Shortstop Tanner Marsh paced Liberty’s offense, going 3-for-5. Nick Barone added a 2-for-5 performance, while Jaxon Sorenson also collected two hits. Riley DeCandido, Landon Scilley and Kyle Hvidsten each recorded multiple hits as the Flames consistently pressured Boston College pitching throughout the afternoon.

Boston College was held scoreless through four innings as Gretna native and LCA grad Ben Blair lasted 7 innings on the mound, racking up seven strikeouts.

The Eagles did manage to comeback after getting solo home runs in the fifth, seventh and eighth innings. Julio Solier hit two of those home runs as BC held a 3-2 lead entering the 9th inning.

Liberty scratched across two runs in the final frame, the decisive run coming on a fielder’s choice throw home where Riley DeCandido was safe after the catcher dropped the ball.

With the win, Liberty advances in the winner’s bracket of the Athens Regional, while Boston College moves to an elimination game.

LPD said they, along with the Lynchburg Fire Department, responded to reports of a malicious wounding in the 1500 block of 14th Street around 2:45 p.m. on Thursday. Upon arrival, they found a woman who had sustained serious injuries.

Authorities said the victim gave law enforcement a suspect name and description. The fire department cared for the woman and took her to Lynchburg General Hospital. She is now in stable condition.

Law enforcement said they identified the suspect as 60-year-old Lawrence Cheathem. Within minutes, he was arrested on the following charges:

• aggravated malicious wounding
• burglary
• violation of a protective order (two counts)

This incident is still under investigation.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump said he was looking to make a “final determination.” A senior administration official later said the roughly two-hour meeting with national security aides had concluded.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, would not say whether Trump had made a decision to sign off on the tentative agreement.

Trump confirmed the high-level talks the day after The Associated Press and other news outlets reported that U.S. and Iranian negotiators had come to terms on a tentative agreement. The deal would extend the fragile ceasefire by 60 days as new talks are held on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

Trump wrote on social media that “Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb.” He said the strait must be reopened for international navigation and all sea mines destroyed.

Iran’s main negotiator said Friday that it has “no trust in guarantees or words,” only actions, underscoring lingering distrust after the U.S. and Israel have twice attacked Iran over the past year while it was engaged in nuclear negotiations.

“No step will be taken before the other side acts,” Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf wrote on X. “We do not gain concessions through talks, but through missiles."

Nuclear issues remain unresolved

Later, but before Trump's meeting concluded, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told a state broadcaster that the agreement “has not been finalized yet.”

On Thursday, U.S. Vice President JD Vance suggested negotiators were trying to strike general terms on Iran’s nuclear program, with the specifics to be hammered out in the ensuing talks.

Baghaei, however, said Friday that Iranian officials were "focused on the end of war and are not discussing the details of the nuclear plan at this point.”

Iran also wants any deal to include a truce between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, where fighting has intensified despite a nominal ceasefire. And the Islamic Republic has been seeking the release of billions of dollars in frozen funds.

Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the Iranian parliament’s national security commission and is close to top leaders, posted on social media Friday that Iran “sets the terms: cash for cash, credit for credit, nothing for nothing.”

The Islamic Republic has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful and has not publicly committed to giving up the stockpile. It's believed to be buried under three nuclear sites that were badly damaged by U.S. strikes last year.

Trump returned Friday to his on-and-off demand for the removal of the cache as part of a deal. The material would be unearthed by the U.S., in coordination with Iran and the IAEA, “and DESTROYED,” he posted.

Deal would reopen the Strait of Hormuz

The proposed memorandum makes clear that Iran would not be able to impose tolls on the Strait of Hormuz and that it would have to remove all mines from the vital waterway within 30 days, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. would gradually lift its blockade on Iranian ports and would also agree to relax sanctions, allowing Iran to sell more of its oil.

Baghaei said Iran and Oman, which lie on opposite sides of the strait, would manage it and “adopt mechanisms” for transit through it, "based on their own national interests and the interests of the international community.”

The two nations' foreign ministers discussed the issue by phone earlier Friday, according to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who wrote on X that he had expressed solidarity “in the face of any threat.”

On Wednesday, Trump had warned Oman — a U.S. ally — not to enter into any agreement with Iran to share control of the strait or the U.S. will “have to blow them up.”

Iran has effectively closed the strait since the U.S. and Israel launched a surprise attack on Feb. 28 that killed Iran's supreme leader and other top officials. Before then, the waterway was open to international traffic, and around a fifth of the world's oil and gas passed through it.

The closure of the strait has caused the price of fuel and other goods to soar, with the effects felt far beyond the Middle East.

Iran has said it lets some commercial vessels pass — about two dozen daily in recent days, compared with more than 100 a day before the war. But the Islamic Republic also has charged tolls for at least some ships and established a formal gatekeeper agency earlier this month, spurring a new round of U.S. sanctions this week.

The agency, called the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, condemned the sanctions Friday but deemed them a a sign of its own “positive performance.”

Since the ceasefire began about seven weeks ago, the U.S. and Iran have traded strikes and accusations of ceasefire violations. But they have not returned to full-scale hostilities and have kept negotiating.

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Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz and Farnoush Amiri in New York, and Matthew Lee in Washington, contributed.

The S&P 500 rose 0.2%, notching its seventh consecutive gain and ninth straight winning week — the longest such streak since 2023. The benchmark index set an all-time high for the fourth day in a row.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.7% and the Nasdaq composite added 0.2%. The Dow and Nasdaq also reached new heights after posting record highs earlier in the week.

Big technology stocks have been behind much of the market’s record-breaking streak. Their pricey stock values give them more influence in directing the market higher or lower. In May alone, technology stocks within the S&P 500 rose more than 15%, while most of the sectors in the benchmark index actually lost ground.

“The rally has been largely tech-led and supported by resilient earnings, but the key question is whether it can be sustained,” wrote Angelo Kourkafas, senior global strategist at Edward Jones, in a research note.

Tech stocks also powered the market higher Friday. Microsoft rose 5.4% and Broadcom gained 4.7%.

Dell Technologies surged 32.8% to lead all stocks in the S&P 500 after delivering profits that blew past expectations. The company also raised its outlook, citing powerful demand for AI computing.

Most other sectors in the S&P 500 lost ground Friday. Among the decliners: Paramount Skydance fell 1.9%, Amazon.com dropped 1.2%, and Costco Wholesale closed 3.9% lower.

Wall Street has been gaining ground despite worries that the U.S. war with Iran is worsening inflation and jeopardizing economic growth.

The U.S. and Iran are reportedly working toward a deal to extend a ceasefire. That eased pressure on oil prices. The price for August delivery of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 1.7% to settle at $91.12 per barrel. It is still well above the $70 per barrel level in late February before the war began. The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude oil for July delivery fell 1.7% to settle at $87.36.

Treasury yields held relatively steady as oil prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.44% from 4.45% late Thursday.

Still, high oil prices remain a key concern for Wall Street. The war has stifled the flow of oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas is shipped through the waterway.

That has pushed up prices for gasoline and a wide range of goods, feeding inflation and squeezing consumers and businesses. Prices were already rising before the war began from the ongoing impact of tariffs.

Several reports this week reflected inflation’s rise and impact on consumers. A measure of inflation preferred by the Federal Reserve accelerated in April to its highest level in three years. Consumer confidence is slipping amid the squeeze from rising inflation.

Wall Street’s worries about rising inflation have been somewhat muted by the latest round of corporate profit reports. Companies in the S&P 500 have reported profit growth of 28% overall for the most recent quarter, according to FactSet. The overwhelming majority of companies in the S&P 500 have already reported their latest results. That could mean investors’ focus may shift back toward inflation, consumers’ behavior and the Fed’s path ahead for interest rates.

The Fed has been holding its benchmark interest rate steady as it closely watches rising inflation. It is expected to continue holding rates steady at its next meeting in June and through the year, according to CME’s FedWatch tool. Cutting interest rates could help lower borrowing costs and give the economy a jolt, but it could also worsen inflation at time when prices are already high and rising.

Despite the market turbulence caused by the conflict in the Middle East, stocks notched further gains in May. The S&P 500 closed out the month with a 5.1% gain. It’s up 10.7% so far this year.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 16.43 points to 7,580.06 on Friday. The Dow gained 363.49 points to 51,032.46, and the Nasdaq added 55.15 points to finish at 26,972.62.

Markets in Europe and Asia mostly rose.

The climate-disclosure rule has been on hold since last year, after the Republican-led commission said it was pausing its legal defense in the wake of legal challenges by business groups and Republican state attorneys general.

The SEC said in a statement that it is now moving to rescind the disclosure rules “in their entirety because they exceed the scope of the agency’s statutory authority." The rules, finalized in 2024, “impose substantial costs on public companies and their shareholders that are not justified by the informational benefits they may provide to some investors,” the commission said.

Eliminating the rule will “avoid the practical effect of dictating corporate behavior” and ensure that agency rules will "be imposed only when the expected benefits justify the likely costs and burdens,” SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said in a statement.

Environmental groups said the action would leave investors without information they need to accurately assess financial risks and other hazards related to climate change.

“The SEC’s mission is to protect investors and the public by ensuring they have access to material information,” said Kathy Fallon, director of land systems at the nonprofit Clean Air Task Force. “While imperfect, the rule was an important step toward giving investors consistent information about financially material climate risks, including the use of carbon offsets.”

She urged the commission to retain the rule and enforce disclosure requirements "that give both investors and the public the transparency they need.”

Repeal of the climate-disclosure rule is among dozens of environmental rollbacks imposed in President Donald Trump's second term. The Environmental Protection Agency has eliminated major climate change programs, promoted deregulatory efforts that Trump calls the largest such move in American history and canceled billions of dollars in Biden-era environmental justice grants.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has focused on weakening or eliminating regulations perceived as climate-friendly, including revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

Zeldin has said his actions will put a “dagger through the heart of climate change religion.”

The SEC, an independent agency whose members are appointed by the president, approved the climate rule in March 2024 on a party-line vote. Three Democratic commissioners supported it and two Republicans opposed.

The commission currently has three Republican members, including Atkins, and no Democrats.

The 2024 rule was one of the most anticipated in recent years from the nation’s top financial regulator, drawing more than 24,000 comments from companies, auditors, legislators and trade groups over a two-year process. The vote brought the U.S. closer to the European Union and states like California, which have imposed similar corporate disclosure rules.

A public comment period will remain open for 60 days following publication of the proposal in the Federal Register, expected in the next few days.

The company fueled the hulking New Glenn rocket Thursday night, hoping to briefly ignite the engines ahead of a satellite launch next week. But the 321-foot (98-meter), rocket blew up, taking part of the pad with it.

Aerial views on Friday revealed heaps of crumpled structures on the ground, with just one tower and the water tank still standing. Emergency officials warned the public to avoid any wreckage that might wash ashore and to instead call 911. There were no reported deaths or injuries.

It’s a major setback for Blue Origin, coming just one month after the entire New Glenn fleet was grounded because of an upper-stage engine issue that dumped a satellite in the wrong orbit.

Named after John Glenn, the first American in orbit, New Glenn is the rocket that Blue Origin plans to use to launch landers to the moon under NASA's Artemis program that aims to build a sprawling base near the moon's south pole. The goal is to land the first Artemis moonwalkers as early as 2028. Earlier this week, the space agency awarded a new contract to Blue Origin worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

One of the biggest rockets to reach orbit, New Glenn has seven first-stage engines fueled by liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas, which is essentially methane. It has flown three times.

None of the assigned 48 Amazon Leo satellites were on board the newest rocket when the blast occurred. Another batch of Amazon Leo satellites — competing with SpaceX's Starlinks to provide internet service to remote locales — awaited liftoff several miles away at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, courtesy of United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket.

Within 12 hours of the explosion, SpaceX launched more Starlinks to orbit Friday morning. CEO Elon Musk has two Florida pads in action, one on the Space Force side where the latest Falcon 9 lifted off and the other at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

Blue Origin has just one Florida pad: Launch Complex 36 dating back to the early 1960s. NASA's Mariner and Pioneer interplanetary probes rocketed away from there, as well as the moon-bound Rangers and Surveyors. The Washington state-based Blue Origin spent more than $1 billion rebuilding the launch complex — taking it from double pads to a single — after leasing it from the Air Force in 2015.

The company's smaller New Shepard rockets soar from Texas, skimming space for a few minutes with tourists and science experiments. Those suborbital hops were paused in January so the company could focus on New Glenn and upcoming moonshots. All that is now on hold, pending the investigation into the explosion.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said late Thursday that the space agency will evaluate near-term impacts to the Artemis program, which saw four astronauts fly around the moon in April. That Artemis II mission was hoisted by NASA's Space Launch System rocket.

Before the explosion, Blue Origin was on track to launch a prototype lunar lander to the moon on a New Glenn this fall, with another lander due to rocket into orbit around Earth in 2027 for docking practice by the soon-to-be-announced Artemis III crew.

A touchdown by two astronauts on Artemis IV — using a Blue Moon lander or SpaceX's Starship, whichever is ready first — was targeted as early as 2028.

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

The case was seen as the first major legal test of an election reform that has been pushed nationally by President Donald Trump and has gained favor among many Republicans, though U.S. District Court Judge Samantha Elliot said she was not deciding whether requiring proof of citizenship itself is constitutional. Her ruling late Thursday night on a narrower question of New Hampshire law was significant, however, because it underscored the potential perils of implementing strict requirements for voters to document their U.S. citizenship so they can cast a ballot.

Elliot found that changes in 2024 to the state voter registration law unconstitutionally removed one method of proof -- namely, a voter’s sworn affidavit attesting to citizenship.

“The evidence shows that this is the only method of proof available to a significant number of New Hampshire voters,” she wrote.

The changes took effect last year, after former Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, signed the bill two years ago. The attorney general’s office said it plans to appeal the judge’s ruling, calling the citizenship requirements a “common-sense approach to voter registration and election administration designed to protect the integrity of our elections.”

The ruling was a win for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire and other plaintiffs who argued that the changes that took effect last year were burdensome and unnecessary.

“New Hampshire’s elections have always been safe, secure, and accurate — and this law could have unconstitutionally and needlessly prevented thousands of eligible voters from casting a ballot,” said Henry Klementowicz, deputy legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire.

In her ruling, Elliott said eliminating the affidavit option created a significant burden for voters and did little, if anything, to further the state's interests. She noted that an expert on voter fraud found only 47 instances of wrongful voting out of roughly 8.3 million votes between 1998 and 2024. During that time, only eight noncitizens may have cast ballots, she said.

“If wrongful voting is rare in New Hampshire, wrongful voting by noncitizens is essentially non-existent,” she wrote.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Coalition for Open Democracy, the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire, the Forward Foundation and five voters, called the state’s voter registration law one of the most restrictive in the nation. During town elections last fall, some voters had trouble gathering passports, birth certificates or other proof of citizenship.

New Hampshire is not the only state with a proof-of-citizenship law for voters. Arizona, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming have similar laws already in effect, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Florida passed a law this year requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote, but it won’t take effect until next year.

A similar law in Kansas, which required proof of citizenship for state and federal elections, was found in 2018 to violate both the U.S. Constitution and the National Voter Registration Act after it prevented more than 31,000 citizens from registering to vote.

Arizona established a two-tiered system after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the state could not require citizenship documentation for federal elections. In August 2024, the court allowed some parts of the state’s proof-of-citizenship law to be enforced as the legal fight continued in lower courts.

The ruling comes as Trump is trying to push a proof-of-citizenship bill, the SAVE America Act, through Congress. Voting rights advocates say such a federal requirement could disenfranchise millions of people. A 2025 University of Maryland study estimated that 21.3 million Americans who are eligible to vote do not have or have easy access to documents to prove their citizenship, including nearly 10% of Democrats, 7% of Republicans and 14% of people unaffiliated with either major party.

New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan said he will reimplement the use of voter affidavits for registrants to prove citizenship, but noted the ruling doesn't affect other 2024 changes to the law, including a requirement that those registering to vote provide documentary proof of identity, age and address. Voters also will continue to be required to show proof of identity on Election Day.

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Carr Smyth reported from Columbus, Ohio.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Kennedy Center board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations. The administration had announced the work would begin in July and last approximately two years, but Cooper's ruling halts those plans for now.

“The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one,” he wrote.

Cooper also concluded that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by unilaterally adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, he said.

The judge, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, ordered the defendants to remove Trump's name from the institution's façade and any “official materials,” such as digital or physical signs, within two weeks.

"May the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts be renamed absent Congressional authorization? The answer, plain from the face of the statute, is no. Nor can any other individual be memorialized on the front portico of the building," Cooper wrote.

The White House had no immediate comment.

Trump determined to leave his mark on DC

Trump has made it a priority of his second term to leave his personal stamp on some of the most historic spots in Washington. He demolished the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom. His name or image have been added to government buildings, including the U.S. Institute of Peace and Justice Department headquarters. He is pushing for a triumphal arch overlooking the Potomac River.

Opponents have challenged other Trump construction projects in court — and won favorable rulings. But the district court judges likely won't have the final say as the administration pursues appeals.

Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, said Friday the institution is “confident that on appeal the court will uphold the Board’s will to recognize President Trump’s historic contributions to our nation’s cultural center.” She said the decision would be reviewed “carefully.”

“Though the reality remains — the Center requires an urgent and significant restoration – a truth that even the plaintiff acknowledges,” Daravi said. “With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress, the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”

Cooper held hearings in late April for parallel lawsuits challenging the project. One was filed by a group of cultural and historic preservation organizations. The other was brought Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who serves as an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board. He ruled in favor of Beatty’s request but rejected the other challenge.

Beatty called the decision a win for the Kennedy Center and the performing arts. “Now hopefully people can come back to work, we can continue to be the Kennedy Center that we were intended to be,” she told The Associated Press.

Justice Department attorneys said renovation plans for the building are limited in scope and well within the board’s authority to make without needing outside approvals.

How much of an overhaul is needed?

The plaintiffs worry the president and his board allies will flout preservation rules designed to maintain the building’s historic fabric. In earlier statements in court hearings, attorneys for the Beatty and the preservation groups raised doubts about the limited scope of the project, pointing to Trump’s statements that he would “fully expose” the building’s steel skeleton.

Beatty has said she was “very fearful that we’ll see what happened with the East Wing and what happened with the Rose Garden” if the center is closed and the renovations allowed unsupervised, referring to major changes the president has made at the White House.

Mike Floca, the Kennedy Center’s executive director and chief operating officer, spent several weeks during the spring walking a bipartisan group of lawmakers and their staffs, along with journalists and Washington city officials, through the expansive building that sprawls across 1.5 million square feet.

The tours were intended to show that the Kennedy Center, which began construction in 1965, was in genuine need of an overhaul. The walkthroughs showed severe water damage, apparent in some places through discoloration and pooling. Some pieces of equipment, including several 800-ton chillers that help cool the building, are decades old and in need of replacement.

Floca told reporters in April that he considered doing the repairs individually but insisted it was his recommendation to Trump to close the building and move forward with the renovation all at once.

Trump, a Republican, has taken a keen interest in the Kennedy Center’s operations since he returned to White House last year. He installed a handpicked board that named him chairman. His name was added to the façade of a building that is considered a living monument to Kennedy.

The Kennedy Center has kept up performances ahead of the closure, though at a much slower pace than in previous years. Trump attended the premiere of the musical “Chicago” in March and other shows, including “Moulin Rouge” are slated for June.

Bill Maher, the comedian who has had an up and down relationship with Trump, is expected to be awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on June 28, an event that was anticipated to be one of the final big moments at the Kennedy Center before the closure.

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Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer, Collin Binkley and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

Details are limited at this time, but 10 News is on the scene and will have more information as it becomes available.

The Democrat announced Friday that police will create designated protest zones and set up vehicle checkpoints to regulate traffic outside Delaney Hall. She said the decision comes as clashes between protesters and federal immigration enforcement officials have intensified.

“It has grown unsafe, and that’s completely unacceptable,” Sherrill said at a news conference along with the state attorney general and state police leaders. “Our top priority is public safety, and we need to take this opportunity to lower the temperature.”

Spokespersons for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the GEO Group, the private firm contracted to run the facility, didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

The protests began last Friday after immigrant advocates said detainees inside launched a hunger strike over poor living conditions at the 1,000-bed facility, which opened last May.

Demonstrators have been attempting to block people and vehicles from entering and exiting the building in recent days. They have linked arms in a human chain and used trash cans, umbrellas and other materials as makeshift shields and barricades.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in helmets and tactical vests have used pepper spray and batons to try and disperse the protesters and clear the roadway for vehicles.

At least six demonstrators were arrested for assaulting law enforcement officers Wednesday night, and more have been arrested on other nights of the protests, DHS has said.

With state police taking over public safety responsibilities outside Delaney Hall, ICE officers currently lining the entry have agreed to stand down, Sherril and state officials said.

In addition to the protest zones, she said, police will also be setting up vehicle checkpoints to regulate traffic and assure safe passage.

Sherril stressed that she doesn't want to give ICE “pretext” to expand operations in the state by letting things get out of hand.

“We know what ICE has done in other states, and we know American citizens lost their lives, and I refuse to let that happen in New Jersey,” the governor said. “We all need to do everything we can to cool things down now.”

Sherrill was among a group of Democratic officials who tried to visit detainees on Monday but were denied entry.

Democratic members of Congress from New York City, however, were able to tour Delaney Hall Tuesday and described dire conditions where detainees are fed small portions of often spoiled food and their varied medical needs are ignored.

The families of detainees and their supporters, meanwhile, say their loved ones have been subjected to pepper spray and physical force in retaliation for their hunger strike and the protests outside.

The crash happened at about 2:35 a.m. on southbound I-95 in Stafford County, near Quantico. All five of the people who died were in vehicles hit by the bus, and 44 people were taken to hospitals, including three in critical condition, police said.

“The preliminary investigation indicates that traffic was slowing southbound for an upcoming work zone,” state police said in a news release. “A bus failed to slow for traffic and struck six vehicles."

Police said there were “approximately” 34 passengers on the bus.

“We’ve got patients in multiple hospitals. We’ve got the driver at a hospital here,” said Peyton Vogel, a Federal Transit Administration spokesperson who was on the scene. “I’ve got to say, this is one of the most tragic things I’ve ever seen. Absolutely tragic.”

Four of the fatalities were in one car, which caught fire. State police said the victims were a 45-year-old male, a 44-year-old female, a 13-year-old female and a 7-year-old male, all from Greenfield, Massachusetts. The fifth victim, a 25-year-old female from Worcester, Massachusetts, was in an SUV that was struck by the bus.

State police identified the bus driver as Jing S. Dong, 48, of Staten Island, New York. Charges are pending, authorities said.

Mary Washington Healthcare said it received 19 patients from the crash. It posted online that seven of the patients were taken to its trauma center in Fredericksburg, where four were being discharged and three remained in treatment — one in serious condition and two in critical condition. Twelve were taken to its hospital in Stafford, where they were later discharged in good condition.

The National Transportation Safety Board posted online that it was sending a “go-team” to conduct a safety investigation into the crash and that it would have a spokesperson at the scene.

The southbound lanes had reopened by noon, but traffic was still backed up for a couple of miles, according to a state transportation advisory.

Bus company had satisfactory record

The bus was operated by E&P Travel Inc., based in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. A compliance snapshot from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration showed only one injury accident involving the company’s vehicles in the previous two years and listed its safety rating as “satisfactory.”

The company was incorporated Nov. 24, 2023, by Shuo Liu, according to records from the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office. Liu is also listed as the registered agent. The FMCSA site said the company operated four vehicles and had 11 drivers.

While it is too soon to say what caused Friday's crash, federal authorities have been grappling with interstate passenger bus safety issues for decades.

Following a series of passenger bus crashes in 2008 that killed 41 people, the U.S. Department of Transportation published a Motorcoach Safety Action Plan.

The NTSB investigated 16 fatal motorcoach crashes between June 1998 and January 2008, finding that driver-related problems such as fatigue, medical condition and inattention accounted for 56 percent of the accidents. The agency said driver-related problems were responsible for 60 percent of the fatalities in those crashes.

Among the actions recommended were creation of a pre-employment driver history screening program and a national drug- and alcohol-testing database “to enable motorcoach operators to determine if drivers have a history of violating DOT alcohol or drug rules.”

