two 32-pointers (one each at home and the road) in the playoffs and team president Daryl Morey and coach Nick Nurse figure to sit on the hot seat if the Sixers can't recover and win this series.

“I think those are going to kind of happen a couple of times a year,” Nurse said. “Listen, our kind of MO all year was to have a lot of things thrown at us, pick ourselves up and fight back. We're just going to have to do it again.”

To have any chance at resuscitating their chances, the Sixers need ruthless aggression and production from Maxey and rookie standout VJ Edgecombe. The Sixers have muddled roster construction in trying to win with two young, speedy, flashy guards while at the same time trying to force an aging, brittle, big man the ball.

Sure enough, Embiid sank two free throws for the Sixers’ first points of the game, added a monster two-handed jam and scored the team’s first eight points.

Maxey took a backseat to Embiid and took only three shots in the first half. He scored 22 points for the Sixers in 40 minutes.

“That can’t happen,” Maxey said of the slow start. “That’s on me. That’s just unacceptable by me. I was playing within the flow of the game. It kind of happened that way. It wasn’t meant to happen that way.”

Maxey and Edgecombe combined for 23 shots. Embiid attempted 21.

“There's a couple of times when he had opportunities to shoot the ball, but he's got to take them,” Embiid said of Maxey. “You've got to want it.”

Embiid said he had unspecified complications after the surgery but still went out “to do the best job possible with the conditions.” He was limited to 38 games this season, sitting out primarily to manage injuries to his knees, and hasn’t appeared in as many as 40 games in a regular season since 2022-23, when he averaged a career-best 33.1 points and earned MVP honors.

Embiid said he no choice but to push through his latest setback and try to salvage the Sixers' season. It's a familiar refrain in Philadelphia. While anything can happen, the final result for the Sixers seems as inevitable as Embiid pulling up lame — no NBA title since 1983, no conference final since 2001.

“I just told them again, way out of character,” Nurse said. “We played another, about as bad as we could play, game. That's two in the series.”

The third one ends another empty postseason.

___

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

From now until July 2026, you can recognize your favorite educator. Each month, one exceptional educator will receive a $250 check for themselves and their school, courtesy of Blue Eagle Credit Union.

Tell us why YOUR educator should be chosen to win this award and our judging panel will choose a recipient based on the following criteria:

1. Originality/creativity of statement
2. Inspirational power of Nominee’s story
3. Embodiment of “Education Impact” theme.

Nominees must be a K-12 educator within the WSLS viewing area to be considered.

Click here to view the official contest rules.

Here’s a look at some of our previous recipients:

• Jason Long - Woodrow Wilson Middle School - August 2023
• Tami Oliver - W.E. Cundiff Elementary School - September 2023
• Paul Craft - Lord Botetourt High School - October 2023
• Daniel ‘Squeaky’ Valentine - Andrew Lewis Middle School - November 2023
• Sydney Hepler - Mountain View Elementary - December 2023
• Dawn Custalow - William Fleming High School - January 2024
• Moir Hill - James Breckinridge Middle School - February 2024
• Consuela Stokley - Northside Middle School - March 2024
• Seth Davis - Eastern Elementary and Middle School - April 2024
• Steven Williams - Liberty Middle School - May 2024
• Gregory Souder - Dublin Elementary School - June 2024
• Kit Prillaman - North Cross - July 2024
• Elise DeMoss - North Cross School - August 2024
• Ron Snow - E.C. Glass High School - September 2024
• Sheri Marlowe - Mountain View Elementary - October 2024
• Courtney May - Central Academy Middle School - November 2024
• Bryce Vandenberg - Patrick Henry High School - December 2024
• Chrystal Shawn - Cave Spring High School - January 2025
• Sara Rhodes - Burlington Elementary - February 2025
• Josh Whitlow - Hidden Valley High School - March 2025
• Debra Williams-Arthur - William Byrd - April 2025
• Ashley Adams - Rich Acres Elementary School - May 2025
• Amanda Waldron - Northside Middle School - June 2025
• Chris Badgett- Lucy Addison Middle School- July 2025
• Cassie Long - Appomattox County High School - August 2025
• Madison Webb - Blacksburg High School - September 2025
• Lauren Burgess- Northside Middle School- October 2025
• Ryan Clifton- Natural Bridge Elementary School- November 2025
• Kacey Day - Burlington Elementary School - December 2025
• Megan Emanuel - Brookville High School - January 2026
• Matthew Payne - Susie G. Gibson Science and Technology Center - February 2026
• Michelle Fulcher - Campbell Court Elementary School - March 2026
• Jamie Nichols - William Byrd Middle School - April 2026

Venezi was due to take up the role this coming October.

But general manager Nicola Colabianchi cited her “repeated and serious public statements that were offensive and harmful” to the theater and its orchestra for the decision to cancel future collaboration, the theater’s foundation said Sunday.

They included an interview with Argentine daily La Nación, in which she accused the theater of nepotism, saying that “positions were handed from father to son.”

Italian Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli said that he hoped the move would “clear misunderstandings, tensions and manipulations” that had surrounded Venezi’s selection.

La Fenice's unions welcomed the decision to part ways with Venezi, calling it “a necessary act of respect” and underlining that the theater's professionalism had been “subject to serious, unfounded public statements damaging to the dignity of labor.”

Musicians, singers and backstage hands had vociferously opposed her appointment, citing a lack of transparency and lack of experience necessary to lead the theater.

Their escalating protests included a strike that forced the cancellation of a performance and a march through Venice joined by workers from other opera houses, reflecting concerns of political interference in artistic decisions.

The audience and orchestra erupted in applause during a performance Sunday night at the news that Venezi’s appointment had been blocked, according to video circulated by Italian media.

Colabianchi, who appointed Venezi on Sept. 22, initially defended the move, saying her youth and dynamism would attract a younger audience to the theater. Giuli had also supported hiring her.

Venezi, 36, was appointed as an adviser to the culture minister after Meloni came to power in 2022. She previously was principal conductor of the Nuova Orchestra Scarlatti Young and guest conductor of the Orchestra della Toscana, and has conducted internationally, including in Armenia, Uruguay and Argentina.

A sheep owned by O'Connor, who runs Clover & Bee Farm in Underhill, Vermont, with her husband, Gunnar, gave birth to a rare batch of six lambs earlier this month. The sextuplets and their mother are all doing well, making the lamb windfall even more remarkable.

The same ewe previously had quadruplets, and while a recent checkup indicated she would have two lambs this time, O'Connor suspected more. When the big day came, the baby lambs seemed to have kept coming and coming, she said.

“I was a little bit suspicious, just given how big she was and that she was going a little earlier, that she might have more than two,” she said. “Six is great, but it's definitely — it's plenty.”

Sources differ on how uncommon sheep sextuplets are, with O'Connor putting the number around 1 in 1,000 and some agricultural websites placing it at one in a million or higher. O'Connor said she has been in touch with the Vermont Sheep & Goat Association about the births, and the group found only one other shepherd had a sheep give birth to so many lambs.

“They do take longer to reach full body weight, but most do just fine,” said Kristen Judkins of Gilead Fiber Farm, who owned a ewe that had sextuplets three years in a row, in an email. “You have to keep an eye on them for the first few weeks to make sure they are getting enough to eat.”

The lambs, which are partially the Finnsheep breed, are named the numbers one through six in Finnish. Their mother is named Teemu after Finnish hockey player and Hockey Hall of Famer Teemu Selänne. The O'Connors plan to keep the four ewes and find homes for the two male lambs.

The farm raises sheep for wool and also grows herbs and berries. It's headed for its fifth summer raising sheep. The flock is booming — along with two other recent babies, the six new lambs have brought the total up to 21. And five ewes are currently pregnant.

Teemu's breeding days are likely not over. She'll be allowed a respite, but odds are good she'll have more lambs in the future, O'Connor said.

“She’s a great mom, she’s doing awesome with this,” O'Connor said. “She’s still very much in her reproductive years, so probably a year or more and she’ll just, you know, be able to put her hooves up.”

___

Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.

The fire happened on Sunday around 8 p.m. in the 5400 block of Indian Grave Road. Crews were able to get the fire under control within about 15 minutes.

One dog was rescued from the home, and the family will be receiving aid from the American Red Cross. Fortunately, no injuries were reported.

The Roanoke County Fire Marshal’s Office said the fire resulted in about $20,000 in damage. Officials say the fire was caused by a “combustible too close to a heat source.”

But the rise of artificial intelligence has scrambled those calculations. The basic skills she was learning in things like statistical analysis and coding can now easily be automated. “Everyone has a fear that entry-level jobs will be taken by AI,” said the 20-year-old at Miami University in Ohio.

A few weeks ago, Timperman switched her major to marketing. Her new strategy is to use her undergraduate studies to build critical thinking and interpersonal skills — areas where humans still have an edge.

“You don’t just want to be able to code. You want to be able to have a conversation, form relationships and be able to think critically, because at the end of the day, that’s the thing that AI can’t replace,” said Timperman, who is keeping analytics as a minor and plans to dive deeper into the subject for a one-year master’s program.

Today’s college students say that picking a major that’s “AI-proof” feels like shooting at a moving target as they prepare for a job market that could be fundamentally different by the time they graduate.

As a result, many are reconsidering their career paths. About 70% of college students see AI as a threat to their job prospects, according to a 2025 poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, while recent Gallup polling finds U.S. workers are increasingly concerned about being replaced by new technologies.