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Breed reported from Wake Forest, North Carolina, and Verduzco from Kings Mountain, North Carolina. Associated Press writer Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed.

Carter called the situation “bigger than football" and explained he felt the need to call out Dart publicly for the decision.

“He not only represents himself and what he does, but he represents all of us and that goes for anybody who wears a Giants uniform,” Carter said Friday after an offseason workout practice. "If he chooses to align himself with a man like President Trump, it’s my responsibility based on what I believe and what I stand on to not only show my teammates that I’m against that — but to show the world.”

Carter took to social media on Saturday to criticize his teammate after realizing a video of Dart on stage with Trump was real. Hours later, Carter said he and Dart spoke and were fine. Those posts have since been deleted.

“It doesn’t mean that me and Jaxson hate each other or we have beef,” Carter said. "I sit next to Jaxson every day, every team meeting. We’re close. We talk. As long as we make sure we’ve got the same goal as a team and our goals align, which they do, then I feel like that’s all that matters.”

Dart in his 562-word statement never invoked Trump's name and said he valued the office of the president. Dart called it “a unique opportunity, being asked and given the opportunity to introduce the president of the United States.”

Asked if he understood why the situation might bother teammates and if he thought he made a mistake, Dart referred back to his statement. Carter said Dart did not apologize for being at Trump's event.

“I don’t want him to say he’s sorry,” Carter said. “Stand on what you believe in. But it can’t be a problem when I stand on what I believe in. That’s all that matters to me. As long as we have that understanding, it’s all good.”

Dart said he addressed the situation with teammates, including Carter, as part of “honest conversations” over the past week. That included a meeting at the Giants' facility Tuesday when Carter was not present, as well as a conversation Saturday between the two players going into their second NFL season.

“We just talked," Dart said of Carter, who was also drafted in the first round last year. “Me and him are one of the closer guys on the team with each other. We’ve had a lot of conversation, and he’s my brother. I know that I’m a brother to him.”

Coach John Harbaugh and veteran backup quarterback Jameis Winston attempted to put a positive spin on going through the situation at a tense time in the U.S.

“We’ve got a blond-haired, blue-eyed white kid and a Black Muslim religion, Black kid, who are coming together and showing y’all, showing the world that we can come together,” said Winston, who is also Black. “I think this is an excellent opportunity for those two young men to realize what they represent, the platform that they have, and how they’re going to go about navigating that and standing on what they both believe in.”

Harbaugh expressed no concerns about a rift in the locker room and said “it’s not going to affect what kind of football team we are.”

“I think it’s made us better, honestly,” Harbaugh said. “I’m kind of grateful for the opportunity that we had to have the conversation.

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

Trump confirmed the high-level talks a day after The Associated Press reported that U.S. and Iranian negotiators had reached a tentative agreement to extend the fragile ceasefire by 60 days and start new talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to answer questions Friday about Trump’s involvement in the release of case files on Jeffrey Epstein as she defended the administration’s actions in a closed-door interview before the House Oversight Committee. Lawmakers have scrutinized the Justice Department’s release of the files, which was delayed and revealed the personal information of potential victims.

Also in Washington, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center. The judge blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, the judge said, and only Congress can change it.

Here's the latest:

Federal judge says New Hampshire must loosen requirements to prove citizenship to vote

New Hampshire must make voter registration easier by allowing applicants to attest to their U.S. citizenship if they don’t have the documents to prove it, the judge said.

The case was seen as the first major legal test of an election reform that has been pushed nationally by Trump and has gained favor among many Republicans, although U.S. District Court Judge Samantha Elliot said she was not deciding whether requiring proof of citizenship itself is constitutional.

Her ruling late Thursday night on a narrower question of New Hampshire law was significant, however, because it underscored the potential perils of implementing strict requirements for voters to document their U.S. citizenship so they can cast a ballot.

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Kennedy Center board broke the law putting Trump’s name on the building, judge says, and blocks its closure for renovations

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper concluded Friday that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by unilaterally adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, he said, and only Congress can change it.

The judge also ruled that the board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations.

“The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one,” he wrote.

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Iran’s nuclear issues remain unresolved

A deal to extend the ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz “has not yet been finalized,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told a state broadcaster on Friday.

On Thursday, U.S. Vice President JD Vance suggested negotiators were trying to strike general terms on Iran’s nuclear program, with the specifics to be hammered out in the ensuing talks.

Baghaei, however, said Friday that Iranian officials were “focused on the end of war and are not discussing the details of the nuclear plan at this point.”

Trump’s Situation Room meeting on Iran ceasefire has concluded

Trump has finished his meeting with national security aides to weigh a framework of an agreement that would extend the U.S. ceasefire with Iran by 60 days and kickstart new talks on Iran’s nuclear program, according to a senior administration official.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, would not comment on whether Trump had made a decision to sign off on the tentative agreement following the roughly two-hour meeting.

— By Aamer Madhani

Kennedy Center board broke the law putting Trump’s name on the building, judge says, and blocks its closure for renovations

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper concluded Friday that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by unilaterally adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, he said, and only Congress can change it.

The judge also ruled that the board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations.

“The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one,” he wrote.

Rubio calls Lebanese president as Israel-Lebanon security talks begin at the Pentagon

The U.S. secretary of state had a phone call with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to praise him for pursuing peace talks with Israel, as Israel and Lebanon held their first security-related meeting in Washington at the Pentagon.

Rubio “commended President Aoun’s courage and vision in pursuing direct negotiations with Israel, even as Hezbollah continues its attempts to derail those talks at the expense of the Lebanese people,” the State Department said in a statement Friday.

Talks between senior officials from Israel and Lebanon have been going on since last month but are complicated by the fact that Hezbollah, Israel’s target, is not participating in the discussions and has refused to accept their results.

Rubio told Aoun that Hezbollah “is entirely responsible for the ongoing fighting and emphasized the need for Hezbollah to immediately cease its attacks and provocations to enable de-escalation.”

Trump administration grants a rare reprieve, shielding 11,000 Lebanese from deportation

The decision on their Temporary Protected Status allows them to stay and work in the United States for another six months.

Unusually, the decision was automatic, meaning the administration missed the deadline to decide on whether to extend TPS for Lebanese people covered by the program.

The Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday that officials “were unable to make an informed determination on Lebanon’s TPS designation.” It comes amid ongoing fighting in southern Lebanon between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants.

Republicans have harshly criticized the TPS program, which was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.

White House moves to give political appointees more power over federal grants

Scientists say this would put critical research funding into the hands of partisans without relevant expertise. It would be the most sweeping change to the federal grantmaking process in years.

The proposed regulations would require senior appointees to review funding to see if it complies with the law and the president’s priorities. The rules would also give administration officials more freedom to terminate grants that have already been awarded, a process that could jeopardize millions of dollars in ongoing research.

The Office of Management and Budget claims the reforms are needed for greater accountability. It says the Biden administration wasted taxpayer dollars on “woke” programs.

Published Friday, the plan will enter a public comment period before a final rule will be issued.

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Ex-Iowa school district leader who was arrested in Trump’s immigration crackdown gets 2 years in prison

Ian Roberts pleaded guilty in January to falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen and illegally possessing firearms, which together carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

He would serve the sentence before he is likely deported to his native Guyana in South America.

His lawyers had proposed that he be put on probation “to facilitate his removal from the United States.” Prosecutors recommended a sentence of more than three years, saying his likely deportation should not be a factor.

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Louisiana lawmakers pass a new congressional map designed to pick up a Republican seat

The new map is also likely to leave the state with just one of its two majority-Black House districts represented by Democrats.

Approval of the new House map came a month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s current map as an illegal racial gerrymander, weakening the landmark 1965 federal Voting Rights Act. That decision intensified a national redistricting battle fueled by Trump’s efforts to protect the Republicans’ slim House majority in the midterm elections.

Louisiana Republicans had considered drawing a map giving the party a shot at winning all six of the state’s U.S. House seats. But that would have required adding more Black voters to Republican-held districts, potentially backfiring with losses. Some Republicans said a 5-1 map better protects U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson from facing a difficult reelection.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign the new map into law.

Bondi interview concludes after 4 hours

Democratic lawmakers say former attorney general told them she would not answer questions about Trump’s involvement in the release of case files on Jeffrey Epstein.

She also said Todd Blanche, her former deputy who is now the acting attorney general, had overseen the publication of case files.

Bondi refuses to answer lawmakers’ questions about Trump’s involvement in Epstein files release

Bondi was on Capitol Hill for a closed-door interview in which she defended the administration’s actions before House lawmakers who are scrutinizing a process that was delayed and included personal information of potential victims.

Democratic lawmakers said Bondi told them she would not speak about the president in Friday’s interview and, accompanied by a lawyer from the Department of Justice, cited her ability to decline questions because she agreed to appear before the committee voluntarily.

“It’s a sham in there. They are not answering any questions,” said Democratic Rep. Dave Min during a break in the interview.

Trump says only the US and China are capable of removing Iran’s enriched uranium

The president in his online post also turned back to his on-and-off demand that the highly-enriched uranium buried under nuclear sites badly damaged during last year’s U.S. air bombardment of Iran be removed as part of a deal.

“The enriched material, sometimes referred to as ‘Nuclear Dust,’ which is buried deep underground with virtually collapsed mountains, caused by our powerful B2 Bomber attack 11 months ago, sitting on top of it, will be unearthed by the United States (which, it is agreed, is the only Country, along with China, with the mechanical capability of doing so!), in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and DESTROYED,” Trump said.

Trump has offered mixed messages over the course of the three-month conflict on the importance of removing the enriched uranium. Earlier this month, he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity he’d “just feel better if I got” the uranium, but that “it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else.”

Louisiana Republicans are poised to pass new US House districts in wider redistricting fight

The state’s Republican-controlled Senate is poised to pass a plan Friday to help the GOP maintain control of the U.S. House in November, potentially becoming the latest Southern state to eliminate a majority-Black congressional district that elected a Democrat.

The state Senate is set to vote on a redistricting plan that would give Republicans a chance to pick up an additional seat in response to late April’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Louisiana’s congressional district map constituted an illegal racial gerrymander.

An amended map overwhelmingly passed the House on Thursday. Once the final map clears the Legislature, Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign it.

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Hegseth meets with leaders of Vietnam and Singapore at Asian defense conference

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has met with leaders from Vietnam and Singapore to discuss shared security interests, the Pentagon said Friday.

The separate meetings occurred on the sidelines during the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s annual defense and security forum in Singapore.

Hegseth praised Vietnam’s decision to join the Board of Peace and for committing troops and police to the International Stabilization Force in Gaza. Hegseth also applauded the modernization of Vietnam’s military and discussed opportunities to deepen cooperation, including on unmanned naval capabilities.

Hegseth and Singapore’s leaders discussed expanding the U.S. military’s presence in Singapore with rotational deployments from the Navy and Air Force. Meanwhile, Hegseth reaffirmed the American commitment to support advanced training for Singapore’s military in the U.S.

Pam Bondi defends administration’s release of Epstein case files as she testifies before lawmakers

The former attorney general stood behind the Trump administration’s release of the case files on Jeffrey Epstein as she testified Friday before House lawmakers scrutinizing a process that was delayed and included personal information of potential victims.

Bondi, who arrived Friday morning on Capitol Hill for her closed-door interview, was defiant in previous public testimony when she was confronted by lawmakers about the Epstein investigation. In her opening statement, she kept to the same tack.

“The bottom line is: justice and transparency in this matter have been delivered at the direction of President Trump and his administration,” she said, according to a written copy of her opening statement.

The transcribed Bondi interview gave lawmakers a chance to dig for information on the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files and other related matters, including the prison sentence of Epstein’s former girlfriend and confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell.

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Trump meeting with aides to make ‘final determination’ on moving forward with Iran deal

The president says he’s holding a White House Situation Room meeting with his advisers.

Trump confirmed the high-level White House talks Friday, a day after The Associated Press and other news outlets reported that U.S. and Iranian negotiators had come to terms on a tentative agreement.

The deal would extend the fragile ceasefire by 60 days as new talks are held on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

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White House declines comment on judge’s ruling blocking payouts from ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

The White House referred all questions to the Justice Department, which didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys from the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward are seeking a court order halting the fund’s implementation and preventing the Trump administration from disbursing any payouts from it. The federal suit claims there’s no legal basis or accountability behind the fund.

At least two other lawsuits, both filed separately in Washington, also are challenging the fund’s creation.

Rubio meets with Pakistani foreign minister as tentative Iran deal hangs in the balance

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has met with his Pakistani counterpart, Ishaq Dar, as a tentative deal to extend a fragile ceasefire with Iran hangs in the balance.

Neither Rubio nor Dar — whose country has emerged as a main player and mediator in talks to end the conflict — spoke or responded to questions from reporters as they posed for photographs at the State Department on Friday. Dar has been in the United States since earlier this week to attend meetings at the United Nations in New York.

The meeting came just a day after U.S. officials said an agreement in principle on a memorandum of understanding to extend the ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and return to talks on Iran’s nuclear program had been reached. That agreement, though, must still be approved by President Trump and Iran’s top leadership and there was no indication when that might happen.

Judge temporarily blocks payouts from Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ settlement fund

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Trump’s administration from paying any claims through a new $1.776 billion settlement fund for Trump allies who believe they were victims of a weaponized government.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday also barred the government from moving forward with the fund’s creation while litigation is pending to challenge it.

The judge scheduled a June 12 hearing for arguments on whether to extend the order blocking payouts from an “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which the government created to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.

The fund has created a fierce backlash since it was announced last week, with even Republicans pressing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche over the eligibility considerations and the possibility that even violent rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, would be free to seek compensation.

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Pam Bondi interview gets underway on Capitol Hill

The former attorney general is appearing before House lawmakers as they investigate how the government has handled the investigations into Jeffrey Epstein.

Bondi was ousted as attorney general last month, but her in her previous testimony to Congress she has been defiant in the face of lawmakers’ questions about how the Department of Justice handled the release of case files on Epstein. She is also accompanied today by Department of Justice officials — an arrangement Democrats have criticized.

Several survivors of Epstein’s abuse also appeared outside the House office room where the interview is happening behind closed doors. They pressed the committee chair, Republican Rep. James Comer, to closely question Bondi.

“We want justice for the survivors, we do,” Comer told them.

South Carolina Democrats expected to celebrate after failure of Trump-backed redistricting push

Democrats may be in a more celebratory mood than usual as they gather Friday in South Carolina, a state led almost entirely by Republicans.

The party is holding events days after the GOP-led state Senate shot down an effort backed by President Donald Trump to redraw House district lines to help Republicans this fall. That move was aimed at ousting longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state’s lone congressional Democrat and a party powerbroker who’s been in office since 1993.

Friday’s gatherings kick off with the Blue Palmetto Dinner, an annual party fundraiser that typically showcases potential presidential contenders and the party’s national figures. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear will be the headliner.

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Pam Bondi to face closed-door questioning from House lawmakers over Epstein files

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi is testifying before House lawmakers investigating Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse cases, a long-awaited appearance that brings fresh scrutiny of the administration’s botched release of the Epstein case files.

Bondi was defiant in previous public testimony when she was confronted by lawmakers about the Epstein investigation. It’s unclear whether she’ll bring the same approach Friday, now that she is no longer in charge of the Justice Department. The session will be held behind closed doors.

The transcribed interview will give lawmakers a chance to dig for information on the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files and other related matters, including the prison sentence of his former girlfriend and confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell. The Justice Department moved Maxwell to a prison camp in Texas last August.

“I think she absolutely could clear up many missing pieces if she wanted to,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari, an Arizona Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. “Now it’s a question of whether or not she is willing to be transparent.”

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Judge refuses to block Trump order to limit mail voting. There’s no immediate effect on the midterms

A federal judge has declined to halt Trump’s executive order creating a federal voter list and limiting mail voting, clearing the way for potential sweeping changes in how American elections are run shortly before this year’s midterm elections.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in Washington, late Wednesday rejected the request by Democrats and civil rights groups that had argued Trump’s order would likely be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. Nichols agreed with the Republican Trump administration’s contention that it was too early to block the order because it has yet to be implemented.

Nichols’ ruling leaves the door open for further challenges when the Trump administration moves to implement the president’s directive. A separate lawsuit seeking to block the executive order is underway in Boston. No matter how rapidly the administration acts, no voting changes are expected during primary elections, which continue into next month.

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Treasury Secretary Bessent confirms limited steps toward a $250 bill featuring Donald Trump

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that his department has prepared the design for a $250 bill featuring Trump, anticipating the passage of stalled legislation in Congress to put the president on a new denomination of legal tender.

Bessent said at the White House that authorizing the new currency will be up to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, but that “we’ve created the bill” because “we have to be prepared.”

The secretary downplayed the idea that the administration is pushing the matter, despite Trump’s penchant for infusing his name and likeness across the nation’s capital and into the observances of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Yet he also insisted there is nothing inappropriate about Trump’s visage being part of the seminal national celebration.

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Top federal prosecutor in Chicago denies investigation into E. Jean Carroll, disputing media reports

The top federal prosecutor in Chicago denied Thursday evening that his office had opened an investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the longtime advice columnist who has said Trump sexually assaulted her 30 years ago, hours after multiple news organizations reported that the Justice Department was investigating whether she had lied during the course of civil litigation against Trump.

The Associated Press and other news organizations, citing anonymous sources, reported that the federal prosecutors’ office in Chicago had opened an investigation into Carroll.

But Andrew Boutros, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, issued a statement roughly 24 hours after the first report was published saying that his office “has not opened — and has never opened — a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll.”

A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, initially told the AP on Thursday morning that investigators were focused on Carroll but later clarified that the actual focus was on a nonprofit that had helped fund her case.

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US and Iranian negotiators reach tentative deal to extend ceasefire and start new nuclear talks

U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement Thursday to extend the ceasefire in the 3-month-old war by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

Iran did not immediately confirm any deal. Vice President JD Vance on Thursday evening confirmed there was a tentative agreement, but said it was unclear if Trump would approve it.

“It’s hard to say exactly when or if the president’s going to sign,” Vance told reporters.

He added: “We’re going back and forth on a couple of language points.”

The emerging memorandum of understanding came as the fragile ceasefire in the war between the U.S. and Iran appeared to be wavering. The latest flare-up in fighting happened less than a day earlier, when Kuwait intercepted missiles fired from Iran, according to U.S. Central Command.

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— Aamer Madhani, Jon Gambrell, Michelle L. Price and Sam Metz

Cigarette smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, and it’s long been considered the leading cause of preventable death.

The preliminary findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were based on survey responses from more than 24,200 adults. In the survey, CDC officials defined current cigarette smoking as smoking at least 100 cigarettes in a lifetime and now smoking every day or some days.

In the mid-1960s, 42% of U.S. adults were smokers. The rate has been gradually dropping for decades, due to cigarette taxes, tobacco product price hikes, smoking bans, public education campaigns and changes in the social acceptability of lighting up in public.

In 2024, the percentage of current adult smokers fell below 10% for the first time. Last year, it was 9%, according to the new survey.

The use of electronic cigarettes has been inching up among adults, but has held about steady in 2025, at about 7%.

“The continued decline in smoking is a monumental public health achievement that has saved millions of lives and billions in healthcare costs,” said Yolonda Richardson, president and chief executive of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy and research organization.

Richardson said current smoking-prevention efforts have been set back by cuts President Donald Trump's administration made that eliminated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office on Smoking and Health and its “Tips from Former Smokers” advertising campaign.

She cited estimates that the “Tips” campaign alone helped more than 1 million Americans quit smoking and saved over $7.3 billion in healthcare costs.

“This critical work must be restored and sustained to continue reducing smoking-related disease, death and healthcare costs nationwide,” Richardson said.

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

Dallas Fire-Rescue Chief Justin Ball said the first group of four firefighters arrived within two minutes of the call reporting the gas leak on Thursday.

“Right before they were going to enter and evacuate, it exploded,” Ball said.

Firefighters had been on scene for about 10 minutes, conducting necessary safety protocols that include blocking off the street, finding the leak, donning protective gear and setting up a water supply, he said, describing their actions as “heroics.”

“No time was wasted,” Ball insisted. “That takes time to put all the safety protocols in place. I would be criticizing them if they had not done that."

The explosion shook nearby homes and the resulting inferno razed the two-story complex. A child and two other people were killed and at least five people were injured and sent to hospitals. No firefighters were injured, Ball said.

The building's 22 units were occupied by 19 families. Ball said authorities searched the charred wreckage late into Thursday night and early Friday morning with drones, cadaver dogs and specialized urban rescue teams, and did not expect to find any more victims.

“There is nobody unaccounted for or we’d still be searching,” Ball said. “We've had no one come to us and say, ‘Our family member is missing.’”

Several blocks of streets around the explosion site were still closed off by police cars and police tape Friday. The smell of smoke lingered over the area as law enforcement officials and workers in bright yellow vests circled the rubble of what was once the apartment building.

The cause of the gas leak before the explosion is still unknown.

The National Transportation Safety Board said a team of eight investigators arrived Friday. The agency investigates gas pipeline accidents, and said initial reports indicated a contractor had damaged an underground gas pipeline.

Atmos Energy, a natural gas provider in the area, said service to the neighborhood remained shut off, and company officials were working with investigators on-site.

An attorney for the apartment owner said the building was being sold to a buyer who planned to build a new housing unit. He said an engineering firm hired by that company struck the gas line while doing soil testing.

“The owner is shocked by this outcome and likewise mourns this outcome,” attorney Geoff Henley said.

Phone and email messages left with an engineering company that the complex’s owner said was doing soil testing were not immediately returned.

Sherry Woods, who lives in an apartment across an alleyway from the fire site, said Friday she was sitting outside her front door when she and her boyfriend smelled what they believed to be gas.

Moments later, the explosion nearly knocked her down.

“All you heard was ‘boom.’ I shook like something was hitting me. It was scary to hear something like that. I felt the building shake,” Woods said.

Trish Thompson surveyed the site from across a grassy field Friday morning and could see the gap on the block where the apartment complex stood just 24-hours earlier.

Thompson, who lives nearby, described hearing a “loud rumble, something more like a train to me” and seeing smoke and fire.

“Pray for them,” Thompson said.

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Associated Press journalist Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed.

The drone was tracked overnight by radar in Romanian airspace, crashed onto the roof of the building in the Danube port city of Galati and sparked a fire, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. The two injuries were minor and several people were evacuated.

It was the latest in a series of drones — from both Russia and Ukraine — to hit a NATO member since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The incidents have left the 32-member military alliance on edge. Friday's incursion drew strong condemnation across Europe, with leaders calling Russia's actions reckless and irresponsible.

Romania scrambled two F-16 fighter jets and a helicopter, and alerted residents of the affected areas, but the aircraft didn’t engage the drone in the city, which is located near the borders of Ukraine and Moldova.

Romania asked NATO to speed up the transfer of anti-drone capabilities to its military, the Foreign Ministry said, calling the incursion a serious violation of international law.

Asked about the drone during a state visit to Astana, Kazakhstan, Russian President Vladimir Putin said its origin is yet to be determined, telling reporters that “no one can say what origin a particular aircraft has until it has been examined.” He urged Romania to turn the drone over to Russia for it to conduct “an objective investigation.”

But Romanian President Nicusor Dan identified the drone as Russian.

“We had a Russian drone, Geran-2, leaving Russia. We know the trajectory, we know where it went through Ukraine, we know where it entered Romania, part of a swarm of 43 Russian drones, of which only one reached Romanian territory,” a statement from Dan said.

He said later that investigators determined it was probably carrying at least 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of explosives.

Gen. Gheorghe Maxim, interim commander of the Romanian armed forces' joint staff, told a news conference that the drone in Galati wasn't “an attack from Russia against Romania,” but he added that “Romanians should understand that Russia is a threat to the security of the countries in the area.”

In Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had spoken to Dan, praising the country's “principled, prompt, and strong” response. In a social media post, he said the countries’ militaries were in contact and that "we will remain in constant communication with Romania and continue working together to protect lives from all potential Russian threats.”

Earlier drones in Romania

Romania has confirmed drone fragments landed on its territory on multiple occasions since the war began, including in Galati last month, but no one was hurt in any of those incidents, with debris falling in remote areas.

Dan convened Romania’s top defense body Friday to discuss what he called “the worst incident to hit the national territory” since the war began.

After the Supreme Council of National Defense met in Bucharest, Dan said the Russian consul in the Black Sea port of Constanta has been declared persona non grata and that the consulate will be closed. Foreign Minister Oana Toiu summoned Russian Ambassador Vladimir Lipaev and told him the consul had 72 hours to leave Romania.

Territorial violations have become so common in Romania in recent years that lawmakers adopted legislation last year allowing the army to shoot down drones entering its airspace as a last resort. But the country has remained cautious in downing errant drones, which can pose risks to populated areas.

Russia has been using long-range missiles and drones to damage Ukraine’s power grid and hammer cities, and Ukraine has braced for further heavy bombardments. Kyiv also has sent long-range drones deep into Russia to attack oil refineries, military bases and and other infrastructure.

Friday's incident adds to recent drone-related incursions in Europe. Ukrainian drones have hit the chimney of a power plant in Estonia and empty fuel tanks in Latvia, and also were shot down by Romanian fighter jets stationed in Lithuania. Ukrainian officials apologized and said the drones were aimed at military targets in Russia, but veered off course by Russian electronic interference.

Poland, Croatia, Romania and non-NATO member Moldova all have reported airspace violations and found drone fragments on their territory since the war began. The airspace violations have raised questions about the state of air defenses on NATO’s eastern flank.

A senior U.S. military official recently told reporters the number of “hybrid activities” — drone incursions, hacking attacks and other acts short of military force in Europe that can be attributed to Russia — have increased in recent years and are part of a campaign to achieve strategic objectives without actually going to war.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk candidly about the ongoing situation, said it is believed that there's an opportunity for the U.S. and other NATO countries to be more aggressive in countering these actions, particularly since there is a belief that Russia won't see the responses as escalatory.

Allies' condemnation

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said he had spoken to Dan and expressed “absolute solidarity” with its ally.

"NATO stands ready to defend every inch of Allied territory. We will continue to enhance our readiness to deter and defend against any threat, including from drones,” he said in a post on X.

A senior NATO military official said the alliance detected and tracked the Russian drone, but it entered Romanian airspace only minutes before striking the apartment building in Galați. It was traveling at nearly 200 kilometers per hour (nearly 124 mph) over a populated area less than 15 kilometers (less than 10 miles) from the border, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military information.

NATO is assessing what more can be done to optimize Romania's and NATO’s network of sensors and shooters to safely neutralize such threats, the official added.

NATO allies spoke informally about the incursion, but no official meeting was scheduled Friday. Romania can request formal NATO consultations if it believes its territory or security is under threat.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Russia "has crossed yet another line,” and that the European Union will draft a 21st set of sanctions against Moscow.

Putin also was asked in Kazakhstan about comments that NATO is capable of destroying Russian military assets in Moscow's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad. He responded that Russia “has every means to raze to the ground anyone who tries to do so.”

He said nations posing a direct military threat to Russia “are legitimate targets,” responding to an earlier claim by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service that Ukraine sent troops to Latvia to launch drones at Russia. Officials in Latvia and other Baltic nations rejected Moscow’s claims.

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said the risk of such “serious incidents” was raised by “ Putin’s increasing nervousness, driven by military setbacks.”

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Putin’s National Security Council, told European leaders to “just shut up” about the drone.

Medvedev, known for his provocative and inflammatory statements, said in an expletive-filed post on his messaging channel MAX that the leaders were “scoundrels” and “imbeciles” and that their countries were part of the “warring nations” in the conflict.

“European drones, their spare parts, and other weapons, not to mention intelligence data, are used daily in attacks on our country,” he wrote. “Their operations result in damage to residential buildings, killing civilians.”

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This story was corrected to delete Galati being east of the borders of Ukraine and Moldova. The city is west of them.

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McGrath reported from Leamington Spa, England. Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Emma Burrows in London contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

The three-time champion at Roland Garros lost 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 7-5 as temperatures again reached 33 degrees C (91 F). It was just the second time Djokovic has lost from two sets up, the other also coming in Paris in 2010.

The 39-year-old Djokovic looked exhausted in the fifth set but soldiered on.

“An incredible match to be part of. Obviously, tough one for me to lose being two sets to love up, but huge credit to Joao for really deserving to win the match,” Djokovic said. “I was barely standing on my legs toward the end of the match."

His exit leaves the men’s draw even more open following Jannik Sinner’s second-round exit on Thursday.

Djokovic mixed trademark defense with stunning winners and delicate drop shots to win the first two sets. But the 19-year-old Fonseca was resilient and tied the match on sets. In the final game, Djokovic had a break point for 6-6 but Fonseca served out with three consecutive aces and became the first teenager to beat Djokovic at a Grand Slam tournament.

“I just enjoyed being on court and what a pleasure it was. It’s my first stepping on court against him,” Fonseca said. “I was just trying to hit the ball as fast I could. Djokovic don’t miss, we still think he’s 20. At the end of the match I think he was more fit than me, that’s crazy.”

About his flurry of aces, he joked: “I felt like (big server) John Isner. I never did this before.”

Then he wished his mother in the crowd happy birthday and thanked all the Brazilians in the crowd.

Djokovic came to Roland Garros with doubts. After he lost the Australian Open final to Carlos Alcaraz, a shoulder injury limited his clay-court buildup to one competitive match. He labored for at least three hours in each of his previous two rounds but would have thought his chances of adding to his 2016, 2021 and 2023 French Open titles improved after Sinner's exit and with Alcaraz absent.

His last major title was the 2024 U.S. Open.

“Taking everything in consideration and all the circumstances, I think the level was really good,” Djokovic said. “Of course, right now, I'm being disappointed right off the court, losing, being close to winning.”

The heat that stressed Sinner also got to Djokovic, who applied ice packs on both sides of his face during changeovers. Still, he looked to be in command after taking the first two sets.

But Fonseca, who kept pushing Djokovic back with his big forehand, broke early in the third set and held on to it.

In the fifth set, Djokovic frantically tried to find ways to recover some energy against an opponent 20 years younger but he couldn't hide his fatigue: He hunched over the advertising boards, his forearms dangling; slumped back in his chair with a towel on his head; grabbed his head with his hands.

He was gracious in defeat.

“I told him (after the match) that he deserved to win and he should be proud of himself. We’ve all seen today why there is hype around him," Djokovic said. “Without a doubt he was a better player in important moments. Found incredible shots.”

Djokovic said he was unsure if he would play at the French Open next year, although he said the same after his semifinal defeat to Sinner last year.

Kostyuk keeps going

Still unbeaten on clay this season, Marta Kostyuk reached the fourth round for the second time and set up a big match against four-time champion Iga Swiatek in the women's draw.

The 15th-ranked Ukrainian extended her winning streak on clay to 15 matches by 6-4, 6-3 over Viktorija Golubic on yet another hot day in Paris. Ahead of Roland Garros, she won in Madrid — the biggest title of her career — after she claimed another clay-court title in Rouen, France.

She lost to Swiatek in the fourth round in 2021. A rematch is coming up next after Swiatek defeated fellow Polish player Magda Linette 6-4, 6-4.

“Marta is having a great season,” said Swiatek, who has not won a title on clay since the 2024 French Open. “She always had a game to play well. Did some semifinals of big tournaments before. Now she won Madrid. So good for her.”

Swiatek, however, has won in straight sets all three times against Kostyuk and boasts a 43-3 record at Roland Garros.

“I would love to be the one who is a favorite in this match, but I still don’t think it’s the case,” Kostyuk said. “Even though I have this really long streak.”

Seventh-seeded Elina Svitolina was another Ukrainian woman to advance. She beat Tamara Korpatsch 6-2, 6-3.

Double bagel

Also advancing was 36-year-old Sorana Cirstea, who routed Solana Sierra and became the oldest player in the Open Era to claim a 6-0 6-0 win in a Grand Slam tournament. She next faces Wang Xiyu of China, who beat Ukrainian Yuliia Starodubtseva 6-3, 7-5. The Chinese qualifier has still not dropped a set.

Eighth-seeded Mirra Andreeva progressed with a 6-4, 6-2 win against Czech opponent Marie Bouzkova. Andreeva leads the women’s tour with 32 victories this season. Her fourth-round match pits her against Jill Teichmann, who beat 10th-seeded Karolina Muchova 6-1, 7-5.

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

Cristian Roldan tucked a phone into his pocket during a Seattle Sounders team meeting.

“I just wanted it to feel and vibrate,” he said.

American players dispersed across North America and Europe were told notification of coach Mauricio Pochettino’s World Cup picks would arrive via WhatsApp at 1 p.m. EDT on May 22.

Chris Brady, hoping to earn the No. 3 goalkeeper spot, was in the Central time zone and waited nervously with Chicago Fire teammates.

“When 12 struck, nothing came. ... What does that mean?” he remembered thinking. “But, yeah, eventually got the message.”

Gathered now at the new U.S. National Soccer Training Center and a nearby hotel in Trilith ahead of their June 12 World Cup opener against Paraguay, players relaxed after making the cut for their sport's pinnacle event.

“It was just sheer elation,” 27-year-old defender Mark McKenzie said. “Four years of hard work, sacrifice. It was obviously heartbreaking not making '22 but turned it directly into just motivation to make sure the next time around my name would hopefully be on that roster.”

In the rush to get to the U.S., McKenzie left his film camera back in France, where he plays for Toulouse.

Robinson, still the first-choice left back at age 28 after starting four years ago, hadn't allowed himself to think too far ahead during a season in which a difficult recovery from May 2025 knee surgery delayed his first Premier League start this season for Fulham until mid-December.

He was on the 13th hole of Pyford Lakes in Woking when his phone buzzed.

“I was playing bad, played bad after but I was a lot happier,” he said. “It was a massive relief just because the year I’ve had and the ups and downs personally.”

Reyna, a son of former U.S. captain Claudio Reyna, was notoriously almost sent home from the 2022 tournament by then-coach Gregg Berhalter for lack of hustle during training. His status was uncertain because of an impressive club season with German club Borussia Moenchengladbach, which didn't start him after Dec. 19.

He was outside Barvida in Norwalk, Connecticut, alongside wife Chloe and Melo, his 1-year-old Cavapoo, when Pochettino's video message flashed.

“I was sitting in the car," the 23-year-old midfielder recalled. “We didn’t want to go home because we were both a little bit nervous.”

Roldan, a member of the 2022 roster who didn't get into a match in Qatar, received an emotional hug from his brother Alex, a Sounders teammate. Cristian didn't play for the U.S. between July 2023 and his first call-up under Pochettino last September.

“There was a lot of doubt in my mind, but there was a glimmer of hope,” he said. “When your name isn’t called each and every camp and you get further into the cycle, you feel like your chances are dwindling down. So, absolutely, I started to doubt myself a little bit. And then it made me play a little more free.”

Midfielder Sebastian Berhalter, a son of the former coach, didn't make his national team debut until last June. After getting the WhatsApp video, Sebastian called his dad — now coaching the Chicago Fire — and then his mom and his sisters.

“It was barely a conversation. My mom started crying right away, and then my sister started crying, and I started crying," Sebastian said. “I was just telling them I love them, and thank you so much for all the sacrifices over the years, especially my mom. Yeah, I was crying for probably 45 seconds.”

Auston Trusty was in a Glasgow hotel with Celtic teammates ahead of the next day’s Scottish Cup final against Dunfermline and fellow defender Alex Freeman was in an apartment in Spain with his father, Super Bowl champion Antonio Freeman.

“I was definitely checking my phone like every minute,” Alex Freeman said. “We were kind of just waiting on the couch. When we got the call, it was kind of a good moment with family bonding.”

Alejandro Zendejas, a 28-year-old forward, was picked after not playing for the U.S. since September. He learned of his selection while in San Antonio with his family and girlfriend. His father, Alfredo, burst into tears.

“When he hugged me and stuff, I could feel shaking in his voice,” Zendejas said. “He started tearing up and that makes me tear up.”

Zendejas was among the players on the roster bubble.

“We joked around about his number being number 26,” Roldan said of Zendejas. “Him and myself, we were probably one of the later guys on the roster and we kind of share that kind of sentiment together.”

Richards arrives

Defender Chris Richards arrived after going to Leipzig, Germany, with Crystal Palace for the UEFA Conference League final Wednesday, won by the Eagles over Rayo Vallecano.

He traveled from London to New York on Thursday, then to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Friday morning. Richards, who hasn't played since tearing two ankle ligaments on May 17, went straight to the training center for medical evaluation and is to join practice on Saturday.

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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

Uribe is appealing the suspension so he will be available Friday night when the Brewers open a three-game series at Houston.

The suspension comes after Uribe's behavior Tuesday night following an inning-ending strikeout in a 6-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

Uribe retired Alec Burleson on a called third strike with two outs and runners on first and second in the eighth, the only inning he pitched. Uribe then made three WWE-style crotch chops while facing the Cardinals dugout.

The Cardinals challenged the call, which was close, but narrowly confirmed to be at the bottom of the strike zone.

Brewers manager Pat Murphy said after the game that he was embarrassed by Uribe’s antics and that it was unacceptable.

Uribe apologized through an interpreter Tuesday.

“Everyone here knows me and knows who I am, and knows I have a bit of a history of being emotional out there,” Uribe said. “I think first I owe an apology to the Brewers. I owe an apology to my teammates, to my manager, all the bosses of the team. I understand that’s unacceptable, to go out there and react in a way like that.”

Uribe was suspended for six games and fined following a benches-clearing brawl against the Tampa Bay Rays in April 2024.

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

Three-time champion Novak Djokovic was the most experienced contender left in the field, chasing a record 25th major title. But the 39-year-old Serb will have to wait until Wimbledon after losing a five-set thriller to 19-year-old Brazilian Joao Fonseca on Friday.

The result may not have been so surprising because Djokovic came into the tournament with questions over his form after losing to a Croatian qualifier at the Italian Open, his only clay-court warmup event after two months out with a right shoulder injury.

Here is a look at some of the favorites still in contention for the title:

Alexander Zverev

He will likely think this is best chance of winning his first major title. The 2024 runner-up to Alcaraz has also advanced to three semifinals and another quarterfinal in Paris. The 29-year-old German is in excellent form after reaching the final in Madrid and the semifinals in Monte Carlo and Munich. The second-seeded Zverev has yet to drop a set and takes on Frenchman Quentin Halys during the evening session Friday.

Felix Auger-Aliassime

At No. 4, the Canadian is the highest seed left in the top half of the draw and will take on Brandon Nakashima in the third round. Auger-Aliassime was two points away from defeat in the first round before rallying past Daniel Altmaier in five sets. He then got past Roman Andres Burruchaga in four sets. Auger-Aliassime’s best result at Roland Garros was the fourth round in 2022 and 2024.

Rafael Jodar

He is the latest tennis sensation from Spain. The 19-year-old Jodar is into the fourth round at a major for the first time after his five-set win over Alex Michelsen. Jodar claimed his first ATP title in Marrakech last month then made it to the semifinals in Barcelona and the quarterfinals in Madrid and Rome. His tour-level record on clay is 18-3. By comparison, 14-time Roland Garros champion Rafael Nadal and Alcaraz both went 13-7 through their first 20 tour-level matches on clay.

Moise Kouame

Can the French teenager create a major surprise and emulate Yannick Noah, the last Frenchman to win at Roland Garros in 1983? Kouame reached the third round after a five-set, five-hour thriller that delighted the French crowd. The No. 318-ranked player next faces Chilean Alejandro Tabilo. Kouame beat Marin Cilic in straight sets in the first round, becoming the first man born in 2008 or later to win a Grand Slam match.

Casper Ruud

Ruud lost the 2022 final to Nadal and the 2023 final to Djokovic. The Norwegian has struggled in the Paris heat this week and needed five sets to prevail in the first round. Ruud faces Tommy Paul of the United States in the third round.

Joao Fonseca

He has to be added to the list after a brilliant comeback win against arguably the best men’s player of all time. Fonseca became the first teenager to defeat the Serbian at a Grand Slam event. He is into the fourth round at a major for the first time.

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

“The Big 12 wants rules and enforcements, and we want to be a leader in that area,” commissioner Brett Yormark said Friday after the league wrapped up four days of annual meetings. “I think signing the participation agreement certainly is indicative of that."

The agreement requires schools to waive their right to file lawsuits against the enforcement agency and gives it wide latitude to sanction programs for violating rules that outline how players can be paid after the House settlement last year.

But all 68 Power Four schools must sign the 11-page document for it to become valid. All schools had initially been asked to review and sign the document by last December.

“I can’t speak for the other conferences. I mean, obviously they all say they want rules and enforcement, but they haven’t signed the participation agreement,” Yormark said.

Richard Linton, president of Kansas State, said the Big 12 board of directors — composed of the presidents and chancellors from the league's 16 schools — unanimously agreed to sign the document.

Yormark said the league expected to have all the signatures by early next week.

The document outlines rules that have been established since the House settlement was approved last summer — for instance, about the salary cap and the CSC’s role in analyzing third-party name, image, likeness deals through its NIL Go platform.

Bryan Seeley, the CEO of the CSC, addressed Big 12 members and league officials this week during their meetings in North Texas.

The CSC says it has cleared more than 26,000 NIL deals worth some $242.3 million through May 1 since its launch.

Yormark said he was on a call earlier Friday with the CSC and other conference commissioners.

“Like any startup, and the CSC is a startup, not even 12 months old, you have to think about what’s working and what’s not and what are the necessary adjustments both short-term and long-term that we should be considering,” Yormark said. “And we’re going to dive into that a little bit more in the coming weeks to determine what that might look like. ... But I’m bullish on the direction of the CSC.”

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U.S. administration officials said on Thursday that the U.S. was planning to send Americans who are exposed to Ebola while abroad to a new facility in Kenya instead of flying them home. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to share the administration’s plans. They said the facility would be at Laikipia Air Base and would be operational with 50 quarantine beds by Friday.

The Kenyan government said it was in discussions with the U.S. on support for Ebola preparedness, but declined to address whether the country would establish a treatment facility for Americans. The U.S. government intends to commit $13.5 million toward Kenya’s Ebola preparedness efforts, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

The High Court in Nairobi on Friday put a stop to any deal on the Ebola facility until petitions against it are heard on Tuesday.

An organization formed to defend Kenya’s Constitution, Katiba Institute, and the Kenya Law Society separately challenged any presence of Ebola-related facilities. The Kenya Law Society asked the court to nullify any agreements signed between the U.S. and Kenya on the project, citing public health risks and a lack of public participation.

It also said that Kenya lacks “the high-containment infrastructure required to safely manage such a facility, exposing the public to serious health risks.”

A Kenyan doctors' union on Thursday issued a 48-hour strike notice should the country proceed with the deal. It said the U.S. was clear that they would not allow Ebola on their soil and that Kenya should not become a “dumping ground.”

“As the vanguard of Kenya’s healthcare system, we are utterly disgusted by the government’s apparent willingness to trade national biosecurity and the lives of its citizens for foreign aid,” the union’s chairperson, Davji Atellah, said in a statement.

Ordinary Kenyans have been angered by the plan.

“Why do they want to get infected people and bring them to Kenya? Kenya is not a dumping area for such sick people," laborer Cedric Akweyu said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Student Wycliff Otieno also expressed concern. “It is like the government has been given a lot of money by the U.S. So, it is like they are selling us,” he said.

In northeastern Congo, health workers with scant supplies have been struggling to contain an outbreak of the Bundibugyo virus, a kind of Ebola that has no approved treatment or vaccine.

The Congolese government has confirmed more than 1,000 suspected cases, with at least 220 deaths, since it declared an outbreak on May 15. But the virus had been spreading undetected for weeks and the WHO suspects it is much larger than what has been reported.

The virus also has reached neighboring Uganda, which has confirmed seven cases and one death.

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Associated Press journalist Jackson Njehia in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed.

The Leeds midfielder was marrying longtime girlfriend Milana D’Ambra, a daughter of Saint Joseph’s men’s soccer coach Don D’Ambra.

Aaronson, also a member of the 2022 U.S. World Cup squad, left camp after Thursday’s session and was due back in time for training Saturday.

Unable to attend the wedding himself, fellow midfielder Gio Reyna was being represented by wife Chloe.

“We don’t know if it’s a no-phones wedding. We’re trying to get clarity on that," said Cristian Roldan, another U.S. midfielder. “Gio's wife will be FaceTiming in and we’ll all be able to watch kind of like a live stream if it is a phone wedding.”

Aaronson, 25, is part of a well-known U.S. soccer family from Medford, New Jersey. His brother Paxten is with Major League Soccer's Colorado Rapids and sister Jaden played for Villanova as a freshman last fall. Their father, Rusty, is sporting director of Real Futbol Academy in Medford.

American goalkeeper Chris Brady said Aaronson was likely playing golf Friday afternoon ahead of the ceremony.

“Good luck. Don't (mess) it up,” Brady said teammates told Aaronson before he left camp. “Say I do.”

Timing for the wedding was tricky.

Players at the World Cup are supposed to get 21 days off before reporting to Premier League clubs ahead of season openers from Aug. 21-23. The U.S. finale could be as early as June 25 if the Americans are eliminated in the group stage or as late as July 19 in the unlikely event they reach the final for the first time.

The U.S. team allowed star Christian Pulisic to skip training to attend his Hershey High School prom on May 27, 2016, at the Hershey Hotel in Pennsylvania, then return for the following day’s Copa America match against Bolivia in Kansas City, Kansas.

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AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

It’s the first vehicle my dad learned to drive, as a young boy helping with farm chores during the day and adventuring with friends at night. At the time, the 1956 International Harvester S-130 had no sentimental value. Its worth was tied to its usefulness.

Or as my dad explains, “it was just a truck.”

Pickups were made for work. Until the first purpose-built ones rolled off American assembly lines in the early 20th century, people DIY-ed their own. They became icons of a rural ideal, potent enough to inspire and populate many a country song.

Today, they are mainstays on American roadways. While they’re still used to haul things, some are more luxury than workhorse; cool enough to be lifted or lowered and comfortable enough for Sunday drives.

As for the pickup that once powered the now-defunct Meyer family farm, it will soon have just one job: to look pretty.

It’s an unexpected turnabout. If it had been planned, my dad might have picked an easier truck to restore. International’s S series from the 1950s had a blink-and-you-miss-it production life. Practically speaking, that means sourcing replacement parts is a challenge — even for my brother Andy, who is good at finding things that are hard to find.

He’s the one who spotted the truck for sale. And though it was worse for wear, he couldn’t resist hauling it back home. In the years since, he and my dad have embarked on a replacement-parts treasure hunt that's unearthed my dad’s childhood memories along the way. Stories of my dad behind the wheel as a child taking the neighbor boys on late-night hunting trips, the precarious ways he and his siblings accomplished their farm chores and the uncle whose prom date rode shotgun.

Their odyssey through online auctions and Illinois backroads has taken on a life of its own. What started with restoring one 1956 International Harvester has turned into owning five 1956 International Harvesters in various states of repair. Only one is too far gone to fix up.

I asked my dad why he keeps hauling them home. “I’m possessed,” he joked dryly.

But if I’m honest, I already knew the answer. There’s joy in the journey. So why not?

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Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here. For more stories on the anniversary, click here.

Christian Castro, of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, was taken into custody 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.

Hennepin County, Minnesota prosecutors said the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension located Castro, 52, in Texas and worked with the Texas Rangers and agents from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General to arrest him.

The Office of Inspector General, however, denied any involvement.

In a statement, the office said it “was not involved in the planning, execution, or conduct" of Castro’s arrest and that “any characterization that DHS OIG agents participated in or led the arrest operation is inaccurate.”

“DHS OIG did not serve as an arresting agency in this matter,” the statement said.

A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for the Hennepin County Attorney's office. Messages seeking comment were also left with ICE and the Texas Rangers.

Online court records do not list an attorney for Castro and it wasn't immediately clear if he has one.

In a statement, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty heralded the arrest as “a critical step forward in our prosecution of Mr. Castro.”

Castro is the second federal agent to be charged over their conduct during the Minnesota crackdown, which was known as Operation Metro Surge. He is one of two agents that ICE Director Todd Lyons said lied about the circumstances of the incident.

According to prosecutors, Castro fired through a home’s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., Moriarty said.

Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether officers lied about what happened.

In a statement after the charges were announced, ICE said the U.S. attorney’s office was investigating statements made by officers, who could face disciplinary action including being fired and prosecuted. ICE called the Hennepin County attorney’s action “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.” DHS's Inspector General's Office, which Moriarty credited with assisting in the arrest, is separate from ICE and is meant to serve as a watchdog for DHS agencies, including ICE.