Students seeking majors that teach ‘human’ skills

The uncertainty appears most concentrated among those pursuing degrees in technology and vocational areas of study, where students feel a need to develop expertise in AI but also fear being replaced by it. A recent Quinnipiac poll found the vast majority of Americans believe it’s “very” or “somewhat” important for college and university students to be taught how to use AI, as Gallup Workforce polling finds AI is getting adopted in technology-related fields at higher rates. Meanwhile, students studying healthcare and natural sciences may be less impacted by AI overhauls, Gallup found.

“We see students all the time change majors. That’s not new or different. But it’s usually for a ton of different reasons,” said Courtney Brown, a vice president at Lumina, an education nonprofit focused on increasing the number of students who seek education beyond high school. “The fact that so many students say it’s because of AI — that is startling.”

A recent Gallup poll of Generation Z youth and adults, between the ages of 14 and 29, found increasing skepticism and concerns about AI. Although half of Gen Z adults use AI at least “weekly,” and teenagers report higher use, many in this generation see drawbacks to the technology and worry about AI's impact on their cognitive abilities and job prospects. About half — 48% — of Gen Z workers say the risks of AI in the workforce outweigh the possible benefits.

Part of the challenge for college students is that the experts they would typically turn to for advice, like advisers, professors and parents, don’t have any answers. “Students are having to navigate this on their own, without a GPS,” says Brown.

That uncertainty was evident last month at Stanford University, where the leaders of several prominent universities gathered for a wide-ranging panel discussion on the future of higher education. Topics of concern included the AI revolution that is transforming how students learn and forcing educators to rethink pedagogy.

“We need to think really hard about what students need to learn to be successful in the job market in 10, 20, 30 years,” said Brown University President Christina Paxson.

“And none of us know. We don’t know the answer to that,” Paxson said. “I think it’s communication, it’s critical thought. The fundamentals of a liberal education are probably more important than learning how to code in Java right now.”

Anxiety also reaches computer science majors

Computer science major Ben Aybar, 22, graduated last spring from the University of Chicago and applied for about 50 jobs, mostly in software engineering, without getting a single interview. He pivoted to a master’s degree in computer science and meanwhile has found part-time work doing AI consulting for companies.

“People who know how to use AI will be very valuable,” said Aybar, who sees new jobs emerging that require AI skills, particularly for people who can explain the complexities in layman's terms. “Being able to talk to people and interact with people in a very human way I think is more valuable than ever.”

At the University of Virginia, data science major Ava Lawless is wondering if her major is worthwhile but can’t get concrete answers. Some advisers feel that data scientists will be safe because they’re the ones building AI models, but she keeps seeing gloomy job reports that indicate the contrary.

“It makes me feel a bit hopeless for the future,” Lawless said. “What if by the time I graduate there’s not even a job market for this anymore?”

She is considering switching to studio art, which is her minor.

“I’m at a point where I’m thinking if I can’t get a job being a data scientist, I might as well pursue art,” she said. “Because if I’m going to be unemployed, I might as well do something I love.”

___

The Associated Press’ education 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.

Voters are choosing an increasing number of nonwhite Hispanic leaders to local elective office — and many of the leaders are the first Latinos to hold their seats. Some political science experts attribute the rise of Latino leadership to years of grassroots organizing, coupled with ongoing demonization of their communities by Trump administration officials and conservative activists.

“That's the difference now, is that there's this extra incentive of an unrelenting attack on Latinos across the country,” said Anna Sampaio, an ethnic studies professor at Santa Clara University who specializes in race and gender politics.

There are currently an estimated 7,700 Latino elected officials nationwide, according to data from the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. That's up from 6,883 officials in 2020.

Estimated to number as many as 55 million people — 16% of the U.S. population — Latinos are the largest ethnic minority in the country, with politics, interests and priorities as diverse as the national origins represented within their population. But Latinos also are underrepresented as a demographic across elective offices.

Since the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term, Latino communities have been a target of his hard-line immigration tactics. The feeling of attack doesn't stop there. From memes shared from the official White House page perpetuating Hispanic stereotypes, a federally led English-only initiative and an anti-diversity, equity and inclusion push have painted a target on Latinos across the country.

It's all led to more Latinos seeking office to defend their communities and give voice to those who may be afraid to speak out in the current political climate. As a result, legislators have proposed measures that include providing community members with protections against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, halting the approval of ICE detention centers in their cities, and calling for a stop to ICE funding, among other actions.

Pennsylvania Latino mayor makes history

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a roughly 40% Hispanic population, recently elected Jaime Arroyo their first Latino mayor. Arroyo took office in January, after being elected with 85% of the vote.

“I think being the first Latino to be in this role and the first person of color to be mayor of Lancaster City has been exciting,” Arroyo told The Associated Press, adding that he finds it “extremely exciting to lead and represent our community in this role.”