Minneapolis last month released video showing the moments before Sosa-Celis’s shooting, captured from a distance by a city-owned security camera.

The video appears to show a person standing with a snow shovel outside the house, near the street, then retreating toward the house and tossing the shovel into the yard. This happens as a person being chased by another person runs up from the street, falls on the sidewalk, gets up, and keeps heading toward the house.

The three appear to scuffle near the front steps for about 10 seconds. The exact moment when Sosa-Celis is shot isn’t clear. A car with flashing lights pulls up, and another person walks up.

The Trump administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area as part of President Donald Trump’s national deportation campaign and considered Operation Metro Surge a success.

But tensions mounted during the weekslong campaign, and the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers sparked mass unrest and raised questions about officers’ conduct.

Minnesota leaders and the Trump administration have clashed over who has the authority to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct.

Moriarty’s office last month charged immigration agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car on a highway. He turned himself in last week and his lawyer disputes the charges.

The county is also investigating Good’s and Pretti’s killings and sued the Trump administration in March to gain access to evidence in those cases and the Sosa-Celis shooting.

The WHO said Friday authorities have reported 125 confirmed cases in Congo, including 17 confirmed deaths. Additionally, there are 906 suspected cases and 223 suspected deaths.

Neighboring Uganda has confirmed nine cases and one death, the Ugandan ministry of health said Friday.

“To come here is to really show to the community that they’re not alone," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at the airport in Kinshasa late Thursday.

“Pushing orders from my comfortable office in Geneva is easy, but I’m asking my colleagues to work with the community and I am asking communities to protect themselves,” he added.

The outbreak “can be stopped,” he said, but is “very complex.”

Challenges like the high number of people displaced by armed conflict in the region and food insecurity are complicating efforts, Tedros said. Aid supplies reached the heart of the outbreak this week but medical personnel continue to struggle with a lack of equipment, a distrustful population and armed groups in the volatile region.

Containment has been particularly difficult because the disease likely spread for weeks before it was first identified in mid-May.

Outbreak spreading faster than response

The outbreak continues to spread faster than the response, despite health facilities becoming more organized and more equipment arriving.

The Bundibugyo virus, the current kind of Ebola, has no approved treatment or vaccine.

Anaïs Legand, a researcher in the WHO emergencies program, cited a patient discharged Wednesday as a “positive development” since it is the only documented recovery of a confirmed Ebola patient during the current outbreak.

Legand said at a U.N. briefing in Geneva Friday that five other infected people were also likely to recover.

The average fatality rate of Bundibugyo virus is around 30 to 50%, she said.

Medical aid donated by the European Union arrived in Ituri, the heart of Congo’s Ebola outbreak, on Thursday, with more shipments expected over the next eight days. The U.S. announced $80 million in additional aid on the same day, bringing its total commitment to more than $112 million.

At Rwampara Hospital, where a treatment center has been established, the response looks far more organized than in previous days, with more staff deployed, stronger prevention measures and teams in protective gear visible across units — though patients continue to arrive around the clock, according to an Associated Press reporter in Bunia, the provincial capital.

The same progress was noted at Bunia General Hospital, where new medical kits, support personnel and emergency funding appear to be reinvigorating operations.

David Munkley, the eastern Congo director of World Vision, said more equipment and supplies are still needed.

“We know what is required in terms of personal protective equipment, in terms of supporting communities and ensuring proper sanitation hygiene practices,” Munkley told the AP. “So the moment of truth is, are we going to fund it or not?”

Congo’s Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba told reporters Thursday night they are exploring more drugs “that can help save even more lives, because ... this disease initially presents just like any other infectious disease we’re familiar with: dizziness, headache, fever, vomiting and diarrhea.”

The continent's top public health body will “ensure that we have a vaccine and a treatment for Bundibugyo" by the end of the year, Africa CDC chief Jean Kaseya said Thursday.

Distrust, travel bans could complicate response

Dangers faced by health workers have been heightened by anger among residents over the stringent medical protocols for handling the victims' bodies, which clash with local burial rites. Residents have launched at least three attacks against health centers.

Attacks in Ituri by the Allied Democratic Force, a rebel group allied with the Islamic State group, and a coalition of ethnic militias have also hindered the response.

The illness also has been reported in the Congolese provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, south of Ituri, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls many key cities, including Goma and Bukavu. The rebels have reported two cases.

After Uganda closed its border with Congo, the WHO chief said Thursday he discourages countries from imposing travel bans. “There are ways to manage workers and to manage cases without having a strong, restricted travel ban,” Tedros said.

The Trump administration last week announced a temporary ban on the entry of people without U.S. passports who have visited Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the past 21 days. A Kenyan court Friday suspended a U.S. plan to house Ebola-exposed Americans at a facility in Kenya rather than flying them home, following backlash from medical workers and activists.

More than 230 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff are working on the Ebola response, including screeners at four U.S. airports and personnel deployed to Congo and Uganda, the agency said Friday.

But current and former staffers say many have unaddressed safety concerns, particularly over whether the Trump administration would repatriate infected personnel.

“The U.S. government refusing to repatriate first responders who may contract Ebola would be an abandonment of our government’s duty,” said the National Public Health Coalition, a group of current and former CDC workers.

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Kabumba reported from Bunia, Congo, and Banchereau from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Monika Pronczuk in Dakar and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

The decision, announced Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security, marked a rare reprieve for people protected by temporary measures which have been harshly criticized by Republicans. The extension comes amid ongoing fighting in southern Lebanon between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters.

The decision was automatic, meaning that the administration missed the deadline by which they were supposed to decide on whether to extend the measure called Temporary Protected Status for Lebanese people living in the U.S. who are covered by the program. By statute, the status automatically extends for six months if the department misses the deadline.

It was an unusual outcome for an administration that has cancelled the protections that had covered people from 13 countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua and Syria from deportation.

TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife, giving people authorization to work in increments of up to 18 months. More than 1 million immigrants from 17 countries were protected by TPS at the beginning of the Trump administration, after the Biden administration greatly expanded its use.

The program has been at the center of a controversy.

Republicans and critics of TPS argue that the program and its protections deviate from their original temporary intent, taking on a quasi-permanent character when extended. Its defenders assert that it is a fundamental humanitarian program that prevents vulnerable individuals from being forced to return to dangerous conditions.

The DHS notice said that former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and current Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who has led the department for the past two months, “were unable to make an informed determination on Lebanon’s TPS designation.”

The extension allows existing beneficiaries to keep their protections through Nov. 27, 2026, “if they still meet the eligibility requirements for TPS,” according to the notice. The work permits that were already issued for Lebanese TPS holders will be valid until the same day.

This is the second time the Trump administration has automatically extended a TPS designation. The first happened nearly a year ago with South Sudan, but the protections were terminated in November 2025, after the six-month extension period.

There are dozens of lawsuits challenging the termination of TPS at federal courts in different states. The Supreme Court is set to make a decision on TPS that protected Haitians and Syrians during the summer, and the result is expected to have an impact on all the other cases.

Advocates welcomed the extension.

“Extending Temporary Protected Status means Lebanese nationals in the United States will not be forced back into dangerous conditions but allowed to stay and continue supporting their families and contributing to their local communities,” said Kelly Razzouk, vice president of policy and advocacy at the International Rescue Committee.

José Palma, national coordinator of the National TPS Alliance—an advocacy group that has fought in federal courts against the cancellation of TPS for several countries—welcomed the extension of protections for the Lebanese.

“But we need to find a permanent solution for all TPS beneficiaries,” he warned.

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Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

This comes as Virginia saw weeks of warm weather followed by freezing cold temperatures that negatively impacted various crops in the commonwealth. Some growers are even anticipating a 100% loss.

“As a result of the unseasonable cold impacting farms across Virginia, Virginia farmers are facing catastrophic crop losses through no fault of their own and are in desperate need of a federal disaster declaration to receive immediate assistance. While we continue to identify state resources at our disposal to assist our farmers and growers, I’ve called on USDA to declare a Secretarial Disaster Designation to make sure farmers receive the assistance and support they need to recover and keep their operations viable until the next crop year. We look forward to working with our federal partners to make sure these farmers receive the support they need.” 

Governor Abigail Spanberger

Agriculture is Virginia’s largest private industry.

“The Spanberger Administration places a priority on the viability of Virginia’s agriculture and forestry industries, and on the farm families who keep these operations running even in the most challenging years. I have personally heard from farmers who said this is the worst freeze event of their lifetime. For many impacted farmers, they will lose an entire crop and a year of income. Collaboration between state and federal partners is critical to ensuring resources are made available to help farmers recover and make plans for next season.” 

Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Katie Frazier

Sweeney is in the final stages of completing a deal that will make him the next coach of the Magic, according to a person with knowledge of the move who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Friday because the hiring has not yet been revealed publicly.

The Magic declined comment. ESPN first reported that an agreement between Sweeney and the Magic was being finalized.

Sweeney — currently the associate head coach for the San Antonio Spurs — is getting the job over, among other candidates, longtime coaches Billy Donovan and Jeff Van Gundy. The 41-year-old Sweeney will replace Jamahl Mosley, who was let go by the Magic after five seasons and three consecutive first-round playoff exits. Mosley has since been hired as coach of the New Orleans Pelicans.

Sweeney is expected to remain with the Spurs through the end of their season. The Spurs play Oklahoma City in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals on Saturday night, and if they win would meet the New York Knicks next week in the NBA Finals.

Sweeney is a defensive guru, widely considered one of the brightest young coaches in the league on that side of the ball. In his lone season with the Spurs, he turned what was a porous defense a year ago into one of the league’s most airtight — his scheme centered around Victor Wembanyama, the unanimous winner of the Defensive Player of the Year award this season.

Wembanyama has spoken highly of Sweeney all season long. So, too, has Spurs coach Mitch Johnson — who thought so much of Sweeney that he made him the associate head coach on his first staff in San Antonio.

“I just took a liking to his ability to articulate his basketball philosophy and what he thought about the game and NBA coaching in general, in terms of competitiveness and how hard you should coach and holding guys accountable,” Johnson said earlier during this postseason, in comments published by the San Antonio Express-News. “But also the modern, creative part and thinking outside the box.”

Sweeney is technically set to become a first-time head coach, just as Mosley was when Orlando hired him in 2021. Sweeney is 41 and in his 13th season as an assistant; Mosley was 42 and had spent 15 years as an assistant when Orlando hired him.

Sweeney does have some experience. He had two separate, brief stints filling in for then-Dallas coach Jason Kidd because of illness and the health and safety protocols put into place during the COVID-19 pandemic. And he’s said in the past that he may have coached more Summer League games than anyone in NBA history.

But this fall, when the Magic start their season, Sweeney will be coaching for real.

He started in the NBA as a video coordinator for the then-New Jersey Nets, and has since had assistant stints with the Nets, Milwaukee, Detroit, Dallas and San Antonio. Sweeney was among the handful of assistants who seemed to perpetually be interviewed for top jobs in recent years, but never got the offer — until now.

Sweeney also spent time with Luka Doncic as part of Slovenia’s coaching staff for the Paris Games in 2024. He’s a Minnesota native whose coaching career began with various stops at Northern Iowa, Evansville, Anoka-Ramsey Community College and the Academy of Art University.

Sweeney will become the 15th coach in Magic history — 16th if counting Donovan, who briefly accepted an offer to take over in Orlando and leave the University of Florida in 2007, then changed his mind about a week later.

Donovan parted ways with the Chicago Bulls earlier this spring. Van Gundy also interviewed for the Orlando job; he’s the brother of former Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy.

Mosley was let go in Orlando one day after the Magic were eliminated by the Detroit Pistons in Round 1 of the Eastern Conference playoffs — after blowing a 3-1 series lead. When Orlando lost Game 6 of that series, Magic fans booed the team off the floor after a game where the team wasted a 24-point second-half lead by missing 23 consecutive shots.

There is no shortage of talent, led by forwards Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. Orlando won 22 games in Mosley’s first season, improved to 34-48 in Year 2 and has been .500 or better in all three seasons since — 47-35 in 2023-24, 41-41 last season and 45-37 this season.

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

So where's the reality?

The graphic shared by President Donald Trump may be correct about the specific items he listed. It's hard to know because he used data that isn't publicly available and he didn't specify what time frame he used.

But specific grocery items go up and down all the time, and his post ignores the broader reality consumers are facing at the supermarket: Overall, food prices have risen since his inauguration, and at a faster pace than they typically did before the pandemic. Most economists expect them to continue to do so in the coming months as a spike in diesel fuel prices lifts the cost of shipping groceries to stores around the country.

The April gain in grocery prices was the largest in 2 1/2 years. The 2.9% increase is only modestly above the 20-year average of 2.6%, though in the decade before the pandemic, grocery prices rose an average of just 1.1% a year.

And the increase comes after much larger, painful spikes that took place in 2021-22 under former President Joe Biden. Grocery costs soared nearly 28% from just before the pandemic in February 2020 until Trump took office in January 2025.

In his social media post, Trump focused on nine specific items without looking at overall grocery costs. He said that avocado prices have fallen 19%, cheese has dropped 5.6%, fresh berries and butter have dropped 13%, olive oil prices are down 16%, while chicken breasts are down 2.4% and eggs 90%.

Trump's post cited data from Circana, a private company, as published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Neither Circana nor USDA responded by press time to requests from The Associated Press. The White House also did not respond to an email seeking comment on the post.

Still, many of Trump's figures are in the ballpark of those in the government's consumer price index, compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest-profile gauge of inflation. That data shows cheese prices falling 3.1% in April compared with a year ago. Egg prices have dropped 39% from a year earlier and 60% from the peak in March 2025, short of Trump's 90% claim.

Many of the items Trump cited have gotten cheaper for reasons that have little to do with broader economic trends. Egg prices have fallen because chicken flocks have recovered after being devastated by the avian flu, and in part because the Trump administration allowed nearly 1 billion eggs to be imported last year.

The price of olive oil has declined recently because its production has recovered after a two-year drought.

Chicken breasts, according to the consumer price index, averaged $4.17 a pound in April, up from $3.97 when Trump was inaugurated. Still, chicken breast prices are down 0.3% from a year earlier. Butter has fallen 5.8% in price in the past year, according to the BLS.

Yet the president left out all the items that have jumped in price and kept grocery costs elevated. Many factors are pushing up food costs, including Trump's own policies: His tariffs have made many imported items more expensive, while droughts are also pushing up prices. A jump in oil prices from the Iran war has made fertilizer more expensive, but the impact of that will take months to show up on grocery store shelves. Pricier diesel fuel is pushing up shipping costs, which effects nearly everything on store shelves.

Consumers paid 6.5% more for fresh fruit and vegetables last month than they did in April 2025, and 8.8% more for meat, according to the Labor Department.

Tomato prices have shot up 40% in the past year after the Trump administration imposed a 17% duty on fresh tomatoes imported from Mexico in July 2025.

And dry weather in the Western U.S. has pushed up beef prices, which in April were 15% higher year-over-year. Coffee prices were up 18.5%, partly due to drought and other weather conditions that have hurt global coffee production.

In consumer confidence surveys, Americans still cite high prices as a top concern. Those surveys have found that consumers generally have a dim outlook on the economy, even as the unemployment rate stays low and the economy continues to grow at a modest pace.

Polls also find that most Americans have soured on Trump's economic policies, and Democrats have benefited in recent elections by raising “affordability” concerns, an issue that is also likely to play a role in this year's midterm elections.

Bondi, who spent roughly four hours on Capitol Hill for her closed-door interview, was again defiant when she was confronted by lawmakers about the Epstein investigation. In her opening statement, she stood behind the Department of Justice's handling of the case files and said that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, now the acting attorney general and Trump's former personal attorney, had overseen the process to publish them.

“The bottom line is: justice and transparency in this matter have been delivered at the direction of President Trump and his administration,” she said, according to her opening statement.

Bondi's transcribed interview presented lawmakers with an opportunity to question a Cabinet official who was central to the political firestorm over Epstein that at times has rattled Trump's Republican administration. She initially raised expectations for the full release of the Epstein case files, only to later backtrack. That reversal prompted Congress to step in and pass the law requiring the release.

But Democratic lawmakers said that Bondi told them she would not speak about the president in the interview and, consulting with a lawyer from the Department of Justice, said that she could decline those questions because she agreed to appear before the committee voluntarily.

“It's a sham in there," said Democratic Rep. Dave Min of California during a break in the interview. "They are not answering any questions.”

Democratic Rep. James Walkinshaw of Virginia said he asked Bondi whether Trump had any knowledge of Epstein's crimes before they became public. Reading from his notes of the exchange, Walkinshaw told reporters that Bondi's response was, “I'm not certain of the extent of his knowledge.”

Epstein killed himself in a New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for trafficking and sexually abusing underage girls. Trump was friends with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s but has said he cut ties with him years before Epstein pleaded guilty to Florida state charges in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Survivors tried to confront Bondi

Several survivors of Epstein's abuse gathered outside the Capitol office where the interview was taking place. They tried to make their presence known to Bondi as she entered the room, but several said they were shoved aside by police officers.

“I just hope that she does have a moment where she remembers her own humanity and our humanity and finds her compassion and remembers that this is a bigger story than political rhetoric,” said Danielle Bensky, one of the survivors.

The survivors also implored lawmakers to hold Bondi accountable for the handling of the Epstein case files' release, which included the personal information of potential victims.

They confronted the committee chair, Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, and he told them that he would press for the complete release of case files mandated by law.

“We want justice for the survivors, we do,” Comer added.

Bondi told lawmakers in her opening statement that releasing the Epstein case files was “an enormously complicated and labor-intensive process” and conceded that the Justice Department had made redaction errors. But she mostly defended the department’s work, saying that it had complied with the law and demonstrated “an unprecedented commitment to transparency.”

Even after being ousted as attorney general last month, Bondi has stayed within the Republican president's orbit.

Trump appointed Bondi, who revealed this week that she is being treated for thyroid cancer, to a White House panel on artificial intelligence this week, and she was be accompanied Friday by Justice Department officials, including Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the department's Civil Rights Division, acting as her counsel.

Democrats called that arrangement a conflict of interest.

Dhillon told reporters after the interview that she had been there to “represent the interests of the Department of Justice” because Bondi was answering questions about her time as attorney general. She said she had advised Bondi to only answer questions that were within “the ground rules laid with the committee” and not on other topics.

Interview was not videoed

Friday's interview was only the latest clash between Bondi and Democrats.

Bondi was subpoenaed by the committee in March in a bipartisan vote, but she tried to head off that demand by holding a closed-door meeting with lawmakers. The maneuver only added to the enmity between her and Democrats on the committee.

Bondi's departure from the Justice Department also raised doubts about the enforcement of the congressional subpoena. After the committee's Democrats maneuvered to press for a civil contempt of Congress resolution against Bondi, she agreed to sit for a transcribed interview rather than a sworn deposition.

Democrats on the Oversight panel criticized that arrangement, saying it allowed Bondi to decline to answer questions. They also objected to Comer's decision not to video the interview.

“We continue to be incredibly disappointed of the decision to not have this interview videotaped and then released to the American public,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the panel.

Comer has said he allowed Bondi to sit for a transcribed interview rather than a deposition as an incentive to cooperate. Previously, he had enforced a subpoena on former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after they resisted the demand. Both of their depositions were video-recorded.

Comer said that Bondi could face prosecution if she lies to Congress and that the committee would release a transcript of the interview.

Meanwhile, Democrats suggested they could still press to enforce the subpoena for Bondi. They also said they wanted to subpoena Blanche. Both actions would need Republican support.

“It's important that we continue to keep this pressure on them,” said Democratic Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania.

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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP's coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein case at https://apnews.com/hub/jeffrey-epstein.

Approval of the new House map came a month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s current map as an illegal racial gerrymander, weakening the landmark 1965 federal Voting Rights Act. That decision intensified a national redistricting battle fueled by President Donald Trump’s efforts to protect the Republicans’ slim House majority in the midterm elections. Louisiana is one of several Southern states now redrawing their maps to help Republicans.

Louisiana Republicans had considered drawing a map giving the party a shot at winning all six of the state’s U.S. House seats. But that would have required adding more Black voters to Republican-held districts, potentially backfiring with GOP losses.

The map approved Friday in a 28-10 state Senate vote reflected Republican arguments that a 5-1 map is safer for the GOP and better protects U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson from facing a difficult reelection. Republicans currently hold four of Louisiana's six congressional seats.

A half-hour Senate debate revolved around Democrats contending that the proposed map is racially gerrymandered to squeeze more Black voters — who tend to be registered Democrats — into a single district.

The bill's sponsor, Republican state Sen. Jay Morris, repeatedly insisted that party affiliation, not race, drove district boundaries.

“I purposely put more Democrats into District 2 to make the remaining districts better performing for Republicans,” Morris said at one point.

Morris said he told the map demographers to avoid including any data on race or including those statistics in information shared with lawmakers before the vote.

Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins told Morris, “I think it’s a racially gerrymandered district that's going to get us into a lot of trouble here."

“Agree to disagree,” Morris told Jenkins.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign the new map into law.

Louisiana is currently using a court-ordered map drawn in 2024 to comply with the Voting Rights Act by including a second district with a majority-Black population.

That map, however, was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court responded on April 30 by striking it down as an illegal racial gerrymander.

Landry postponed the state’s closed U.S. House primary slated for May 16. He later signed a law making the U.S. primary open and shifted the date to Nov. 3 to allow time for Republican lawmakers to draw and pass a new map. All candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will be on the ballot for voters in their district.

The proposed map redraws Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields' district, clustering it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana. It also adds part of Baton Rouge to a heavily Democratic, majority-Black district based in New Orleans currently represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter.

More lawsuits were expected over the new map.

Democrats say the proposed map could draw a lawsuit over racial gerrymandering. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision criticized the Legislature's map earlier this week for leaving a majority-Black district in place.

“From the beginning of the process, I said we’re building a house on a broken foundation — now it feels more like quicksand,” Democratic state Sen. Royce Duplessis said during floor debate. “I’m really, really troubled by the fact that we’re going to continue to lead the charge in this race to the bottom.”

In the weeks following the Supreme Court’s decision, several other Republican-controlled Southern states have seized upon a weakened federal Voting Rights Act to try to redraw their own congressional districts.

So far, Republicans are winning the redistricting contest. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they will win a narrowly divided U.S. House in November. Republicans think they could gain as many as 15 seats from their redistricting efforts so far, while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.

Florida’s Legislature passed new congressional districts just hours after the ruling, completing a redrawing that was in the works in anticipation of the decision. It could yield Republicans as many as four additional seats in the midterm elections.

Tennessee adopted new U.S. House districts a week after the ruling, carving up a majority-Black district based in Memphis in a Republican attempt to win an additional seat.

In Alabama, Republicans are attempting to pick up another seat by redrawing two districts where Black residents compose a majority or close to it. Democrats hold both seats, and the proposal is mired in a court battle.

South Carolina’s Senate, meanwhile, decided against redistricting, despite pressure from Trump.

___

Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Landry ultimately postponed Louisiana's closed U.S. House primary elections to Nov. 3, not “later this summer” after signing a law to make the primary election open.

Lao and Thai rescue workers posted the news on social media, along with a video showing the first rescued villager with a lamp strapped to his forehead. The villager, who was not immediately identified, was walking unsteadily with the assistance of two men. They handed him over to other team members amid a waiting crowd for a medical check.

The five had been found by divers on Wednesday, but that left rescue workers with two serious tasks: extricating the five and finding two more who are still missing.

Evacuations of the other four were suspended until tomorrow because they were not ready, said Chakkit Taengtang of Sai Than Association, one of the Thai rescue organization at the scene.

Rescue teams had pumped water out of the flooded cave’s passages on Friday, but a morning rainstorm complicated their work. The trapped men have already been supplied with water, soft food, and foil blankets to keep them warm.

The villagers had reportedly entered the cave last week to look for valuable minerals before being trapped by flash flooding that blocked their way out. One other villager escaped in time and alerted the authorities to the seven left behind.

A video shot inside the cave on Thursday vividly illustrated the desperation the trapped men were feeling.

Thai rescue diver Norrased Palasing spoke with a trapped villager named Khamla, who urged the divers to let the group attempt to swim out immediately

“I can’t go on. I don’t have any strength,” he said.

Norrased sought to reassure him, telling him that the water was being drained, and handing over blankets and food. He cautioned Khamla to eat slowly to avoid digestive problems.

Divers from several nations joined the rescue effort

Rescue teams from Laos and neighboring Thailand were joined by Japanese and Malaysian colleagues. Indonesian and French specialists also had been reported to be coming to the site in a rugged area in the central province of Xaisomboun, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital, Vientiane.

Working in the dark in unfamiliar surroundings, divers had to make their way through twisting, narrow, flooded passages with jagged walls.

A good rescue plan depends on “the length of the dives involved, the restrictions and the sheer size of the passages that they are in, and the support that’s available," said Gary Mitchell, press officer for the South & Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team, which is associated with the British Cave Rescue Council.

Other necessities normally include the space and equipment to recharge air or oxygen cylinders, and a medical team.

Rescuers must weigh risks of waiting for flooding to recede

At the same time, rescuers must weigh the high risks of guiding survivors without diving skills through zero-visibility water against the strategy of waiting for water levels to recede, said Mitchell, who took part in the complicated 2018 cave rescue in northern Thailand of 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach. Several of the divers at the Lao site had also taken part in the Thai rescue.

“You can’t leave people underground too long without medical support, without proper food, sustenance, clean water ... before their condition is going to deteriorate,” Mitchell warned Thursday from Wales in a video interview.

The five found Wednesday were identified by their first names as Khamla, Mued, Ee, Ing, and Laen. They were reportedly in good health but exhausted from dehydration and lack of food.

A video filmed by Norrased showed the emotional moment he and Finnish diving instructor Mikko Paasi emerged from the water and discovered the trapped men sitting on a rock surrounded by floodwater.

Mued delivered a message to his family on camera, saying, “Don’t worry mom, dad. I’m still strong, I’m still healthy. Tomorrow I will be home. I love you, mom and dad.”

Lao officials say the villagers normally forage in the mountainous surroundings for a living.

The villagers are believed to have been searching for gold

The villagers had been reported to have entered the cave to look for gold deposits. Bounphong Khammanyvong, a local official in Longcheng, the district where the cave is located, said they had noticed rocks or sand with unusual colors in the cave, so they entered it in the hope of digging them out to see if they were valuable.

Bounphong, in an interview on Thursday with local media outlet Xaisomboun Province Television, said the villagers entered the cave on May 20, contradicting rescuers who put the date at May 19.

——-

Associated Press journalists Danica Kirka in London and Haruka Nuga in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Vallejo lost to French teenager Moise Kouame on Thursday after a tense five-set battle that lasted nearly five hours on Court Suzanne-Lenglen.

“This sort of match needs to be umpired by a man,” Vallejo told Clay magazine after his 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 2-6, 7-6 (8) loss. “It’s very difficult for a woman to do it.”

His comments were “unacceptable,” the French Tennis Federation and Roland Garros organizers said on Friday.

“The competence of an umpire is not determined by their gender but by their professionalism and ability to officiate at the highest level,” they added in a statement. “The outcome of a sporting event, whether positive or negative, can never justify or excuse such remarks. The tournament organizers will impose a significant sanction on Adolfo Vallejo in the form of a fine.”

Organizers did not say how much the fine would be, but players reaching the second round at the French Open receive 130,000 euros ($151,000).

Kouame was 5-3 down in the fifth set and 8-7 down in the tiebreaker. The French crowd was boisterous and Vallejo, from Paraguay, said the umpire, Ana Carvalho from Brazil, did not control the spectators.

“It has to be refereed by a man, because it’s a very demanding crowd and you need a lot of strength to go against the crowd,” he said. “The crowd was very out of line, but I understand they’re supporting their compatriot. It’s quite an intense crowd and that’s why I was prepared; I already knew it would be like that and, to be honest, it didn’t harm me, but rather strengthened him.”

Vallejo added that Kouame “took up a lot of time on many occasions, lying on the floor or stalling.”

“And it’s not normal for the crowd to be shouting for a full minute without any play. In a match where the physical aspect matters so much, if you give a player a lot of time he’s obviously going to take advantage of it. The truth is it’s also difficult for a referee to manage this situation.”

Roland Garros organizers said they condemn “all sexist remarks, regardless of who makes them” and offered their support to the match umpire “and, more broadly, to all the tournament’s umpiring officials.”

___

AP sports writer Jerome Pugmire contributed.

___

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

Police held 30 students overnight for questioning. Authorities said school administrators would face disciplinary action for safety violations after an exit door was found to be locked during the panicked rush to escape the building. At least 79 people were injured.

Education Minister Julius Ogamba said two teachers were aware that students were planning something but failed to take appropriate action, without elaborating.

A full day after the blaze, some parents said they had still not been told whether their children were under arrest or just being questioned.

“We have not even been told about the eight that police have arrested,” a parent, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear that her daughter could be victimized, told The Associated Press. “We are just here and no one is giving us any information.”

At a hospital morgue some 28 kilometers (18 miles) from the school, other parents awaited DNA tests to identify their children. A distraught father, John Muiruri, said they were being given conflicting information about the location of the bodies.

“They have just been doing some sideshows, trying to prevent us from knowing the truth, but the reality we have come to know is that we have lost our children," he said. “What we want to know is where are the remains of our daughters.”

The Utumishi Girls School, located about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the capital, Nairobi, is managed and sponsored by the police, and many of the students are daughters of police officers.

“Investigators have conducted extensive interviews with students, teaching staff and other witnesses, while forensic teams carry out a detailed review of available CCTV footage,” John Marete, a spokesman for the investigative arm of the national police, said in a statement.

Education Minister Ogamba said the school's board of management had been dissolved and the principal would face disciplinary action for failing to comply with safety regulations.

“In particular, there was congestion in the dormitory and one exit door was locked, contrary to the prescribed safety requirements,” he said.

Fires at schools have long been a cause of concern for education officials in East Africa, where classrooms and dormitories are often crowded and firefighting equipment is rarely within reach.

Fires are sometimes attributed to electrical faults but there have also been cases of students burning down schools because of disciplinary issues.

___

Associated Press journalist Zelipha Kirobi in Gilgil, Kenya, contributed.

Below, you can find a list of important resources for those looking to support foster care.

• FOSTER CARE & ADOPTION RESOURCES
• • Commonwealth Catholic Charities
  • DePaul Community Resources
  • HopeTree Family Services
  • Virginia Department of Social Services
  • Virginia’s Kid’s Belong
  • 30 Ways to Support
• EDUCATION/PREVENTION RESOURCES
• • Blue Ridge Behavioral Health
  • Children’s Trust
  • Danville/Pittsylvania Community Services
• HELP FOR PARENTS
• • Family Wellness Roanoke Parenting Workshops
  • Healthy Families Virginia
  • DePaul Community Resources
• ADVOCACY/VOLUNTEER RESOURCES
• • Court Appointed Special Advocates and Guardians Ad Litem For Children

For a full list of resources, and more Foster Facts info, click here.

Prices for those red orbs have soared more than any other food product over the past year to cement a spot as one of the consumer headaches du jour.

“The tomato has become a symbol of something much deeper,” says Isaac Bernal Carbajo, a New York City chef who lamented life's “simplest pleasures” falling victim to price increases. “Something as basic as buying fresh vegetables is starting to become a serious financial decision for many families.”

Tomato prices are up about 40% over a year ago, according to the latest Consumer Price Index, dwarfing increases for other groceries, including coffee (up 18.5%), beef roasts (up 17.8%) and frozen fish and seafood (up 12%), among other products that have become symbols of America’s affordability squeeze.

A separate inflation gauge released Thursday showed that overall prices increased 3.8% in April from a year earlier, the highest reading in nearly three years.

Alongside crop yields, experts blame price increases for tomatoes, in part, on two pillars of President Donald Trump’s second-term policies: the Iran war and tariffs. The war spiked gas prices and increased shipping costs. Meantime, the U.S. withdrew from a deal allowing duty-free imports of tomatoes from Mexico, which grows most of America's supply.

Usha Haley, a Wichita State University economist, says it's “a perfect storm of trade policy, extreme weather and Mideast policy.”

American tomato farmers cheered the withdrawal from the tomato deal last July, saying it would help rebuild their shrinking industry. But for consumers, it's been painful. Though the U.S. withdrew from the Mexico tomato deal in July, it took time to see the impact in the produce aisle, with more imports in late winter and early spring.

When the tomatoes arrived, they were slapped with a 17% tariff.

“Tariffs are undeniably a big driver of the price inflation,” says Brett Massimino, a Virginia Commonwealth University business professor. “Because the U.S. relies on Mexico for the majority of its tomato supply, any changes in trade policy can have a large impact.”

U.S. tariffs collected on tomatoes ballooned from just $16,424 in 2024 to nearly $4.6 million, according to federal data, a staggering 27,879% increase.

As the cost trickles down, outraged shoppers have pulled out their phones in the produce aisle, shooting videos lamenting costs they said quadrupled, with some vowing to plant a garden to avoid prices of up to $8 a pound. But the impact has been most pronounced for businesses that rely on tomatoes as a key ingredient in their kitchens.

MarginEdge, which tracks prices for restaurants, says grape tomatoes have increased most — 65% in just a month — but prices have gone up across all types of tomatoes.

Phillip Coles, a professor of supply chain management at Lehigh University, says prices should drop later in the year when domestically grown tomatoes are harvested. Higher prices, he says, will also “induce farmers to increase planting to meet the demand, but this takes longer because of the lead time.”

Meantime, it's translating to a big hit for businesses like Snarf’s Sandwiches, which puts a tomato in nearly every sandwich it makes.

Wayne Humphrey, chief operating officer of Snarf’s, which operates dozens of stores in Colorado, Missouri and Texas, said cases of tomatoes went from costing him $27 to $93 in the space of a year, piled on top of rising expenses for other ingredients including bread and beef, as well as increased labor costs.

“That single ingredient now costs us more than $1.7 million in additional spend annually,” says Humphrey. “The math is getting harder to ignore.”

___

Associated Press writer Dee-Ann Durbin contributed to this report. Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky

LPD said they responded to a report of an armed robbery at Win City, in the 6100 block of Fort Avenue, around 4:50 a.m. on Thursday. Upon arrival, officers spoke to an employee who claimed to have been assaulted by multiple suspects who demanded money at gunpoint before fleeing the scene.

Authorities said no significant injuries were reported during this incident.

Law enforcement is now investigating the incident. If you have any information regarding the robbery or those involved, please contact Detective Owen (434) 455-6060 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 798-5900. You can also enter an anonymous tip online here.

Prosecutors said Friday that the decision marks a significant milestone in heritage protection.

Fordlandia, now a ghost town and a district of the city of Aveiro, was built in 1927 in Pará by the Ford Motor Co. as a rubber-tapping metropolis intended to secure a steady supply of natural rubber for tires.

Designed to resemble an idyllic American suburb, it was once the third-largest settlement in the Amazon region. However, disease ravaged the rubber tree plantations, leading to the city’s abandonment. In 1945, the Brazilian government acquired the site.

In 2015, Brazil’s federal prosecutors’ office in Pará sued the country’s Iphan architectural heritage agency and the city of Aveiro for failing to preserve Fordlandia. They also demanded that authorities grant the city protected status.

“Fordlandia is a landmark chapter in the history of Brazil and of global industry. The project was an American effort to challenge the British monopoly on rubber, bringing cutting-edge infrastructure—including a hospital, running water, electricity and a movie theater — to the heart of the Amazon in the 1920s,” the prosecutors’ office in Pará said in a statement.

Despite the end of the commercial venture, officials emphasized that the district remains an important part of Brazil’s national memory and should be preserved for future generations.

Two weeks ago, a judge in Pará ordered both federal and local authorities to restore Fordlandia. The decision came after more than a decade of legal proceedings.

Although the district isn't officially recognized as a heritage site, the court found that it possesses historical, cultural, and architectural significance, which the Brazilian Constitution mandates must be protected.

The ruling further requires the government and municipality to develop and implement a recovery plan for the district, with potential financial penalties for noncompliance.

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

In what would be the most sweeping change to the federal grantmaking process in years, the proposed regulations would require senior appointees to review funding to see if it complies with the law and the president's priorities.

The rules would also give administration officials more freedom to terminate grants that have already been awarded, a process that could jeopardize millions of dollars in ongoing research.

The Office of Management and Budget, which issued the more than 400-page proposal, said President Joe Biden's administration allowed a lack of transparency, accountability and oversight in the federal grant process that led to “woke” programs receiving federal funding.

“Collectively, these policies wasted a great amount of taxpayer resources and caused great harm to public trust in government,” the document reads. “The proposed reforms are necessary to ensure greater accountability for use of public funds.”

After a public comment period, OMB and federal agencies will decide whether to revise the proposal before finalizing it as soon as this summer.

Scientists have said the move will cripple the scientific engine that has made America the world's leader in research and development by giving control over federal research funds to people who are influenced by politics. They've raised concerns the changes will delay grant review and approval, slowing scientific progress and medical breakthroughs.

Friday’s proposal fulfills an executive order issued by President Donald Trump last summer. Throughout the president's second term, his administration has been terminating research grants on topics that the president deems inappropriate for study, including transgender health and diversity, equity and inclusion.

The LGBTQ+ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign slammed the Trump administration’s draft regulations, saying they would strip money from any program that acknowledges diversity, abortion or the existence of transgender and nonbinary people.

“Withholding public grants from programs that depend on them because you refuse to acknowledge the humanity of certain communities is not good government - it’s fascism,” said spokesperson Laurel Powell. “We will fight back.”

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, scheduled a June 12 hearing for arguments on whether to extend her order barring the government from moving forward with its “Anti-Weaponization Fund” while pending litigation challenges it. The administration created the fund to resolve President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.

A Justice Department spokesperson said it's “extremely confident” that the fund is legally supported “by ample precedent,” including from settlements during the administration of President Barack Obama, a Democrat. "We will not allow the policy preferences of judges to interfere with our efforts to provide restitution to victims of lawfare,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The White House declined to comment on the judge’s ruling, referring questions to the Justice Department.

The judge, who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, gave the government another week to respond in writing to the plaintiffs' arguments in favor of freezing the fund's creation and operation, including any payments in or out of it.

The fund has generated a fierce backlash since it was announced last week, with even Republicans pressing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche over the eligibility considerations and the possibility that even violent rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, would be free to seek compensation.

The Justice Department hasn’t formed the five-member commission that will decide on payout criteria, so there has been no money paid out yet or claims accepted.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys from the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward are seeking a court order halting the fund’s implementation and preventing the Trump administration from disbursing any payouts from it. The federal suit claims there is no legal basis or accountability behind the fund.

“President Trump and his allies have long accused Democrats of using the government and the legal system as political weapons,” plaintiffs' lawyers wrote. “In doing so, the (Trump) administration fails to acknowledge the unprecedented campaign of targeting individuals and entities for retribution on personal and ideological grounds that it has carried out.”

Brinkema said it’s important to maintain the status quo — for at least the next two weeks — and to ensure that no funds are “irreversibly disbursed” from the fund. Her order temporarily prohibits the Trump administration from transferring any money to the fund, considering any claims or disbursing any money from it.

The Virginia lawsuit's plaintiffs include a fired prosecutor and a college professor acquitted of assaulting federal agents at a protest.

“The unlawfulness that has imbued the Anti-Weaponization Fund from its inception requires that it be wholly dismantled,” the suit says.

At least two other lawsuits, both filed separately in Washington, also are challenging the fund's creation. A lawsuit filed by the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington refers to the fund as “a jaw-dropping act of presidential corruption.” Two police officers who helped defend the Capitol from a mob of Trump supporters sued last week.

During a congressional hearing, Blanche wouldn’t rule out the possibility that rioters who assaulted police on Jan. 6 could be eligible for fund payouts.

Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 1,200 were convicted and sentenced before Trump handed out mass pardons, commuted prison sentences and ordered the dismissal of every pending Jan. 6 criminal case last year.

One of the plaintiffs in the Virginia case is former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Floyd, who prosecuted Capitol riot cases in Washington before he was fired last year by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi. Floyd believes his firing was retaliation for his Jan. 6 work.

“The President’s targeting of me and others involved in January 6 prosecutions leaves our country in a very dark place, sending a message that insurrection and sedition will be protected (and even encouraged) as long as it is on behalf of this administration,” Floyd said in a court filing.

Another plaintiff is California State University Channel Islands professor Jonathan Caravello, who was acquitted of an assault charge. He was accused of throwing a tear gas canister at federal agents during a 2025 protest against an immigration raid at a Camarillo, California, cannabis farm.

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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

Gordon's transfer announcement comes seven months after the NCAA's decision to eliminate the spring football portal window, opting instead for a 15-day period in January in an effort to corral offseason chaos and give programs a clearer picture of their fall roster.

Track and field athletes have two windows, one at the end of the fall and another 30-day period that begins the day after selections for Division I track and field championships are announced. This spring, the window opened on May 28 and will close on June 26.

“I am very thankful for my time as a dual-sport athlete at UCLA," Gordon wrote on social media. “I have made relationships here that will last me a lifetime. I am officially in the transfer portal as a dual sport QB/ATH and Triple Jumper. I have not committed to a school yet.”

Gordon initially signed with UCLA as a three-star quarterback out of Missouri City, Texas. He's now listed as a receiver on the Bruins' roster. He has not yet seen game action at either position.

The redshirt sophomore did not compete in the 2026 track season due to an injury. He competed in two indoor meets during his true freshman season and set a personal record in the triple jump.

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

For the fifth time in this year's playoffs, a series is coming down to the ultimate game. San Antonio will visit Oklahoma City on Saturday night in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals.

The others this season: Philadelphia beat Boston on the road in Round 1, Cleveland beat Toronto in Round 1, Detroit beat Orlando in Round 1 and Cleveland beat Detroit on the road in Round 2.

The five Game 7s this season tie the most in a single postseason. There also were that many in 1994, 2014 and 2016. And there have never been three instances of Game 7 road winners in the same season; the Spurs will aim to change that on Saturday.

Home teams have gone 117-42 in the previous 159 instances of Game 7s in the NBA playoffs.

Game 7 records

A look at the histories in Game 7 for Oklahoma City and San Antonio, two franchises that have never before gone head-to-head in such a game:

— Thunder, since moving to Oklahoma City: 4-2 overall, 4-0 at home.

The four home wins — the last of which was Game 7 of last season's NBA Finals — were all by double digits and the margin averaged 17.5 points. The two losses were both on the “road,” though one of those was simply classified as a road game because Oklahoma City was lower seeded than Houston when those teams met in the bubble playoffs of 2020.

— Spurs: 4-7 overall, 1-5 on the road.

The lone road Game 7 win in franchise history was at New Orleans in 2008. The Spurs have never played a West finals Game 7 on the road — but played on the road in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals in 1979, losing to Washington.

Game 7 birthday matters

Spurs forward Harrison Barnes turns 34 on Saturday. This could be a good sign for San Antonio.

No player has ever appeared in a Game 7 during the NBA playoffs on his birthday and lost. Paul George turned 36 on May 2 and Philadelphia beat Boston. And Barnes has been in this position once before; he turned 24 on May 30, 2016, and his Golden State team beat Oklahoma City.

The other birthday winners of Game 7s:

— Pablo Prigoni turned 35 on May 17, 2015; he and Houston beat the Los Angeles Clippers.

— Udonis Haslem turned 32 on June 9, 2012; he and Miami beat Boston.

— Kevin Garnett turned 28 on May 19, 2004; he and Minnesota beat Sacramento.

— Scott Hastings turned 30 on June 3, 1990; he and Detroit beat Chicago.

— Walt Hazzard turned 24 on April 15, 1966; he and the Los Angeles Lakers beat St. Louis.

The best-of-12 season series

Saturday night will be the 12th matchup between Oklahoma City and San Antonio this season. San Antonio went 7-4 in the first 11 games between the clubs.

Golden State and Houston played 12 times last season between four regular-season games, an additional game tacked on because of the NBA Cup, and then a seven-game playoff matchup in Round 1.

Other than that, the last time — before now — that two teams met 12 times in the same season was 1994-95, when San Antonio and Houston faced off on that many occasions.

The league has used a scheduling model for the last three decades that doesn't have any teams meeting more than four times in the regular season, which capped the total number of head-to-head meetings at 11 even if they went the distance in a seven-game playoff series. But the addition of NBA Cup now makes a 12-game season series possible.

And technically, teams could meet as many as 13 times.

It's theoretically possible for teams to play four regular-season games, plus a fifth time in NBA Cup, then meet in the No. 7 vs. No. 8 game in the play-in tournament, then play a seven-game playoff series.

Regardless, the record for head-to-head meetings will probably never be broken. In 1959-60, the Minneapolis Lakers and St. Louis Hawks played 20 times and in 1960-61, the Los Angeles Lakers played the Hawks 20 more times. The league had only eight teams then and played a 75-game schedule.

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

This pattern will hold for the rest of the weekend, while we enter into a fairly calm pattern. Our next best chance of rainfall won’t arrive until next workweek!

This is exactly why we are staying so settled this weekend: high pressure is firmly controlling the region, and we will stay cloud-free and dry for the entirety of the weekend.

This weekend will also feel summer-like with temperatures in the 70s and 80s, but our “feels-like” values will be even higher because of the abundant sunshine.

Our next chance of rain will be Monday, with just a few isolated showers! Other than that, we have a warm & boring forecast ahead. Have a great weekend!

Behold, for example, the cheesehead hat.

Made of sofa foam and sunny yellow defiance, the hat was created in the late 1980s in response to the taunting faced by supporters of sports teams in Wisconsin, which has long called itself America’s dairyland.

“Cheeseheads!” residents of neighboring Illinois said. The insult was embraced and, yes, turned on its head — particularly in the realm of a certain football team named the Green Bay Packers.

Soon, Wisconsin sports fans were appearing at events wearing the hats shaped like large, dimpled wedges of cheddar. (The dimples evoked Swiss, but U.S. notions of cheese, especially processed versions, are another slice of Americana.)

This doesn’t mean that a single state has a lock on silly hats, though the “Wisconsin Cheesehead” is now included in the Smithsonian’s American History Museum. U.S. sports — college sports especially — bounces with fans who throw inhibition aside and put on horns or animal ears, or strip off shirts and paint their torsos even in freezing weather.

The seasonal display is perhaps the most colorful, and harmless, of the “Hold my beer” exuberance that’s defined generations of Americans at home and overseas.

We are loud. We do dumb things. We are tribal in ways both superficial (sports) and significant (the current political landscape).

We have a pretty good record of stumbling into greatness. “I wasn’t thinking too deeply about it,” the creator of the cheesehead hat, Ralph Bruno, once told Milwaukee magazine about his inspiration, which is now trademarked, owned by a professional football team and sells for $28.99 apiece.

Above all — literally, with this towering block of fake cheese that just might be a metaphor — Americans are known for being able to laugh at ourselves.

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Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here. For more stories on the anniversary, click here.

Russia has been banned from participating in any of the tournaments run by the sport’s governing body since invading Ukraine in February 2022. That included preventing Russian players, including those in the NHL, from taking part in the Milan Cortina Olympics.

The decision to evaluate eligibility on a case-by-case basis comes after a January decision to bar Russian teams, including at the youth level, was annulled following an appeal from the Russian Ice Hockey Federation. But that was not a reversal of course, as the IIHF said its disciplinary board “explicitly confirmed that this does not mean that Russia has automatically been reintegrated.”

Earlier this week, the IIHF announced it would reintegrate Belarus at the under-18 men’s and women’s events and the women’s Division IV world championship beginning this year. Belarus had also not been allowed to play since aiding Russia in its war in Ukraine.

The IIHF Council said the decision to bring back some teams from Belarus was not taken lightly.

“Based on the assessments conducted and ongoing consultations with relevant stakeholders, we believe this can be done in a safe, responsible, and controlled manner,” the council said in a statement. “The IIHF has always believed in the importance of the international hockey family staying connected through sport. Bringing the family back together is an important step forward for our federation and for the global game.”

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

The entrance of Israel’s troops into the village of Dibbine, near the town of Marjayoun, came as Israeli airstrikes killed at least six people. Five were killed in an airstrike on the villages of Deir Qanoun al Nahr and Abbasiyeh, while a municipal policeman was killed in the village of Ebba, state media reported.