With rhetoric and national policies — such as heightened immigration enforcement — hurting the Latino communities, Arroyo said, diverse representation in government is more important than ever. He also believes that the rise of elected Latino officials over the last couple of years is the result of generations of Latinos being politically active fighting for civil rights.

“We're starting to see a lot of the fruits of that labor come to fruition,” Arroyo said. “There's never a perfect time to serve your community, there's the right time. And I think right now is the right time for a lot of Latinos to step up into these roles, especially with everything that is going on.”

Latino representation expanding in city councils

Many more Latinos made history when they took office in earlier this year.

In Iowa, Rob Barron was sworn in Jan. 12 as the first Latino representative on the Des Moines City Council. Antonio Pacheco was sworn on Jan. 7 to be the first Latino member of the city council in Conyers, Georgia. In Ohio, Eileen Torres became the first Mexican American women to win a city council seat in Lorain. Sabrina Gonzalez also took office there as the first Puerto Rican women to serve.

And in Michigan, Clara Martinez and Deyanira Nevarez Martinez were sworn in Jan. 1 to the Lansing City Council, making the city the first in the U.S. to have a council with majority Latino representation.

Martinez said her election, and that of Nevarez Martinez, makes a bit statement about “what people are truly open to despite the national rhetoric.”

“I think because of the rhetoric that we are having to face and some of the backlash on the national stage, I think that’s just fueled the fire for so many people,” she said.

The Salt Lake City Council also has a Latino majority, with four of seven seats, after Erika Carlsen, the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, was sworn in on Jan. 5. Carlsen said her success is possible because of current and previous generations that put in the work to create spaces where Latinas were encouraged to take leadership positions.

“I feel like I'm building on early generations of leadership,” Carlsen said. “That's both an honor and responsibility to improve Salt Lake City for the people who live here.”

Carlsen said even if representation at the federal level is not high or visible she said having representation at the local level can have a huge impact.

“I think that it's critically important that we continue to build on this momentum,” Carlsen said. “The majority of change that can happen starts locally, it doesn't start in Washington but in City Hall, school boards and neighborhoods conversations. That's the kind of momentum I'd love to see all across the United States.”

Carolina Welles, executive director of The First Ask, an organization that supports first-time female candidates at the state level, said the reason why Latino representation is more visible at the local level is because those leaders are able to built trust with their community much easier given their proximity.

“They actually know what people care about,” Welles said. “They have a stake because they are facing similar things.”

Local level Latino leadership builds on state and federal representation

It's not just at the local level. Latinos are making inroads at the federal level too.

The 119th Congress has 56 Hispanic or Latino members. That shakes out to 10.35% of total membership, according to the Congressional Research Service.

For comparison, there were only 14 Hispanic or Latino members and all were male in the 99th Congress, 40 years ago.

At the start of 2025, there were seven Hispanic U.S. senators. That number decreased to six when then Sen. Marco Rubio resigned to become the Secretary of State, the first Latino to hold the position.

Last year also marked a record for Latinas at the state level. Latinas held 214, or 2.9%, of seats in state legislatures, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. That was up from 192 seats in 2024.

Currently, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is the only active Latina governor in the U.S. Only two Latinas have been elected governor in U.S. history, and both were in New Mexico.

In March, Gina Hinojosa won the Democratic nomination for governor, making her the second Latina to win a major party gubernatorial nomination in Texas.

Latinos saw the biggest rise in elected officials during the Trump administration in response to attacks on their fundamental rights, said Sampaio, the Santa Clara University professor. She said that trend is likely to continue as the administration continues its attacks on immigrant communities.

“We’re likely to see more Latinos run for office at the local level, at the state level and even at the national level in response to the attack on simply their existence,” Sampaio said. “It is unwittingly both terrorizing the Latino community as well as mobilizing communities.”

Such is the promise sung by the artist known as Melanie C, or Mel C and Sporty Spice of the game-changing ‘90s girl group Spice Girls, in the lead single from her ninth album of the same name. Atop a sample of Diana Ross’ “Work That Body” and sleek house-pop production, it is equal parts club banger and workout anthem, something for the DJ booth and a runner's playlist.

Surprised? Don't be. Eight or so years ago, Melanie C began deejaying, reinvigorating her love of rave and dance music — early loves that predate her girl group days. “Deejaying is so much fun, and it’s brought so much joy into my life that it made it really important that this album, as an artist, was a lot closer to what I love to play as a DJ,” she told The Associated Press.

It might come as a surprise to some of her fans, but the truth is, this musical world has always held a special place in her heart. “Before I was part of the Spice Girls, I discovered rave culture,” she explains. “I was 19. I went into this nightclub. I was on holiday with some friends. I heard this music. I saw people dancing. It was like this utopia I’d never experienced.”