In Washington, a six-member Lebanese military delegation was meeting on Friday with Israeli military officials in the first direct military talks between the two countries in decades.

A nominal ceasefire went into effect on April 17. A senior Lebanese military official told The Associated Press Friday that the Lebanese delegation, led by the army's head of operations Brig. Gen. George Rizkallah, would be to make it comprehensive.

The official added the Lebanese delegation will request the reactivation of the committee monitoring the enforcement of an earlier U.S.-brokered ceasefire that halted the war between Israel and Hezbollah in late 2024.

Another Lebanese official, who is briefed throughout the day about the ongoing talks at the Pentagon, also said the delegation would seek the comprehensive implementation of the ceasefire and a stop to ongoing hostilities.

He said implementation would be followed by talks at a later date on matters such as deploying the Lebanese army along the border and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media about the ongoing talks in Washington.

President Joseph Aoun's office said he received a call Friday from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and they discussed the situation in Lebanon and the latest developments in the Middle East. Aoun's office said the president told Rubio that efforts should concentrate on implementing the ceasefire as it is “the essential entry point for transitioning to any other issues.”

In April, Lebanon and Israel held the first direct talks in Washington in more than three decades.

The Israeli military issued several evacuation warnings for southern Lebanon on Friday, forcing hundreds of families to flee to safer areas further north.

Israeli troops fought Hezbollah fighters inside the villages of Yohmor and Zawtar al-Sahrqieh near the city of Nabatieh after they crossed the strategic Litani River, which the Israeli military has used as a de facto boundary. Large areas to the south are under Israeli military control, despite the April ceasefire.

Hezbollah, whose members have been fighting Israeli troops for days in the area, said in statements that its members struck Israeli troops inside Yohmor.

The two villages are close to the Crusader-built Beaufort castle that is about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the Israeli border and overlooks wide parts of southern Lebanon. It was not clear if Israeli troops are trying to capture the castle, which lies north of the Litani.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the northern front Friday where he spoke to members of the military. “I must tell you that there are very impressive results here. Our forces have crossed the Litani; they have advanced to controlling positions,” he said.

“We are operating in Beirut, in the Bekaa, across the entire width of the front, and we are dealing Hezbollah a crushing blow,” Netanyahu said referring to Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut's southern suburbs where Israel's air force struck on Thursday.

The violence in southern Lebanon came as U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement Thursday to extend the ceasefire in the 3-month-old war by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

Iran did not immediately confirm any deal. Vice President JD Vance on Thursday evening confirmed there was a tentative agreement, but said it was unclear if President Donald Trump would approve it.

Hezbollah legislator Hassan Fadlallah said Friday that any deal between Iran and the U.S. would stop Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. Officials in Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer, have said that they insist that a deal with Washington would stop the latest Israel-Hezbollah war that started on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after Israel and Iran attacked in Iran.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war has left 3,200 people dead in Lebanon and over 1 million people displaced.

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Associated Press writer Kareem Chehayeb contributed to this report from Beirut.

A man was arrested in connection with an incident on Wednesday that involved reports of someone attempting to record children in a Walmart changing room, Appomattox County Sheriff’s Office said.

On Wednesday, ACSO asked for the public’s assistance in identifying a person of interest in this case. This led to the identification and arrest of 29-year-old Kalyb Griffin-Pugh on the following charges:

• Attempt to Create Video of Non-consenting Person Under the Age of 18 (Two felony counts)
• Possession of Child Pornography (One felony count)

Griffin-Pugh was arrested on Thursday and is being held at the Amherst County Adult Detention Center without bond.

ORIGINAL STORY:

The Appomattox County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday that it was requesting the public’s assistance in identifying a person of interest related to an incident that occurred at a Walmart located in the county.

According to officials, the sheriff’s office received a complaint from a citizen that reported while their children were using the changing room inside the store, which is located on Oakville Road, a cellular phone was observed being held over the top of the wall, appearing to record them without consent.

Investigators have obtained a photograph of the person of interest connected to the incident and are asking anyone who may have recognized the individual to contact the Appomattox County Sheriff’s Office.

Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Appomattox Co. Sheriff’s Office at 434-352-2666

Here are some key things to know as Broadway's biggest night approaches, including how to watch, the top nominees, who is poised to make history and what shows secured performance slots.

When are the Tony Awards?

The Tonys will be broadcast to both coasts on June 7 from 8-11 p.m. Eastern/5-8 p.m. Pacific, live from Radio City Music Hall.

How can I watch them?

On CBS and streaming for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers in the U.S.

Who's hosting the Tony Awards?

Pink, a three-time Grammy Award winner, will make her debut as MC.

A pre-show will be broadcast on Pluto TV from 6:35-8 p.m. Eastern/3:45-5 p.m. Pacific. Laura Benanti and Tituss Burgess will host that telecast. Viewers can access it on their smart TV, streaming device, mobile app or online by going to Pluto TV and clicking on the “Live Music” channel, found within the Entertainment category on the service.

What performances will there be?

The seven best new musical and best musical revivals — "The Lost Boys," “Schmigadoon!,” “Titanique,” “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York),” “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” “Ragtime” and “The Rocky Horror Show.”

How many awards are there?

A total of 26 competitive categories, from lead and featured actors to scenic, costume and lighting design. Some technical award handouts may be pre-taped and winners won't appear on the live show, only cut down into edited bits sandwiched into the telecast.

What are the top nominees?

There are two top nominees: “The Lost Boys” and “Schmigadoon!” each earned a leading 12 Tony Award nominations. “The Lost Boys” is an adaptation of a 1987 teen movie vampire thriller, and “Schmigadoon!” is an adaptation of an Apple TV series that gently mocks Broadway musicals. They're followed by a revival of “Ragtime,” a big, soaring musical celebrating early 20th-century America, with 11 nominations, and “Death of a Salesman,” Arthur Miller’s masterpiece that looks at the unraveling of the American Dream, starring Nathan Lane, which nabbed nine nods.

Who is vying for best new play and musical?

For new musicals, it's “The Lost Boys," “Schmigadoon!,” “Titaníque” and “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).”

For new plays, it's “The Balusters,” “Giant,” “Liberation” and “Little Bear Ridge Road.”

Can history be made?

History has already been made, in a way. June Squibb became the oldest Tony-nominated actor in history at 96 and could become the oldest Tony winner, surpassing Lois Smith who was 90 when she won in 2021.

Nathan Lane is hoping for his fourth Tony, which would make him tied as the most-awarded male performer in Tony history, alongside Boyd Gaines and Frank Langella. If he does win for best lead actor in a play for the revival of “Death of a Salesman,” he'd have Tonys in three separate acting categories, previously winning featured actor in a play for “Angels in America” and lead actor in a musical twice for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “The Producers.”

And for the first time since 2002, the contenders for best leading actress in a musical are all first-time nominees: Sara Chase ("Schmigadoon!"), Stephanie Hsu ("The Rocky Horror Show"), Caissie Levy ("Ragtime"), Marla Mindelle ("Titanique") and Christiani Pitts ("Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York").

Will there be other performances?

Other performances include the original lead cast members of “The Book of Mormon” — Josh Gad, Andrew Rannells, Rory O’Malley and Nikki M. James — this year celebrating its 15th anniversary.

Broadway's big season

The 2025-2026 Broadway season set a new box office record for the second year in a row. Over the 52 weeks of the season, Broadway brought in a combined total of $1,910,903,835, a smidge higher than last season’s then-historic total of $1,892,650,959. Last season also had 53 weeks instead of the usual 52, a Broadway accountant trick.

In more gloomy news, attendance was actually down — 14,577,322 versus 14,658,531 from last season. And the average paid admission was $131.09, continuing an ever upward trend.

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For more coverage of the 2026 Tony Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/tony-awards.

Crews are putting the finishing touches on the Obama Presidential Center ahead of the official public opening on Juneteenth, more than a decade after the site was chosen. But the design of the roughly $850 million campus — particularly the conspicuous 225-foot high rise at its north end — still divides the city celebrated as the birthplace of the modern skyscraper.

For some, it’s a jarring choice in Barack Obama’s hometown after a grueling battle over its location in a lakefront park where classical style buildings are more common. To others, it’s a bold addition that will shape Chicago’s iconic skyline for decades to come.

Residents have compared it to a grain elevator, ship from “Star Wars” and a mausoleum.

“It doesn’t fit in at all,” said Brenda Nelms, who has lived in the area since the 1970s and leads a group that advocates for nearby Jackson Park, which spans more than 500 acres.

Leaders of the Obama Foundation, which has raised private funds, say they’ve heard it all. They enlisted “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill for cheeky promotional videos on May the 4th, a day celebrated by fans of the movie franchise.

“Part of the joy of the center is everyone is going to have their unique experience,” said Valerie Jarrett, foundation CEO and a former Obama advisor. “The design of the building was intended to be inviting and opening to people whether they live across the street or around the world.”

Chicago’s architecture is ‘spectator sport’

The bar for architectural design is high in Chicago, from Louis Sullivan’s modern skyscrapers after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 to Helmut Jahn’s post-modern office buildings.

Discourse around design is so fierce in the nation’s third-largest city that Chicago Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey calls it “a spectator sport.” His initial impression of the Obama Presidential Center was that it looked more suited to a cemetery.

The striking design has few windows, all selectively placed. Foundation officials say that decision also helps protect the artifacts inside from sunlight, including an Oval Office replica.

Bey said the museum design makes more sense in context with the other low-lying buildings on the campus, which includes a basketball court, children’s playground, public library branch and works by prominent artists.

Mixed public response has greeted other renown Chicago buildings, he said. The former John Hancock Center, a black 100-story building marked by giant X’s, was compared to an oil rig soon after it was built in the 1960s. Renamed 875 North Michigan Avenue in recent years for its address, the building houses stores, condos and offices.

“As we begin to experience buildings, we begin to imprint our own impressions,” Bey said. “The John Hancock becomes less of an oil derrick and more of the building that has your doctor’s office.”

Edward Keegan, a Chicago Tribune architecture columnist, has called the presidential museum “an un-Chicago building” because of the few windows and unusual shape. Still, it offers a unique perspective of the city.

Atop the building is a glass-enclosed “Sky Room,” with panoramic views of Chicago, including north-facing perspectives of downtown, which are uncommon from that height.

“It doesn’t feel like any other place in Chicago,” he said. “It does feel unique and unexpected.”

After fights over the location, some worry about future

The road to the museum was bumpy, even though support for Obama has remained vigorous in the Democratic stronghold.

Lawsuits to stop construction started after its location was announced in 2015. Concerns about displacement of low-income and Black residents living in pockets near the museum grew. Community groups lobbied for housing protections, but area residents say they don’t go far enough as prices for homes near the museum have soared.

Construction of the museum involved tearing up nearly 20 acres of park land and scrapping a section of major thoroughfare, which residents say was critical to connect residents from other parts of the city and suburbs with downtown.

On a recent walk through a bird sanctuary near the center, activist Robin Kaufman, 82, said she couldn't fully enjoy the wildflowers by the secluded ponds as she once did. She watched as ducks paddled through a lagoon but couldn't ignore the center's tower poking out above the tree line.

“Everywhere I go, you can see it, so you’re reminded of what’s going on and that’s distressing,” she said. “I’m very distrustful of anything they say.”

She and others have anxiety about what else might come to the area because of Obama's presidential center.

“It’s a Trojan horse,” said Shannon Bennett with the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization. “It’s an extreme version of a scheme to transform these communities for another population.”

Obama advisor says facility outweighs costs

Several design choices were made by the former president with New York-based architects, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. Obama chose a stone design and wanted a high tower for city views not far from where he raised his family and taught law at the University of Chicago.

The tower’s design is meant to depict four hands coming together in solidarity. Wrapped around one side are 5-foot concrete capital letters, an excerpt of Obama’s 2015 speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. It begins, “You are America.”

The Obama Foundation said they have widened some roads, added a new field to the area that local schools use and the campus has a new public library branch, basketball gym for community use, a playground and gardens that have been landscaped to blend in with the park around it.

“The benefit of having this extraordinary facility far outweighs any costs,” Jarrett said. “It’s a symbol to the community of how important they are to us.”

Adam Rubin at the Chicago Architecture Center called it a successful project so far, but added that questions linger about whether the tradeoff of park land for the center was worth it.

“It really does have a sense of place,” he said of the museum. “Time will tell how people utilize it.”

“The expectations and standards are to play in the postseason, the NCAA’s and we talked about this on day one back in August,” said coach LeCroy.

The Flames will play in the Athens Regional, hosted by Georgia. Other teams in the regional include Long Island and Boston College, Liberty’s opening opponent.

The Flames put together a 41-19 record that included stiffer non-conference competition with the likes of ACC schools Virginia, Wake Forest, NC State and Virginia Tech.

“We were intentional with our scheduling to put ourselves in this position,” LeCroy added.

Leadership has also been key to the teams success. LCA grad Ben Blair is at the top of that list. The Conference USA Pitcher of the Year has a 6-5 record with an ERA of 3.87. Blair’s 102 strikeouts this season ranks him third on the programs single-season record list. The Gretna native is excited to get the start on the mound Friday when the Flames take on Boston College.

“It’s going to be amazing,” Blair said. “I’ve definitely watched the regionals as a kid and always pictured myself on the mound pitching and to get it going game one for this team down in Georgia it’s going to be amazing.”

Of the other teams in the Athens Regional, Liberty has never played Boston College or LIU. The Flames do have history against Georgia, having gone just 2-8 against the Bulldogs all time.

Friday’s first pitch between Liberty and Boston College has been moved up to Noon in hopes of avoiding any inclement weather.

The craft carrying Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang of the Shenzhou 21 crew touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia region in the evening. Their return came as China prepares for its first lunar landing by 2030.

The crew had completed various tasks, from processing and transmitting experimental data to transferring remaining supplies, the official Xinhua News Agency quoted the China Manned Space Agency as saying. They also shared their experience with the Shenzhou 23 crew who arrived at the space station on Monday, Xinhua said.

Xinhua reported earlier that the crew had completed three spacewalk activities. Zhang Jingbo, the space agency's spokesperson, said that Zhang Lu, who was also on an earlier Shenzhou 15 mission to the space station, had completed seven such operations in total — becoming the Chinese astronaut with the most spacewalks, the report said.

Zhang Lu said he felt extremely emotional when he returned to China. He said at the astronauts' mission wouldn't have been possible without the care and support from their families and comrades, as well as the the backing of leaders and those involved in the project.

Zhang Hongzhang recalled his time away from the planet.

“Looking at Earth from space, I really felt that humanity is an indivisible community with a shared future," he said.

One of the three astronauts who arrived at the Tiangong space station with the Shenzhou 23 craft is set to stay for a year. Tiangong means “Heavenly Palace" in Chinese.

The astronauts are Zhu Yangzhu, the commander, Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, also identified by Chinese authorities as Li Jiaying, using the Mandarin transliteration of her name. Lai, who was born and raised in Hong Kong, is the first astronaut from the city on a space mission.

As China steps up its space program, its astronauts have carried out multiple missions to the Tiangong space station, developed after China was effectively excluded from the International Space Station on U.S. concerns over national security.

The U.S. is seen as China’s top space rival, with NASA aiming to land astronauts on the lunar surface in 2028.

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Liu Zheng contributed to this report from Beijing.

Roanoke County leaders have approved a nearly $693 million budget, along with a long-term capital plan that includes $286 million in major projects to be paid for over time.

The budget breaks down into three major areas: about $301 million for school funds, roughly $285 million for county operations such as social services and county offices, and approximately $286 million for a 10-year capital improvement plan covering building projects and road work (only around $15 million planned for fiscal year 2027). Additional county and debt services total around $92 million.

Phil North, a member of the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors, emphasized that the long-term plan remains flexible.

“But we only approve this year’s capital projects — those are placeholders for the future, those are very fungible, they can move around, they can change, they can be deleted, they can be added to,” North said. “Same applies to the schools as well.”

Hollins Library prepares for construction

Some of those projects are already becoming visible to residents. The Hollins Library moved into a temporary express location last weekend as it prepares for construction to begin on a new facility.

Jim Blanton, Roanoke County’s director of library services, said the new building will serve a wide range of community needs.

“A new exciting building with all these features that can serve all these different interests and attracts activity — so anything in the surrounding community will also presumably benefit from it,” Blanton said.

Hollins Library is in this year’s capital program and under contract for construction, with a GMP of about $9.54 million and completion expected in 2027.

Plantation Road pedestrian safety upgrades

Along Plantation Road, the county is also exploring pedestrian safety improvements, including possible sidewalks, crosswalks and curb ramps.

Local driver Maronda Dunbar said the upgrades are long overdue.

“I drive through here and there’s always people walking,” Dunbar continues, “and they’re always walking in big groups and sometimes they’re teenagers — they’re like 12 and 13 - they don’t pay attention to the cars around them so it just makes it more dangerous especially at night,” Dunbar said.

Plantation Road was added to the County’s 200 Plan after a pedestrian safety assessment — that puts it into the design-and-funding pipeline, but the packet does not show a funded construction appropriation for Plantation Road this fiscal year, but could factor into the capital improvement plan in coming years.

County leaders say many of these projects will take years to fully take shape, but residents can expect to see more planning, construction and improvement work happening across the county soon.

ORIGINAL STORY

Roanoke County has officially approved its fiscal year 2026-27 budget and a 10-year Capital Improvement Plan — decisions that will reshape classrooms, libraries, and roads for years to come.

The combined county-and-school budget totals approximately $693 million.

Schools get record funding

The single largest budget item is the county’s transfer to Roanoke County Public Schools — approximately $96.94 million for fiscal year 2027, a record high. That money funds teachers, buses, school services, and day-to-day operations across the district.

But the investment in schools goes well beyond the operating budget. The 10-year Capital Improvement Plan outlines hundreds of millions in school construction and renovation projects scheduled across the decade:

• Northside Middle School: approximately $42.5 million for a multi-year renovation and expansion
• Hidden Valley Middle School: approximately $47.3 million, scheduled in later CIP years
• Glenvar Elementary: approximately $22.6 million in significant planned work
• Roanoke County Career and Technology Center: approximately $15.4 million
• School Capital Maintenance Program: $26.5 million over the 10-year plan for ongoing repairs and upgrades

For families, the construction timeline could mean changes to drop-off patterns or temporary classroom moves during heavy build phases. The operating transfer also supports teacher pay steps for the coming school year.

Hollins Library rebuild is already underway

One of the most visible near-term projects is the Hollins Library rebuild. The county has entered into a comprehensive construction contract at a guaranteed maximum price of approximately $9.54 million. Staff members estimate the project will wrap up in summer 2027.

Located on Peters Creek Road, the site will see active construction in the months ahead — meaning the branch could face temporary closures or reduced services while crews work. The end result will be a new or significantly upgraded facility.

Smaller library projects are also on the books. The CIP dedicates approximately $2.76 million to renovations and expansions at Bent Mountain and Mount Pleasant libraries, likely appearing in the later years of the 10-year plan. County-wide library line items also cover furniture, lighting, and public technology replacement — meaning updated computers and refreshed interior spaces at branches throughout the system.

Plantation Road gets a pedestrian safety plan

On the roads front, the Board formally adopted a Pedestrian Road Safety Assessment for Plantation Road into the county’s 200 Plan — the official step that moves the corridor from study to design and funding.

Roanoke County Transportation Planner Nathan Grim said the need was clear.

“That was definitely the concern there because Food Lion employees were saying how bad the crashes were there,” Grim said.

In practical terms, the assessment recommends new crosswalks, sidewalks, curb ramps, improved signage, and possibly pedestrian beacons or traffic calming measures at high-risk spots — phased in over months to a few years as design and funding are finalized.

The CIP also funds the Transportation Alternatives Program — approximately half a million dollars reflected in FY27 — covering local intersection fixes, small safety projects, and stormwater and drainage work tied to road safety. Short term, that means occasional lane closures or detours during construction seasons. Long term, it means safer crossings and repaired road sections.

The 10-year plan — and what it will cost

The full Capital Improvement Plan totals approximately $286 million over 10 years and includes about $60 million in bonds spread across several years.

Supervisors are clear that this vote sets priorities — future boards will still need to approve the actual borrowing. Board of Supervisors member Paul Mahoney summed up the concerns of future debt.

“We are saying we’re on board with the kind of debt load through 2036,” Mahoney said.

Fellow Supervisor David Radford acknowledged that flexibility must be preserved for future decision-makers.

“We can’t tie the hands of a future board,” Radford explained, “We need to have a discussion with that and with our staff so we can kind of look at where were going with this,” Radford said.

What to watch for

In the short term, residents should expect construction crews at library and school sites, surveying activity along Plantation Road, and occasional detours or lane closures. Public meeting notices for project designs are also likely in the coming months.

Longer term, the plan promises upgraded schools, a rebuilt Hollins Library, expanded neighborhood branches, and safer pedestrian corridors — with bond debt payments that will factor into future budget conversations and decisions through 2036.

“As the mayor of Chicago, we are incredibly elated and proud of him,” Johnson told The Associated Press in an interview Friday, a day after meeting the American pope in a private audience.

The mayor said it was comforting to know that someone who comes from the city of Chicago "can speak to justice” and defend “the most vulnerable among us.”

Johnson, a first-term progressive Democrat leading the third-largest U.S. city, traveled to Rome with a delegation of some 50 local officials, drawing strong media interest. He is a leading critic of U.S. President Donald Trump and has applauded Leo for pushing back against the war in Iran and Trump administration immigration policies.

Johnson said he used the meeting to thank the pope “for his courage and his strength and particularly his moral stance,” framing the encounter as a convergence of civic leadership and moral authority.

He noted the meeting underscored areas of alignment between Chicago’s policy agenda and the pope’s emphasis on social justice, particularly on the legacy of slavery and the treatment of migrants.

Johnson said the pontiff’s apology for the Catholic Church’s role in slavery reinforced his administration’s push for reparations, including efforts to fund a task force examining the lasting impact on Black Americans.

“The fact that the pope made a very clear declaration apologizing for the church’s role in slavery … is an affirmation to the work that we’re doing,” he said.

Johnson stressed the visit reflects an effort to position Chicago within a broader international push for human rights, with the pope’s global influence lending weight to the city’s agenda on justice, migration and reparative policies — and potentially extending that message well beyond the U.S.

Focus on migrants' conditions amid US crackdown

Migration was also central to their discussion. Johnson said Pope Leo asked directly about conditions in Chicago following a broader U.S. immigration crackdown and efforts to deport migrants.

“He wanted to know the conditions on the ground in Chicago … how we were responding,” Johnson said, adding the pontiff was aware of “the mass effort to deport immigrants from the city of Chicago and really around the country.”

Johnson described outlining the city’s response to migrants facing fear and uncertainty, including rapid-response efforts to ensure families had access to schools and basic necessities. He also highlighted executive actions intended to shield migrants, saying Chicago’s approach has been adopted by other municipalities.

Johnson framed the meeting as the beginning of broader cooperation between city government and the Vatican. “We talked about how his pulpit and my pen can come together to protect all of humanity,” he said, referencing both descendants of enslaved people and immigrant communities.

The mayor also emphasized the shared Chicago background, saying the city’s history of activism makes it “uniquely positioned for this moment.” On Thursday, he marked the visit by presenting Leo with a key to the city and inviting him to celebrate Mass in Chicago’s Grant Park.

It’s at least the second official invitation that Leo has received to visit the United States. U.S. Vice President JD Vance invited Leo soon after he became pope last May.

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Associated Press writer Silvia Stellacci in Rome contributed to this report.

As of Friday, May 29, the Virginia average for regular gas is $4.245, according to AAA. Premium averages $5.107 per gallon, while diesel averages $5.396 per gallon.

Nationwide, the average for a gallon of regular gas is down 12 cents from last week to $4.42 as peace talks continue with Iran. However, the AAA reports that the slight reprieve from high prices could be temporary, claiming that oil prices could spike again if a ceasefire deal isn’t reached. Regardless, gas prices are still the highest they’ve been in four years.

Taking a closer look at our region, here’s a look at the average price of gas for localities in our area:

• Roanoke:
• • Regular: $4.156
  • Mid: $4.627
  • Premium: $5.005
  • Diesel: $5.389
• Lynchburg:
• • Regular: $4.183
  • Mid: $4.629
  • Premium: $5.028
  • Diesel: $5.40
• Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and Radford (New River Valley area)
• • Regular: $4.214
  • Mid: $4.711
  • Premium: $5.087
  • Diesel: $5.345

Count on 10 News to bring you the latest price at the pump every morning.

To find out where the lowest fuel prices are near you, visit GasBuddy’s website.

Since the U.S. and Israel launched a joint war against Iran on Feb. 28, the cost of crude oil, the main ingredient in gasoline, has spiked and swung rapidly. That’s because the conflict has caused deep supply chain disruptions and cuts from major oil producers across the Middle East.

New car prices have soared in recent years, with the average new vehicle now selling for nearly $50,000. Add in rising gas and insurance costs, and it is no surprise that recent Fitch Ratings data show Americans with lower credit scores are having a harder time keeping up. Nearly 7% were at least 60 days late on their car payments.

The first step in getting back on track is acknowledging the problem early. That’s according to Thomas Nitzsche with the nonprofit Money Management International.

“A lot of people are very resistant to talk to their creditors because they have fear or shame around, what’s going to happen next,” Nizsche said.

And the longer people wait, the more those missed payments can add up.

Consumer Reports’ Keith Barry says the sooner you reach out to your lender about your current financial situation, the better.

“Lenders usually have options available,” Keith Barry with Consumer Reports said. “They might offer to move your payment due date, be able to set up a hardship plan, or deferred the payment. Especially, if you have a good payment history, your lender might be more willing to work with you to avoid delinquency or your car getting repossessed.”

Before agreeing to a plan, ask how it could affect your credit, late fees, and interest. Then get the agreement in writing.

Another option may be refinancing your car loan.

“Check with banks, credit unions, and online lenders, because you might be able to get a lower interest rate that could save you money,” Barry said. “But just be careful. If you make the loan term longer, it could cost you more in the long run.”

If you lease your car, getting out of the contract can be difficult. But a lease transfer may be an option. Sites like Swapalease can help connect you with someone willing to take over the remaining payments.

“Just make sure your leasing company allows it, and ask about fees or whether you could still be responsible if the new driver stops paying,” said Barry.

Bottom line: The sooner you deal with a car payment problem, the more room you may have to work things out.

Consumer Reports says to be careful with companies that promise to lower your car payment for an upfront fee. Some scammers may even tell you to send payments to them instead of your lender. That money may never go toward your loan, leaving you out of money and even further behind on your payments.

But is that a good idea?

“Kids at different stages of their life may go to bed and wake up naturally at different times. Younger kids generally wake up earlier. Older kids, teenagers, generally sleep in later. We all know that. But do they need a schedule? That really depends on what they have going on in the summertime,” said Brian Chen, MD, sleep specialist at Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Chen said if your child has sports or other activities this summer, it’s best to keep their bedtime schedule consistent.

This way, you know they’re well rested for the next day.

If your child doesn’t have much going on, it’s okay to be a little more flexible.

However, it’s still important that they get enough sleep.

How much varies based on the child’s age.

Dr. Chen also notes that the later you delay bedtime, the harder it’s going to be to adjust back during the school year.

“We generally recommend shifting one hour, no faster than one hour earlier per week. And so, if their normal bedtime for school is 9 p.m., and in the summertime they slip all the way down to 1 a.m., then you have four weeks. You have to start it a month before school starts. Little by little, maybe just shifting up by like 10 minutes a day and just keep it going for every single day for a month and you’ll be perfectly fine,” he said.

Dr. Chen said since the sun stays out later in the summer, it can be hard for some kids to fall asleep.

He recommends using black out curtains to help with that.

The crash happened at about 2:35 a.m. on southbound I-95 in Stafford County. All five of the people who died were in vehicles hit by the bus, and three of the injured are in critical condition, police said.

“The preliminary investigation indicates that traffic was slowing southbound for an upcoming work zone,” state police said in a news release. “A bus failed to slow for traffic and struck six vehicles.”

It was not immediately known what the bus was being used for or how many people were aboard.

The crash is under investigation and charges are pending, police said.

Southbound lanes remained closed seven hours after the crash, with traffic being detoured.

The release of the funds was a signal of Brussels’ embrace of the new government in Budapest after the 16-year tenure of Viktor Orbán, who was allied with Russia and antagonized the EU.

The agreement, announced during a media briefing in Brussels on Friday by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, capped off weeks of negotiations between Magyar’s government and the EU to release the crucial funding that is badly needed by Hungary’s slumping economy.

Magyar called the deal “a historic breakthrough” for the nation, and said that his government was "very grateful, and we are ready to continuing cooperating together in the interest of the Hungarian people and all the European citizens.”

Partly by campaigning on forging stronger ties with the EU, Magyar's earthquake success in the April election ended the long tenure of Orbán, who had vilified von der Leyen and other powerbrokers in the 27-nation bloc as he hollowed out institutional checks and balances in Hungary.

Those actions, and concerns over corruption and the erosion of judicial independence, prompted the EU to freeze the billions in funding to Budapest in 2022. A year later, the commission found that the government had carried out sufficient reforms to have around 10.2 billion euros ($12.1 billion) released.

On Friday, von der Leyen said that only a few weeks since Magyar's new government took office, "we can already feel a strong wind of change across Hungary.”

“A great deal of work has already been achieved in very short time, and markets are already taking notice. Investors confidence is returning. Trust is being rebuilt,” she said.

After Magyar's party Tisza won a super-majority in parliament, which enabled deep and quick reforms, leaders in Brussels and Budapest prioritized releasing the funds as soon as possible to help Hungary's economy, which has stagnated for years.

The funds are split between 10 billion euros ($11.6 billion) of COVID-19 recovery funds and more than 6.3 billion euros ($7.3 billion) in the cohesion funds designed to lift up struggling economies within the EU.

Magyar's government has undertaken crucial changes like restoring judicial independence, academic and media freedom, and launching broad anti-corruption efforts in order to get access to the money.

On Friday, Magyar formally submitted Hungary's request to sign on to the European Public Prosecutor's Office, the EU’s corruption watchdog based in Luxembourg that Orbán's government had long refused to join.

He told reporters that Orbán's government — which frequently portrayed the EU as an oppressive force bent on punishing Hungary for its anti-immigration and anti-LGBTQ+ policies — had “lied to the Hungarian people constantly" about why the funds had been frozen.

“The real reason the European institutions and the European Union were not in a position to release (the funds) was corruption,” he said. “There was a degree of corruption that for a long time was unthinkable in the European Union, and in Hungary as well.”

Von der Leyen also announced deeper integration of Hungary into EU institutions. For example, Hungarian students will once again be able to join the Erasmus scholarship program that allows students to attend schools across the EU, an opportunity that had been suspended under Orbán.

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Justin Spike reported from Budapest, Hungary.

Sudan Doctors Network, a group that tracks violence across the country, blamed forces affiliated with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for carrying out the attacks on Thursday on villages in al-Murrah area located west of Barah town in North Kordofan.

It said the attacks worsened already “catastrophic humanitarian conditions that citizens are enduring due to the ongoing war."

A full-scale war erupted in April 2023 after long-simmering tensions between the army and the Rapid Support Forces escalated. The Kordofan region has become one of the conflict’s main epicenters, with fighting intensifying on several fronts, including through drone warfare.

The paramilitary RSF and its allies control the western Darfur region and areas in the Kordofan region along the border with South Sudan — both regions rich in oil fields and gold mines. The RSF also repeatedly clashed with the army over Barah.

Thursday's attacks were carried out during the second day of Eid al-Adha or “Feast of Sacrifice,” an Islamic holiday celebrated by millions of Muslims around the globe.

The doctors' network said in its statement that “targeting villages and civilian areas and liquidating citizens in this horrific manner constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.”

North Kordofan's governing administration condemned the attacks in a statement on Friday and said that “such crimes will only increase the citizens’ unity behind the armed forces in defense of the security and stability of the state and Sudan in general.”

Earlier this month, intense clashes in southern Sudan in South Kordofan between forces linked to the rebel group Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North and the Otoro tribe killed over 61 people, including nine children. Last week, a drone strike on a bustling market in central Sudan killed 28 people and wounded dozens more.

The war in Sudan broke out in April 2023 after long-simmering tensions between the army and RSF erupted into a full-out war. The conflict has killed at least 59,000 people, displaced some 13 million, and pushed many parts of the country into famine. More than 30 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Both of Sudan’s warring sides have been accused by the United Nations and rights groups of committing atrocities, including ethnic cleansing, extrajudicial killings and sexual violence against civilians. Aid groups say the true toll could be much higher as access to areas of fighting across the vast country remains limited.

“Sleeping by the Lion Carpet,” regarded as one of Freud’s masterpieces, is going up for sale at Sotheby’s on June 24, with a presale estimate of 25 million pounds to 35 million pounds ($33 million to $47 million).

Tilley hasn’t seen any of the millions that the portraits have fetched at auction. But she doesn’t regret a thing.

“It did change my life,” Tilley told The Associated Press as she sat in front of the 7 ½-foot (2.3-meter)-high nude image of herself in the auction house showroom. “Who would have thought I’d be in Sotheby’s?”

“Sleeping by the Lion Carpet,” painted in 1996, is the last of Freud’s four monumental portraits of Tilley reclining, resting or dozing. An earlier painting, “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping,” sold at auction in 2008 for $33.6 million, at the time a record for a living artist.

“I was thrilled I was in ‘The Guinness Book of Records,’” said 69-year-old Tilley, who has a rich laugh and an air of delight at the twists her life has taken. “Unfortunately, it didn’t say my name. There was a picture and it said ‘Benefits Supervisor.’ But I was still thrilled that it was there.”

Cups of tea and paint everywhere

Freud, a grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, is famed for fleshy nudes of friends, family and the artist himself. He slathered oil paint to capture his subjects’ mottled skin tones in portraits that are both unsparing and warm. He even painted Queen Elizabeth II — fully clothed. By the time of his death aged 88 in 2011, he was the most acclaimed British portrait painter of the 20th century.

His reputation has only grown since. Another picture of Tilley, “Benefits Supervisor Resting,” was auctioned in 2015 for $56.2 million. In 2022, his painting “Large Interior, W11” sold for $86 million.

Tilley met Freud through her friend Leigh Bowery, the late Australian performance artist, who also posed for the painter. She recalls “trudging up the stairs” to Freud’s London studio for sittings that involved plentiful tea and chitchat, punctuated by a good lunch. Each portrait was the product of months of work.

“Sleeping by the Lion Carpet,” Tilley says, “was the most comfortable one, because I was sitting up in a chair. Lying down on the sofa looks comfortable, but after a while it got a bit painful.”

Freud painted his friends, lovers, children and colleagues, and the results are bold and exposing. Tilley says that has never bothered her.

“I’m not really vain,” she said. “Sometimes I get out of bed in the morning, and I look at my legs and go, ‘Oh, they look just like that painting.’”

She loved the messy energy of Freud’s studio, where “he used to make you a drink and whisk it up with a dirty old paintbrush, and there was paint absolutely everywhere. I’d go home and there’d be bits of paint all over me.”

Tilley was part of a 1980s and '90s London creative scene, alongside figures like Bowery, who ran the avant-garde Taboo nightclub and died in 1994 aged 33. She says she enjoyed Freud’s tales of an earlier Bohemian era.

“I used to love hearing about when he was roaring around in a Rolls-Royce open top with Cecil Beaton and Marlene Dietrich and goodness knows (who), and when he met Judy Garland,” she said. “I used to love getting the stories of his youth and his misbehavior.”

Freud's ‘magnum opus’ up for sale

Tilley is unperturbed that her image is ending up in the hands of the ultra-wealthy. “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” was bought in 2008 by Roman Abramovich, the then-owner of Chelsea Football Club, who was sanctioned by the U.K. after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“Sleeping by the Lion Carpet” is part of a June 24-25 sale from the collection of British billionaire Joe Lewis, the former majority owner of Premier League soccer team Tottenham Hotspur, which is still owned by his family. Also going under the hammer are works by Henri Matisse, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and others, collectively valued at more than 150 million pounds ($201 million).

There's a chance “Sleeping by the Lion Carpet” could set a new record. Oliver Barker, chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, describes it as Freud’s “magnum opus.”

“This is a painting that during his lifetime was very much described by Lucian as being the apogee of everything that he was trying to achieve as a painter,” Barker said. “The market knows, and it’s very savvy, it wants to go for the best of the best — and this is it.”

Tilley, who is retired and lives on England's south coast, says Freud “gave me a couple of etchings, and then I sold them, because I’d rather have the money, and I went on holiday.”

She says she doesn’t regret Freud not leaving her one of the paintings. Her place in art history is secure.

“When I was younger, I used to read art books the whole time and read all about the Pre-Raphaelites and the Impressionists, all the goings on, how they’re all friends and interconnected and all the models knew each other," she said.

“And now, I’ve only just realized, I’m part of that. And that’s thrilling for me that I’ve achieved my ambition without really knowing it.”

Then he listened to pronouncer Jacques Bailly, and his dour body language vanished as he nodded vigorously, his tell that, yes, he knew the words he was asked to spell. All of them.

“Once I get the word,” Shrey said, “I'm not really nervous anymore, because then it's all in my control.”

Shrey arrived as a favorite and walked away as a National Spelling Bee champion Thursday night, outlasting a deep and experienced group of finalists and beating Ishaan Gupta in a lightning-round tiebreaker that looked like it was over as soon as Shrey raced through his first word.

His final tally: 32 words spelled correctly in 90 seconds, a record for the shootout-style finish that was first used in 2022.

“I was counting and I'm like, OK, this is more than 30,” said Shrey's mother, Khyati Mehta. “And at that point, I'm like, ‘I think this is it.’"

Ishaan battled gamely, getting 25 words right during the spell-off, but he was more deliberate and hesitant from the start. The competitors stood next to each other as Scripps officials announced what everyone in a lively crowd at Constitution Hall already knew, and Shrey turned and shook Ishaan's hand.

After Sarv Dharavane bowed out in third place for the second consecutive year, Shrey and Ishaan had only one conventional round before the buzzer for the spell-off was placed on the stage. Ishaan was escorted away — the tiebreaker is the only time spellers get the same words — and Shrey had a last bout with nerves as he stood there for five minutes while crews tried, and failed, to fix a technical glitch with the buzzer.

“That was really, like, scary for me,” he said.

The spell-off moves so fast that it’s impossible to tell which word secures the title, but Scripps later announced that “bromocriptine” — a polypeptide alkaloid that mimics the activity of dopamine — was the winner. Shrey could get a dopamine hit from the winner's haul of $52,500 in cash, a custom trophy and a package of prizes.

He becomes the 31st of the past 37 champions with Indian heritage, a run that began with Nupur Lala's victory in 1999.

Bouncing back from a school bee stunner

A 14-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, California, Shrey took an unusual route to the title. He finished third in 2024, but last year he was absent. He missed his regional bee, too — because, woozy from a virus that caused a fever, he blanked on the word “calipers” and bowed out of a competition that any speller of his talent would consider child's play: the spelling bee at Day Creek Intermediate School.

“Right now I’m probably the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m just so happy and relieved, and just such a flood of emotions,” Shrey said. “At my school bee last year, I was really dejected and just very upset. It didn’t even sink in until the next day. I had a really tough time, but I’m glad I was able to bounce back.”

After a few months off, he rededicated himself, seeking every edge he could find through coaching and study guides. In online bees against many of the same spellers he faced this week in Washington, he won again and again.

“Whenever I would quiz him, he would take notice of his missed words. He'd analyze every missed word he had, try to figure out why he missed it,” said Sohum Sukhatankar, a co-champion in 2019 who coached Shrey along with Sam Evans and Vijaya Ganesh. “All the time I coached him, he'd never miss a word twice.”

Evans, who has worked with each of the past three champions, said Shrey's work ethic stood out.

“I’ve really never seen someone put this much effort into spelling bees, into learning everything that he possibly can,” Evans said. “Shrey is relentless.”

A high-quality final comes to an abrupt end

The spell-off will never be popular among bee purists who prefer to see the final two contestants go head-to-head for as many rounds as it takes. Because it emphasizes speed and memorization, it lacks the intrigue of watching a speller work out the intricacies of a tricky word with odd vowel patterns or sneaky double consonants.

“It's a perversion of many values that I and many in the spelling community hold dear,” said Navneeth Murali, who competed through 2020 and now coaches. “I think everyone would have liked to see a duel, but it looks like the spell-off is here to stay. It’s something that we’ll have to adapt to.”

A stout, experienced group of nine finalists showed off their skills by going 18 for 18 at the start, breezing through the first spelling and vocabulary rounds. Aiden Meng ended that streak when he was tripped up by “catometope” to start the second spelling round.

Then the crowd gasped when the bell rung on two thought to be capable of winning it all: Oliver Halkett for “Faesulae” and Zwe Spacetime for “vaesite,” words with tricky combinations of origins and vowel sounds.

Oliver and Zwe are eighth-graders, which means they have now aged out of the competition. Sarv, a 12-year-old sixth-grader from Dunwoody, Georgia, has two years of eligibility left to try to repeat Shrey's achievement of going from third to first. Ishaan, a 12-year-old seventh-grader from Jersey City, New Jersey, can try again next year too.

The bee’s move from a suburban convention center to Constitution Hall was a point of contention for spellers and their families because of inconveniences it caused. But Thursday's finals had a lively atmosphere, with more intimate seating and better sight lines bringing the crowd closer to the action, and the broadcast got a reboot with ESPN's Mina Kimes hosting alongside longtime analyst Paul Loeffler.

Though the way Scripps determined the champion will be debated — and Shrey didn't even get the winner's usual shower of confetti — there was no doubt he was deserving.

“When it comes to competition, he goes all the way,” said his father, Gaurav Parikh.

Or, as Evans put it: “He's got that dog in him.”

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This story corrects the spelling of Gaurav Parikh’s first name

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Ben Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012. Follow his work here.

Iran did not immediately confirm any deal. Vice President JD Vance on Thursday evening confirmed there was a tentative agreement, but said it was unclear if President Donald Trump would approve it.

“It’s hard to say exactly when or if the president’s going to sign," Vance told reporters.

He added: “We’re going back and forth on a couple of language points.”

The emerging memorandum of understanding came as the fragile ceasefire in the war between the U.S. and Iran appeared to be wavering. The latest flare-up in fighting happened less than a day earlier, when Kuwait intercepted missiles fired from Iran, according to U.S. Central Command.

Proposal addresses Strait of Hormuz

The memorandum makes clear that Iran will not be able to impose tolls on the Strait of Hormuz and that Iran will have to remove all mines from the vital waterway within 30 days, according to the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

During the war, Iran has effectively closed the strait, which had been the conduit for about a fifth of the world's traded oil and natural gas. Its closure has sent oil prices skyrocketing around the world. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicted Thursday at a news briefing that the cost of oil could “come down very quickly” once a deal is finalized.

Iran has said it's letting some commercial vessels pass — about two dozen daily in recent days, compared with more than 100 a day before the war — but the Islamic Republic also has charged tolls for at least some ships. It set up a formal gatekeeper agency earlier this month, spurring a new round of U.S. sanctions this week.

Under the tentative agreement, the U.S. would gradually lift its naval blockade on Iranian ports and would also agree to relax sanctions, allowing Iran to sell more of its oil.

Yet even as word of the potential deal emerged, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed additional sanctions on the Iranian military's oil sales arm. The new penalties, first reported by The Associated Press, extend the Trump administration’s economic pressure campaign on the Islamic Republic.

Details of the tentative pact were first reported by the news outlet Axios.

Nuclear issue remains unresolved

Among the first issues to be negotiated during the 60-day ceasefire is what will happen to Iran’s highly enriched uranium, the first official said. The Islamic Republic has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Vance suggested on Thursday evening that negotiators were trying to strike general terms on the highly enriched uranium settled in the tentative agreement, with the specifics to be hammered out in the ensuing talks.

Vance said the continued back and forth involved “a couple of issues on the nuclear stuff, the highly enriched stockpile, and also the question of enrichment.”

Iran has not publicly committed to giving up the stockpile. It is believed to be buried under a trio of nuclear sites that were badly damaged by U.S. airstrikes last year.

Nuclear analysts have said that Iran might consider China or Russia, which have close relations with Tehran, to be a potential acceptable third party to take possession of the enriched uranium. But Trump said Wednesday that he “wouldn’t be comfortable” with such a plan.

Though Trump and his team said from the start of the conflict that one of their prime objectives was to ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, Vance framed the war's accomplishments as something far less definitive.

“We’re in a position where we could substantially set back their nuclear program, not just during the term of this president but over the long term,” Vance said. "That’s a very very good thing for the American people.”

Iran, which has long maintained its program is peaceful, has insisted that any deal must include an end to Israel’s military operations in Lebanon against the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Tensions deepened Thursday in Lebanon as Israel conducted an airstrike on a southern suburb of the capital, Beirut, and other strikes in the southern coastal city of Tyre. At least 14 people were killed across the country’s south.

Kuwait reports an attack

Kuwait announced that its air-defense systems intercepted incoming missiles and drones on Thursday, without detailing what had been targeted. Iran said it had retaliated for strikes earlier in the week by firing on a U.S. base in a Gulf state it did not name.

The Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry condemned Iran for what it called “blatant aggression," and U.S. Central Command called the attack on one of America’s top allies in the Persian Gulf an “egregious ceasefire violation.” Kuwait repeatedly came under fire from Iran and Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq before the April ceasefire began.

The exchange took place after U.S. officials said late Wednesday that American forces launched more strikes on Iran, shooting down four one-way attack drones that posed a threat around the strait and hitting an Iranian ground-control station in Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth drone.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard acknowledged the attack around Bandar Abbas International Airport and said via the state-run IRNA news agency that it launched a retaliatory attack on the air base that launched the assaults. The Revolutionary Guard did not specify whether the response targeted Kuwait, which houses U.S. Army Central’s forward headquarters, air bases and a naval base.

On Monday, the U.S. said it conducted what the Pentagon called “self-defense” strikes on missile launch sites and minelaying boats in southern Iran.

Although they have traded strikes and accusations of ceasefire violations, Washington and Tehran have not returned to full-scale hostilities and keep negotiating.

Vance said that, “Ceasefires are always a little messy” but it’s “very much holding."

Later Thursday, Iran's defenses destroyed “a hostile aircraft” around the southern city of Jam, the area's governor, Masood Tangestani, told state broadcaster IRIB. No other information was immediately available.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin and Matthew Lee in Washington and Jennifer Peltz and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.

On Tuesday, May 26, Roger Wade Arter, of Fairfield, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, with 32 years suspended. He will serve eight years behind bars. After his release, Arter will be placed on supervised probation for five years and must maintain good behavior for 20 years. He is also required to register as a sex offender for life.

The sentencing follows Arter’s guilty plea in February to several charges, including:

• One count of possession of child pornography
• Seven counts of possession of child pornography, second or subsequent offense
• Three counts of manufacture/production of child pornography
• One count of carnal knowledge of a child 13–14 years of age

The investigation began on Aug. 19, 2024, when the Office of the Sheriff for Rockbridge County and Lexington City received a complaint from a parent concerned about where their 14-year-old child was. Deputies quickly located the teen, but the circumstances led to a deeper investigation.

Authorities determined that Arter, then 19, had been involved in a sexual relationship with the minor. Investigators say he engaged in illegal sexual acts and produced and possessed explicit images and videos of the child. Arter was arrested as a result of the investigation.

“I want to thank our deputies for the work they put into this case,” Sheriff Tony McFaddin said. “These investigations are difficult, and they stayed focused and built a strong case from start to finish. What happened to this child was serious, and our deputies treated it that way from the beginning through the final outcome.”

The Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Rockbridge County and Lexington City prosecuted the case on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

McFaddin added, “Let me be clear—those who exploit children will be pursued, investigated thoroughly, and brought before the court. This case demonstrates that when a child is targeted, we will build the case and make sure the offender answers for it in court. We are not going to look the other way, and we are not going to back down from cases like this.”

This investigation is part of ongoing efforts by McFaddin and partner agencies to reduce crimes against children in the community.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission says more than 120,000 Orb Factory Funkee Monkee gorillas may be affected.

The toys were sold nationwide in multiple colors and sizes through April of this year. At this time, no injuries have been reported in relation to this recall.

Federal safety officials urge customers to dispose of the toy immediately or return it for a refund.