Then superstar fame happened, which makes “Sweat” an unusual release for her in at least one very specific way: “I feel like I brought some of my life pre-Spice Girls into this album,” she said. “Which is something I haven’t really done before.”

Dance floor therapy

Melanie C was hard at work on “Sweat” for two and a half years, writing and recording across London, Stockholm and Los Angeles, a period that proved to be uniquely transformative. “My life had twists and turns. You know? I had a long-term relationship that ended. I had a management change. I’m back with Virgin Records,” she lists. “I’m in a new relationship. So, there’s been difficult moments within it and there’s been great times. And all of that is reflected in the album.”

Appropriately, catharsis appears to be a major theme. Like on the song “Attitude” — with its sample of Inner Life's ’80s disco classic, “Moment Of My Life” — where she cheers, “Every night’s a Friday!”

Or, even more directly, the song “Pressure.”

“Under the pressure,” she sings on the explosive electronic track, before offering a one-word solution: “Release.”

“We’re under such incredible pressure and I think we put ourselves under it, too. And that’s why I’ve loved bringing in this joy of, you know, the club,” she said. “For me, as a human, that is the release.”

There has long been a connection between dance music, joy and resiliency — particularly in queer club culture. Melanie C says honoring her LGBTQ+ audience has always been key to her work.

“It’s a community that’s been important to myself and the Spice Girls for such a long time,” she said. “It's always going to be a big part of the music that I make.”

From Sporty Spice to Melanie C

If “Sweat” is an album about the freedom of a dance floor, it's a destination Melanie C has worked hard to arrive at— particularly considering her life now, three decades removed from the Spice Girls' heyday. For many, she is still Sporty Spice. And she understands that.

“I’m not Sporty Spice or Melanie C; I’m both of those things. And not just some of the time, but all of the time,” she said. “I think it’s really important to acknowledge that,” to embrace her legacy and build a new one.

“I want to make people feel good,” she says of this new musical era. “I want to empower them. I want to motivate people.”

But she also hopes they use “Sweat” as a break, an escape, some downtime.

“Recovery is a really important part of working out,” she laughs.

Spoken like Sporty Spice — and Melanie C.

Otherwise, the first round might soon be winding down.

So far, only two conference quarterfinal series — New York vs. Atlanta and Cleveland vs. Toronto — have a Game 6 that's guaranteed. The other six remaining opening-round matchups still could end in either four or five games.

It's possible that six first-round series are completed by Wednesday. Some might even end on Monday, when the schedule features three games: Orlando will seek a 3-1 lead at home against Detroit, Phoenix will look to avoid a sweep against Oklahoma City, and Denver looks to stave off elimination against short-handed Minnesota.

If Phoenix beats Oklahoma City, there will be no sweeps in Round 1 — something that hasn't happened since the 2003 playoffs.

Sunday recaps

— Raptors 93, Cavaliers 89 to tie series at 2-2.

— Spurs 114, Trail Blazers 93 for 3-1 series lead. Wemby has concerns.

— Celtics 128, 76ers 96 for 3-1 series lead. Embiid returned, to no avail.

— Rockets 115, Lakers 96 to get within 3-1 in series. Might Durant play?

Stories of note

— Edwards out, DiVincenzo has surgery

— An interesting year for Tiago Splitter

— There's a standard in Oklahoma City

— Taylor Jenkins set to return to Milwaukee

— AJ Dybantsa formally enters NBA draft

— Donovan steps down as Chicago's coach

— Warriors brace for possible Kerr departure

— Some news, notes going into the postseason

— Heat equipment manager needs transplants

Awards watch

Awards season is in full swing in the NBA and will resume Monday with the Rookie of the Year announcement (7 p.m. EDT, Peacock/NBCSN).

The rookie finalists: VJ Edgecombe of Philadelphia, Cooper Flagg of Dallas and Kon Knueppel of Charlotte.

Other awards being announced this week are Basketball Executive of the Year on Tuesday, the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year on Wednesday and the Hustle Award on Thursday. They'll all be announced at 1 p.m. EDT on one of the NBA's social media channels.

A breakdown on awards handed out to this point:

— San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama became the youngest Defensive Player of the Year, and the first to win the award in a unanimous vote.

— Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander nearly became the first unanimous winner of the Clutch Player of the Year award. He got 96 of a possible 100 first-place votes.

— San Antonio's Keldon Johnson topped Miami's Jaime Jaquez Jr. for Sixth Man of the Year, getting 63 first-place votes.

— Boston's Derrick White was revealed as the Sportsmanship Award winner, as selected by the league's players. Indiana's TJ McConnell — who got more first-place votes than anyone else — was second.

— Atlanta now has back-to-back Most Improved Player winners, with Nickeil Alexander-Walker taking that trophy this year. Dyson Daniels won for the Hawks last year.

Among the announcements still to be scheduled:

— Most Valuable Player, which will be either Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama or Denver's Nikola Jokic.

— Coach of the Year, which will be either Detroit's J.B. Bickerstaff, San Antonio's Mitch Johnson or Boston's Joe Mazzulla.

Monday's games

8 p.m. EDT — Game 4, Detroit at Orlando (NBC/Peacock)

9:30 p.m. EDT — Game 4, Oklahoma City at Phoenix (Peacock/NBCSN)

10:30 p.m. EDT — Game 4, Minnesota at Denver (NBC/Peacock)

Tuesday's games

7 p.m. EDT — Game 5, Philadelphia at Boston (ESPN)

8 p.m. EDT — Game 5, Atlanta at New York (NBC/Peacock)

9:30 p.m. EDT — Game 5, Portland at San Antonio (ESPN)

Wednesday's games

7 p.m. EDT — Game 5, Orlando at Detroit (Prime)

7:30 p.m. EDT — Game 5, Toronto at Cleveland (ESPN)

9:30 p.m. EDT — Game 5, Phoenix at Oklahoma City (Prime), if necessary

10 p.m. EDT — Game 5, Houston at LA Lakers (ESPN)

Betting odds

The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder (-120) are favorites to win the NBA title, according to oddsmakers.

The Thunder are followed by San Antonio (+400), Boston (+550), Cleveland (+1600), New York (+2500) and the Los Angeles Lakers (+2500).

Denver is +3000, followed by Detroit (+3500). Minnesota, even with a 3-1 series lead entering Monday, is at +20000 after the injuries to Donte DiVincenzo and Anthony Edwards.

Key dates

— 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).

— June 23: Round 1, NBA draft

— June 24: Round 2, NBA draft

Quote of the day

“We need to find the answers before having our back against the wall. But that also shows the strength of our team. In adversity, we stick together. We get closer to each other. We feed off of each other's energy." — San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama, after the Spurs rallied from a 17-point halftime deficit before blowing out Portland for a 3-1 series lead. It was San Antonio's league-best ninth win after trailing by 15 or more in a game this season.

Stats of the day

— Boston has beaten Philadelphia by 32 points on two separate occasions so far in their Eastern Conference first-round series. The last time the Celtics had two wins by 32 or more points in the same series was 1965 — in the NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers.

— LeBron James' teams are now 12-3 in Game 4s with a chance to sweep a series. His teams had been 9-0 in such games since 2013, before Sunday night's loss in Houston.

— Toronto scored 93 points in its Game 4 win. Teams scoring 93 or less are now 3-94 this season — but teams allowing 89 or less (as the Raptors did against Cleveland on Sunday) are 46-0.

___

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

It’s that delicate balance that leads to April’s Education Impact Award honoree.

[NOMINATE YOUR FAVORITE EDUCATOR HERE]

Jamie Nichols has been teaching math at William Byrd Middle School since 2012. By definition, math doesn’t always inspire excitement or thoughts of being “enjoyable,” but Nichols has seemingly cracked the code when it comes to engaging her students.

“I always hate that whenever you say you teach math, they’re like, ‘I hate that.’ But I just try to engage, like we play games. I will try to make a theme of the sports season, like we turn it into a baseball game, hockey, golf, just a little bit of everything to keep them engaged,” Nichols said.

Whether serving as a math teacher, a track coach or a mentor to other teachers, Nichols is a leader in the William Byrd community.

But it might be her relationships with her middle school students during a key time in their lives that make her more than just “an answer,” but rather “the solution.”

“She is all in about being a Terrier, and she just knows these kids, whether it’s through her coaching or through her teaching, because as you said, middle school is the absolute critical point for our students, and she just loves this age group,” said William Byrd Middle School Principal Katherine Hutchison.

Short of paying for your food, there isn’t much math happening in a lunchroom, but that didn’t stop us from turning the cafeteria into a hall of honor for April’s Education Impact Award honoree.

“Obviously, she makes it fun, but she also embodies what life is beyond math class, right? The critical thinking, the problem-solving, the celebrating successes, and helping them believe in themselves that will carry them through to adulthood,” said Blue Eagle Credit Union Senior Brand Specialist Laurissa Thompson.

“They drive you crazy, but then there are little things that they show that they are good kids at heart that make you want to come back,” Nichols said.

Nichols is also the head girls track coach at William Byrd Middle School and coordinates community service projects, such as school food drives, involving her team in these efforts.

Now, her stove is often cold as she crouches over a charcoal burner, coaxing a smoky fire to cook for her family outside her tin-roofed home in Kibera in Kenya's capital Nairobi, one of Africa’s largest informal settlements. Cooking gas is too expensive and often unavailable. Charcoal is always there.

“We don’t have many options,” she said. “You use what you can afford.”

Stories like hers are becoming more common because of the energy disruptions caused by the Iran war. Governments had promoted cleaner fuels like LPG for health and conservation reasons, but rising costs are undermining those gains.

The impacts are spreading beyond gas pumps to kitchens, forests, and wildlife habitats. Across Africa and South Asia, governments have spent years trying to shift households away from burning charcoal and firewood to cleaner fuels like liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG.

That push was driven by concerns over risks from air pollution, which killed 2.9 million people in 2021, according to the World Health Organization. But it also was focused on conservation, since use of firewood or charcoal increases pressure on forests and wildlife. Cutting trees faster than they grow back accelerates deforestation.

As more people search for fuel in the forest, they are encountering wildlife. At the same time, economic pressures can drive more poaching and bushmeat hunting, increasing the chance of diseases spreading from animals to people. Falling tourism means less funding for conservation, while high fuel costs make it harder for field teams to operate and respond quickly when wild animals enter human areas.

“The longer this debacle runs, the harder it is going to hit conservation,” said Mayukh Chatterjee, the International Union for Conservation of Nature's co-chair for its conflict and co-existence specialist group.

Rising costs push families into forests for fuel

When LPG, kerosene or electricity become too expensive or unreliable, many families turn to firewood and charcoal because they are easier to get in cash-poor settings, even though they harm the environment, said Paula Kahumbu, a wildlife conservationist, and CEO of Nairobi-based WildlifeDirect.

"The first conservation risk from an energy shock in Africa is not abstract. It is household fuel switching,” she said.

Rising demand for biomass fuels also degrades watersheds and wildlife habitats as people go deeper into previously undisturbed areas, increasing pressure on ecosystems and the species that depend on them.

Experts fear that rising diesel prices and higher fertilizer costs will also hurt farm productivity, reducing yields and increasing food insecurity.

“The crisis is impacting more than forests,” Kahumbu said.

Charcoal, made by slowly burning wood in kilns, is one of the most widely used cooking fuels in sub-Saharan Africa and a major driver of deforestation. Demand is climbing among customers in Nairobi’s low-income settlements, according to charcoal seller Munyao Kitheka.

A similar shift is underway in India, the world’s second-largest LPG importer, with about 60% of its supply coming from the Gulf region, according to S&P Global.

Rama, a social worker who goes by only one name, spent years encouraging waste-picking families in Bhalswa, a poor neighborhood in the outskirts of the capital New Delhi, to adopt LPG. But with incomes below $3 a day, many can no longer afford pricier LPG cylinders and are reverting to stoves that burn firewood, or returning to villages where wood is easier to find.

“Things are very, very bad,” she said.

The shift places a heavier burden on women and girls who end up spending hours each day hunting for fuel, limiting their time for work or school, said Neha Saigal, a consultant with the environmental and social justice startup Asar Social Impact Advisors.

“Years of work went into making LPG aspirational. But a global issue like this can reverse some of those gains,” she said.

Reducing pressure on habitats by reducing fuelwood use has been central to conservation efforts in Asia, said Chatterjee, the conservationist. He cited an elephant conservation project in India's northeastern Assam state where eateries had reduced wood use, but warned those gains could unravel as households shift back from LPG, which is produced from refining oil or natural gas.

“That all risks going back to square one,” he said.

Broader ripple effects on conservation

Experts warn that the war in Iran and the resulting fuel shocks can strain funding and disrupt field operations, hindering global conservation.

Airlines are cutting routes to Africa, potentially hitting tourism as rising fuel prices raise travel costs. Disruptions to aviation routes through Middle Eastern hubs make access to some destinations more difficult.

Even a modest drop in visitor numbers can have outsized effects in countries that rely on wildlife tourism to fund protected areas.

Tourism contributes about 14% of the GDP in countries like Kenya and Tanzania, where it underpins park management, anti-poaching patrols, and community conservation initiatives.

“Less tourism means less income for conservation initiatives, fewer rangers and more opportunistic poaching," Kahumbu said, adding that rising food and fuel costs could also push more people toward bushmeat as an affordable source of protein, increasing pressure on wildlife populations.

Moreover, conservation work in remote areas requires extensive and regular travel, often by motorbike or other vehicles. Higher fuel prices can disrupt that movement.

Chatterjee pointed out that in cases of conflict between wildlife and people in South Asia, rapid deployment of forest staff and conservation teams is critical to secure the area, manage crowds, and safely guide or tranquilize animals before situations escalate.

Delays increase the risk of injury or death on both sides, and fuel shortages can slow response times.

African governments have options to cushion the impact, but action has often lagged. Kahumbu called for protecting households from reverting to polluting fuels through targeted subsidies and stronger local supply chains and by backing local energy sources such as biogas, solar, and geothermal.

“Treat conservation as essential infrastructure during economic shocks,” she said.

__

Ghosal reported from Hanoi, Vietnam.

__

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.

___

This version corrects the name of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and corrects to say India is the world’s second-largest LPG importer.

Sabastian Sawe of Kenya won the London Marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds, bettering the previous men’s world record by an astonishing 65 seconds. He beat Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha, who was running his first marathon and finished in 1:59.41.

“What comes today is not for me alone,” Sawe said, “but for all of us today in London.”

Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda came in third, finishing in 2:00.28. That was seven seconds better than the previous world record held by Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum and completed a podium in which all three men broke Kiptum’s three-year-old mark.

Legend has it that the marathon's distance is the same as the run a Greek soldier made from Marathon to Athens to announce a military victory in ancient times.

On a relatively flat London course on a mostly sunny day in the low 60s (15 Celsius) — ideal for running — Sawe ran a faster second half, covering the second half of the race in 59:01.

He and Kejelcha pulled clear after 18.5 miles (30 kilometers), then Sawe made his solo break in the final two kilometers. Fans showered him with loud cheers as he sprinted to the finish on The Mall.

“I think they help a lot,” Sawe said, “because if it was not for them you don’t feel like you are so loved ... with them calling, you feel so happy and strong.”

Sawe, who came in as the defending champion in London, said it was a “day to remember for me” and thanked the huge crowds who lined the streets of the British capital to witness one of the greatest performances in a sport that asks a simple question: How fast can a person run?

Under two hours has been done before — unofficially

After Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile in 1954, the mark was lowered 18 more times until it reached the current world record: 3:43.13, by Morocco's great runner, Hicham El Guerrouj.

The mile has been largely replaced by the 1,500 meters as the main four-lap race in major events. The marathon, however, remains a staple of world-class running and the 2-hour barrier — a nice, even number at a distance that has been around since ancient times — has been in the sights of the world's greatest runners (and shoe companies) for about the last 20 years.

Kenyan long-distance great Eliud Kipchoge did, in fact, break 2 hours in 2019, but it did not go into the record books, as it was a specially tailored race — the “1:59 Challenge” — run in favorable conditions on a 6-mile track with a stable of 41 rotating pacemakers. Kipchoge finished in 1:59.40.

Sawe beat that time by 10 seconds on one of the world's less-taxing marathon courses.

“The goalposts have literally just moved for marathon running,” Paula Radcliffe, a former winner of the London Marathon, said during commentary of the race for the BBC.

The first sub-2:30 marathon came in 1925 and the 2:15 barrier was broken 38 years after that. At the turn of the century, the world's best time for the men's marathon was 2:05:42, set by Khalid Khannouchi in Chicago in 1999.

Khannouchi broke his own record by four seconds in 2002 — the previous last time the fastest men's marathon was run in London — and it has been whittled down gradually over the last 24 years by a succession of Kenyan and Ethiopian runners, including Haile Gebrselassie, Wilson Kipsang, Kipchoge and, most recently, Kiptum.

Now that the 2-hour mark has been broken, a few other iconic track-and-field records to watch include Usain Bolt's 9.58 seconds in the 100 meters (2009), Mike Powell's 8.95 meters in the long jump (1991) and Marita Koch's 47.60 in the women's 400 meters (1985).

Lightweight shoes with cutting-edge technology help fuel the speed

Part of the lowering of the times is about improvements in training, nutrition and technique.

Another key element is the streamlining of shoes, defined through a battle of shoe companies who use carbon-fiber plates and other materials as part of an effort to make shoes lighter and springier.

There's been ongoing debate about whether the advances in shoes amount to “technology doping." Seven years ago, Kipchoge wore Nike in his controlled run at sub-2 hours. On Sunday, Sawe was in Adidas, which is making a men's size 9 shoe that weighs 3.4 ounces — less than half the weight of an average running shoe, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“When you give them the box, they think it’s a joke,” Patrick Nava, general manager of Adidas running, told WSJ. “They think the box is empty.”

Assefa wins fastest-ever women's-only marathon

A record also went down in the women's race, with Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa pulling away with about 500 meters remaining to win in 2:15:41 and defend the title in the fastest-ever time in a women’s-only marathon.

However, it was 16 seconds slower than the course record set by Radcliffe in 2003 when it was a mixed race.

Kenya’s Hellen Obiri was 12 seconds back in second place in a personal-best time on her London debut and compatriot Joyciline Jepkosgei was third, a further two seconds adrift. It was the first time three women have run under 2 hours, 16 minutes in a marathon.

“I screamed when I finished because I knew I was breaking the world record," Assefa said.

“I felt much healthier today and have worked really hard on my speed and all my training has paid off.”

Swiss double in wheelchair races

In the wheelchair races, there was a Swiss double with Marcel Hug powering to a sixth straight men’s title – and eighth in total – and Catherine Debrunner beating Tatyana McFadden in a close finish to defend the title.

___

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