For the refund, you will need to verify the code and lot number of the toy, place it in a heavy-duty plastic bag, seal the bag securely with tape, and submit a photo of the product in the bag to customerservice@orbtoys.com.

If the toy has been ruptured or pierced, or the sand has spilled from the the toy, the Orb Factory advises that you wear a mask and gloves and use damp cloths to pick up any sand that has leaked out; put the toy, cloths, mask and gloves in a heavy-duty plastic bag, then place this bag into a second bag (double-bagging) that is to be sealed with tape.

For more information about this recall, click here.

The eruption on May 29, 2006, was likely triggered by commercial gas drilling by a local exploration company, according to scientific research, contradicting an Indonesian government minister at the time who insisted it was a natural disaster.

Residents gathered to remember those killed, and the homes and neighborhoods they once lived in before boiling mud slowly swallowed them up in the Porong subdistrict in Sidoarjo.

For years, experts have been searching for ways to slow the spread of the sludge. But all measures, including the construction of holding dams, to stop it have failed. The volcano continues to erupt to this day.

The 14 deaths included a worker who was killed in August 2006 when the digger he was using fell off a levee, and the 13 other victims died in November 2006 when an underground gas pipeline beneath one of the holding dams exploded.

Tens of thousands of residents were displaced after losing their homes, land, jobs and even their ancestors’ graves.

One resident, Sastro, 55, lost his house and his former job as a factory worker. The factory where he worked was submerged in mud, along with thousands of other structures within the 572-hectare (more than 1,400-acre) sea of mud.

Twenty years later, he now works as a motorcycle taxi driver, ferrying visitors on daily trips to the site, which has become a tourist destination in East Java.

“As far as I can tell, things have been really tough ever since the Lapindo incident,” said Sastro, who like other Indonesians uses a single name.

Local mining company PT Lapindo Brantas was exploring for gas in the area of the disaster in May 2006.

Indonesia’s president at the time, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, ordered the company to pay $420 million in compensation to villagers who lost their homes and to help the government fund its emergency operations.

However, the government subsequently provided emergency financial assistance to compensate the affected victims. While Lapindo Brantas did provide some aid, it was a fraction of the total.

After two decades, white smoke can be seen billowing from the center of the mud lake, indicating that hot mud is still erupting from the vent. Excavators dredging the bottom of the mud pond have become a common sight.

Aerial photographs show the vent as a small dot in the middle of the vast expanse of the mud lake. That dot marks the vent that caused one of the largest and longest-lasting disasters in Indonesia.

The mud flow has affected more than 1,100 hectares (around 2,700 acres) as it submerged 19 villages across three subdistricts.

To this day, many survivors still face issues. They include environmental contamination, health and civil registration problems, and the uncertainty of life left in the wake of the disaster, said Lucky Wahyu Wardana, from the Indonesian Forum for Living Environment, or WALHI, in East Java.

“The Lapindo tragedy must serve as a lesson for the government to stop relying on extractive industries, as the costs of the impact far outweigh the benefits.

“Not only have lives been lost, but children who once lived in the affected areas have lost their future and face health consequences,” Wardana said. “In addition, many parents have lost their sense of history regarding their origins and hometowns.”

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Edna Tarigan reported from Jakarta.

Police said Jacob Baker, 36, of Pahoa, Hawaii, was arrested on suspicion of murder, burglary and other charges following a search that involved “significant resources," including help from state and federal authorities. They described him as “armed and extremely dangerous.”

Authorities said they believe Baker is involved in the deaths of three men: a 69-year-old man found partially submerged in a cement pond, a 79-year-old man who was found just a few hundred feet (meters) away, and a third man, also 69, whose body was found about 19 miles (31 kilometers) away.

The killings took place over two days in a remote and mostly rural part of the island, which is the largest in the Hawaiian chain at more than 4,000 square miles (10,360 square kilometers). The area is a mix of tropical landscape and barren lava fields.

Police received information Thursday afternoon that Baker was hiding in a grassy area, ducking down as traffic passed, Hawaii Police Chief Reed Mahuna said at news conference after the arrest. Police found him hiding in a small cave and arrested him.

Deborah Davis was driving home when she slowed down near where one of the people killed had lived. That’s when she saw a policewoman chasing a man running on the road.

“I just stopped and I’m thinking, this is it, this is the guy,” she said.

The man ran into a grass driveway and into the jungle. After some yelling, several officers emerged with a shirtless man in handcuffs. She said officers were giving each other high-fives and shouting, “chee hoo,” a celebratory yell common in Hawaii.

“They were very happy,” she said. “And I was very grateful. I was thanking them with tears in my eyes.”

Police said they had not identified a motive but were confident Baker was involved in all three killings. Mahuna did not release information on how police identified Baker as a suspect or what evidence may connect him to the killings. He said investigators had not found any connections among the victims, other than two of them lived near each other.

Women accused Baker of threats and harassment

The slayings happened just days after two women requested temporary restraining orders against Baker, saying he had threatened and harassed them at a farm. One woman was staying there and the other co-owned it. A judge denied both applications, saying there was not enough proof of harassment.

One of the women claimed in her petition that Baker threatened to kill several women who were staying on the property, and caused a number of them to move or end their stays. She included a link to a video that allegedly captured at least one threat, but the link had either been removed or was incorrect as of Thursday.

The other woman alleged that Baker threatened women and a disabled man, and said he would trespass on the property, take things that didn’t belong to him and said his intention was to squat on the property.

No attorney was listed for Baker, who had 20 other cases in the court record in the past two decades, many of them traffic infractions. In most of those cases, Baker represented himself.

3 men found dead over 2 days

Police identified the first victim as Robert Shine and the third victim as John Carse. The name of the 79-year-old man was pending positive identification. Autopsies show Shine was strangled, and Carse died from “sharp force trauma,” police said.

On Monday night, police found Shine at a residence partially submerged in a cement pond, Mahuna said. On Tuesday, the 79-year-old man was found dead with apparent blunt force injuries shortly after 12:30 p.m., Mahuna said.

Later Tuesday, at around 10 p.m., police responded to a property about 19 miles (31 kilometers) away on a welfare check request and found Carse dead.

Stephen Shaffer said Baker had lived on his ex-wife's property in Puna, where they grow fruit, and Baker climbed coconut trees for her. But after several months, he said, she sought a temporary restraining order against Baker. Shaffer said he didn't know details of their falling out, only that his ex-wife felt threatened by Baker and wanted him to move out.

“He just seemed to me kind of angry,” said Shaffer, who lives in a separate dwelling on the same property. He added that others in the area were concerned about Baker but didn’t elaborate.

Donald Hyatt, who is friends with two of the men killed and Shaffer’s ex-wife, said Baker left the cabin he was living in on the property months ago.

“He left the place in disarray,” Hyatt said. “Trash inside and out.”

Baker returned recently claiming “squatter’s rights,” and threatened Shaffer's ex, Hyatt said. Hyatt urged her to seek a restraining order.

Puna, on the eastern side of the island, is a largely rural but fast-growing area known for affordable land. It's also an area where lava flows have wiped out entire communities over the years.

Residents on edge

Before the arrest, Puna resident Tiffany Edwards Hunt said many in the community were on edge. She said she had never seen so many police cars in Puna.

Many in the area live in poverty, she said.

“We have people who live in blue tarps in a jungle in makeshift homes,” Hunt said.

Puna is just 17 miles (27 kilometers) from Hilo, east Hawaii’s main town, but with unpaved roads in many parts of Puna, it can feel farther away, she said.

“In that remoteness, you have lawlessness,” Hunt said.

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Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut, and Lauer from Philadelphia.

Be sure to join Jack and John as they take a road trip through the NRV and highlight major stories impacting the region.

At 10 News, community journalism means meeting you where you are, listening, learning, and, most importantly, bringing into focus what matters most to you today.

We are always working for you to share the stories that matter, highlight issues that affect your everyday life, and be a voice for the voiceless. After all, your stories matter, so let’s put them in focus together.

The party is holding events days after the GOP-led state Senate shot down an effort backed by President Donald Trump to redraw House district lines to help Republicans this fall. That move was aimed at ousting longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state’s lone congressional Democrat and a party powerbroker who has been in office since 1993.

Friday's gatherings kick off with the Blue Palmetto Dinner, an annual party fundraiser that typically showcases potential presidential contenders and the party’s national figures. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear will be the headliner.

Clyburn’s own signature event, his “World Famous Fish Fry,” follows the dinner. A gathering that began years ago as a thank you to campaign supporters, it’s become its own destination for White House aspirants. For one minute, they along with South Carolina Democrats seeking a litany of offices have their stump speech moment, appearing alongside Clyburn, whose backing has boosted presidents.

The events are happening as early-in person voting is underway in South Carolina's primary, which is June 9. Voters will choose nominees for offices statewide, including governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House. Had Republicans in the state Senate not rejected the plan pushed by the White House, those congressional votes would have been canceled and a new primary scheduled under revised districts.

Republicans rebuked redistricting with voting underway

The state Senate vote on redistricting failed Tuesday, the first day of early voting, with some senators saying it was simply too late to change district lines.

Clyburn, who is Black, condemned a White House-led effort he said had been aimed at “zeroing Democratic voters, zeroing African American voters out of the process.”

“I know the state, and I am embarrassed that so many people in our legislature will allow strangers in Washington to tell them what to do, when to do it and how to do it,” Clyburn said as he cast his vote in Orangeburg on Tuesday.

The political drama in South Carolina is part of a Republican strategy to redraw voting districts to the GOP’s advantage in an attempt to hold on to a slim House majority in the midterms. Republicans have moved quickly to try to leverage a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act.

Clyburn keeps his kingmaker role

At least for now, Clyburn's district has been preserved, as has his place as the Democrat to whom White House hopefuls look for guidance in navigating the state's electorate.

Among the 21 presidential hopefuls who took the stage at his fish fry in 2019 was Joe Biden, who later turned around early 2020 primary stumbles and won a resounding victory here after Clyburn endorsed him.

At 85, the dean of South Carolina's Democrats is currently seeking an 18th term representing the 6th District, one he seems certain to secure now that the redistricting threat has been turned back.

But Clyburn, among the oldest Democrats serving in Washington, has called it an “open question” as to whether this term could be his last, and the Democratic field looking to replace him is anticipated to be massive, whenever he leaves office.

Beshear is a possible 2028 candidate

The conclusion of November's midterm elections will mark the unofficial start to a 2028 presidential primary season. Although Democrats' voting order won't be set for months, the early attention primary has already begun in earnest in a variety of states — including South Carolina — that candidates are banking on playing a pivotal role in choosing party nominees.

Beshear, by all indications, is angling to be among them. He has focused much of his attention on the labor leaders on whose support Biden relied in his successful 2020 campaign. Already this year, the two-term governor keynoted the New Hampshire Democratic Party convention, fundraised for local Democrats and took questions at AFL-CIO headquarters.

Last summer, he spent two days in South Carolina, addressing an AFL-CIO convention and meeting with party leaders across the state.

Beshear isn't the only national-level luminary in town. California Rep. Ro Khanna, who has also been to South Carolina several times in recent months, is set to headline the state convention on Saturday and also attend Friday's dinner.

South Carolina's yearly confab comes as the Democratic National Committee mulls its primary calendar for 2028. The state is pitching to go first again, although party luminaries say they wouldn't see it as a loss if another state led off the calendar.

The important facet, they stress, is that South Carolina maintain its status as an early primary state, a position that brings the state that consistently votes Republican in general elections cyclical attention — and campaign spending — from Democrats that it otherwise wouldn't enjoy.

On Thursday, Democratic party chairs in five southern states wrote a letter to DNC officials urging them to again pick South Carolina to go first overall.

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

But the first Black woman to hold the post insists she should keep leading the struggling city of nearly 4 million that will host the 2028 Olympics. Homicides have dipped. Street homelessness is down. Homes destroyed in last year's wildfires are being rebuilt, though critics say too slowly.

“There’s more work to do,” Bass says.

Los Angeles mayoral races — indeed, some of the mayors themselves — often are forgettable in a city where politics takes a back seat to the Lakers, Dodgers and Hollywood. But this year has been different as Bass attempts to overcome lingering fallout from the Palisades Fire, the most destructive in Los Angeles history. Bass was in Ghana as part of a presidential delegation when the flames ignited.

Among the thousands of people who lost their homes was reality television personality Spencer Pratt, now running to replace the mayor who he blames for the destruction.

In another sign of how political media has evolved, the biggest sensation in the race has been campaign videos created with artificial intelligence where Pratt takes on a superhero persona to battle street criminals and Democratic politicians. Created by filmmaker Charles Curran, Pratt has shared the videos on his own platforms.

Unless a candidate receives a majority of the vote in Tuesday's primary, the top two will advance to a general election in November.

The race is officially nonpartisan, but Bass is a Democrat, as is progressive city council member Nithya Raman, who made a last-minute decision to challenge her one-time ally.

Pratt, who rose to fame alongside his wife, Heidi Montag, on “The Hills,” is a registered Republican who has received a nod of approval — if not an outright endorsement — from President Donald Trump.

Polling shows a tight race

A University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by The Los Angeles Times, found Bass tightly clustered with Raman and Pratt, with other candidates trailing. The poll of 1,351 of likely voters conducted between May 19 and May 24 gave no candidate a statistically significant edge.

It's a perilous position for an incumbent, spotlighting widespread public doubts about her leadership.

On a recent Saturday, Bass was greeted by cheering supporters under brilliant sunshine in a Mid-City neighborhood where she dropped off her ballot in a collection box. For an unpopular mayor facing a dicey future, she appeared relaxed, smiling broadly, petting dogs and fawning over toddlers in strollers.

Asked about Pratt drawing national attention, she dismissed him as a political dilettante.

“He is an entertainer and that’s what he’s doing is entertaining,” Bass said.

She also questioned how Pratt, who received a tacit blessing from Trump, would be received in a city where less than 15% of voters are registered as Republicans. The president is widely unpopular in California outside his conservative base — Trump received just 32% of the vote in Los Angeles County two years ago — and a Republican hasn't been elected mayor since 1997.

“This is Los Angeles,” Bass said. “This is not a MAGA city.”

Among the crowd applauding Bass was Diane Mitchell Henry, a registered Democrat and event planner, who said she was impressed with the mayor's many years of government experience.

“She knows the heartbeat of Los Angeles,” she said. “I trust her.”

A November runoff appears likely with 14 names on the ballot.

Democratic strategist Garry South expects Bass, despite her slumping popularity, to advance on Tuesday, probably alongside Pratt.

He questioned whether Pratt's online video barrage was reaching people who actually vote. The most reliable voters in the state tend to be older, white, affluent homeowners.

“Most voters are over 50, pure and simple. You are not going to grab that demographic by posting clever stuff on YouTube and Instagram,” South said.

The contest bears some similarity to the 2022 race, when billionaire developer Rick Caruso promised to expand spending on police at a time of widespread concerns over crime and homelessness. Bass won by nearly 10 points.

A struggling city looks to the future

While immediate concerns in Los Angeles are focused on wildfire reconstruction and homelessness, the city also is grasping for a vision for its future.

Hollywood jobs have been decamping for years for cheaper filming locations. A downtown renaissance was crushed by extended pandemic closures and many office buildings remain desperate for tenants. The city has long struggled to provide basic services, whether paving buckled streets and sidewalks or keeping streetlights on. The restaurant industry has witnessed a long string of high-profile closures. Trump administration immigration raids have shaken residents. The city's notorious gridlock continues unabated.

Bass was elected in 2022 promising to end the unchecked homeless crisis and deal with increasing crime as smash-and-grab robberies became national news. She has lined up most of the Democratic establishment behind her, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with the city’s powerful labor unions.

"We are not going to have this level of failure in our city for four more years," Pratt told CNBC on Thursday. The city “is not safe. It’s disgusting. We pay with our money to give needles to drug addicts to overdose in front of kids.”

Raman has promised to speed up housing construction, bring back entertainment industry jobs and improve street paving and other basic services. Residents are “hungry for a different future for this city — one that is affordable, functional, creative and safe,” she said in a statement Thursday.

Bass brushed off the competition.

“We’re almost to the finish line,” she said after dropping off her ballot. “I’m feeling good.”

While Caesars became a household name after Caesars Palace opened on the Las Vegas Strip in 1966, the company’s roots actually go back to the 1930s in Reno, Nevada. Today, Caesars operates nine hotels on the Strip and owns properties in more than a dozen states, including right here in Virginia.

Caesars Virginia officially opened its doors in Danville in December 2024, after spending the previous year as a temporary casino. Some would say the casino’s arrival has really hit the jackpot, generating more than $25 million in revenue for Danville just one year after opening.

Fertitta is the CEO of Fertitta Entertainment, a company that owns Las Vegas’ Golden Nugget and chains like Rainforest Cafe and Morton’s. Fertitta also owns the NBA team Houston Rockets, and he is the largest shareholder in Wynn Resorts as well as in DraftKings, the sports betting company. Fertitta is also a major GOP mega donor and US ambassador to Italy.

Fertitta Entertainment will pay $5.7 billion and take on close to $12 billion in debt from Caesars, putting the total value of the deal at about $17.6 billion.

As part of the agreement, Caesars can seek competing bids through July 11.

The deal must be approved by its shareholders. But if it goes through, the sale will create one of the largest gaming empires with 60 casino resorts, online gaming, retail sports betting at more than 200 locations through the William Hill brand, and over 600 Fertitta Entertainment outlets, such as restaurants and entertainment venues.

Caesars investors will get $31 in cash for each share they own, a 49% premium over the share price before chatter about a possible tie-up between the two entertainment companies began in February.

Shares of Caesars Entertainment Inc., which are up 15% since merger rumors emerged, rose almost 2% before the opening bell Thursday.

David Schwartz, a gaming historian at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, said Fertitta’s investment in the Las Vegas Strip is a sign of a lot of optimism about Las Vegas, which had struggled with a decline in visitors following the COVID-19 pandemic and what some officials said was the Trump administration’s immigration policies and tariffs.

“Fertitta has been in Las Vegas for over 20 years at this point, so I’m not saying he’s not a gaming operator, but he just has such a big portfolio outside of gaming. I think that’s significant, and that could be something really exciting,” Schwartz said.

The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165, which represents over 60,000 hospitality workers in Nevada, said it has strong relationships with both Caesars and Fertitta, and it does not see that changing.

“We anticipate there will be discussions ahead about the full ramifications of this purchase and while we do not know all the details yet, we are confident that based on our relationships with both companies, we will continue to have a positive relationship going forward,” the union said in a Thursday statement.

The comments come after The New York Times reported that the Central American nation agreed to carry out joint strikes.

The case is the latest in ongoing tensions between the Trump administration and Latin American governments that seek to strike a balance between bilateral cooperation to fight drug trafficking and maintaining sovereignty.

“There is no agreement. There is a request that falls within the framework of existing agreements in several countries,” Arévalo said at a news conference.

“What we are signing are types of collaboration that have been taking place in the past. We conduct maritime interdictions where the United States has been collaborating with training, capacity building and equipment,” Arévalo said.

He said the government’s actions are in accordance with Guatemalan law and the Constitution.

“The only body that can authorize operations involving soldiers on Guatemalan soil is the Congress of the Republic. The Guatemalan government is not requesting this cooperation and has no plans to do so,” the president said.

When asked about the supposed agreement, acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez said he cannot “speculate on future operations or discuss matters of operational security” but emphasized that the Department of War works with partners in the region to fight drug trafficking and other transnational threats.

The Guatemalan government also published a press release and two letters in which its defense minister discusses combined military operations under pre-existing agreements with U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

The April deaths of two CIA agents in northern Mexico after an operation to destroy a drug lab highlighted the presence of U.S. agents in Latin America and raised questions about heightened U.S. involvement throughout the region. In the days following, Mexican officials offered contradictory accounts on how much information the country had regarding the CIA agents' involvement.

The Mexican government acknowledges the presence of U.S. agencies on Mexican territory but says that they cannot participate in on-the-ground operations.

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Ben Finley in Washington D.C. contributed to this report.

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

Among the dozens of companies taking part, including well-known players like Boston Dynamics and Toyota Motor Corp., the big stars now were clearly the Chinese.

Chinese newcomers, like Booster Robotics and LimX Dynamics, took the technology initially developed in Japan and the U.S. and fine-tuned it, often for cheaper mass production. It’s a repeat of what happened in other Japanese industries, from consumer electronics to cellphones and electric vehicles. In humanoids, Japan was initially ahead but then failed to produce major commercial solutions.

Tim Hornyak, author of “Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots,” who was at the event, categorized it as the so-called “Galapagos syndrome,” referring to how innovative Japanese products evolve in isolation and end up not translating for the international market.

“I really hope that Japan can come up with a Ford Model T-version of humanoid roots. But I think China has already stolen their lunch. It’s a bit too little too late,” he said.

The dancing and wiggling Mini Pi Plus robot from High Torque of China, for instance, still can’t help at an auto plant or do your dishes. But it’s cute. And it doesn’t come with an eye-popping price tag, starting at $5,500.

Chinese robots are dominating

One telling example of Chinese robotics use in Japan was GMO, a Tokyo-based AI and robotics company working on a humanoid with camera eyes that will help with Japan Airlines cargo and other chores at an airport.

The key is to have the robot do the work in the same way as people so they would be interchangeable, an initiative meant to tackle the labor shortage problem that is increasingly serious in Japan.

The inner robotics workings were all courtesy of Unitree, a Chinese outfit, which is also working on a four-legged dog-like “stellar explorer.”

Experts say Japan, with its finesse in manufacturing, proved a good breeding ground for robotics development. The sociological backdrop of a public receptive to robotics also helped.

A recent Pew global survey showed that people in Japan are highly aware of AI but are less anxious about it, at about 28%, than people in the U.S. at 50%.

Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co., a leader in robotics with its walking humanoid Asimo, first shown in 2000, was demonstrating a motorized four-fingered robotic hand that could screw on and off tiny bolts, or thread a needle.

It didn’t seem to bother Keisuke Tsuta, assistant chief engineer, that similar mechanical hands were on display galore near his booth, many of them from Chinese makers.

Japanese robotics show their prowess

The technology Honda had developed is more durable and powerful than rival offerings, and the Japanese have historically shown they can excel at quality mass production, according to Tsuta.

The looming threat of a Chinese robotics domination didn’t seem to phase Osaka University Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, who has worked on humanoids for decades, including one that’s his clone.

“What’s significant is that Japan has a culture that’s receptive to robotics. If we’re going to really start using robots in society, Japan is the ideal place,” he said, stressing that Japanese don’t discriminate against robots.

His robotic counterpart, dressed all in black like the professor, did as good a job, if not better, of answering a key existentialist question on the meaning of robots.

“I think robots will coexist with people. Robots are the mirror of human beings,” the robot replied in a slightly monotonous but human-like voice.

Earlier, the professor had answered a similar question, but a bit differently.

“No one is interested in me. All everyone cares about is my robot,” he said, sitting next to his twin-like humanoid.

“As long as people identify with what I have produced, I am a success,” he added. ___

Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama

Animals use various techniques to navigate including following the stars and remembering key landmarks. Birds, fish and turtles orient themselves using Earth's magnetic field as a compass. But it's not yet clear how exactly they do this.

Pigeons are a well-known group of frequent flyers that can traverse hundreds of miles (hundreds of kilometers) in a single day. For thousands of years, humans have used them to carry news, notes and military messages.

Scientists have long tried to untangle how pigeons travel without getting lost. Some think the birds detect magnetic cues using light-sensitive molecules in their eyes, while others suggest it happens in the beak or inner ear.

“The magnetic sense has been this mystery for almost 100 years,” said Martin Wikelski with the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany.

In a new study, Wikelski and other researchers decided to draw back the curtain on pigeons' navigational secrets. They searched for magnetic clues in the birds' organs and found a strong signal in an unexpected place: the liver.

Specialized immune cells in the pigeon's liver break down red blood cells and store iron. When scientists temporarily stripped pigeons of those immune cells and let them fly, the birds “just couldn't find their way,” said Christian Kurts with the University of Bonn in Germany. That suggested the iron-rich liver cells might play a role in their sense of direction.

The birds' magnetic compasses only got scrambled on overcast days. That's because they also use the sun as a navigational guide.

Scientists have previously wondered whether immune cells could be involved in magnetic sensing, but the new study published Thursday in the journal Science is the first to present a full-fledged theory.

“I would never have guessed it, but once it was explained to me, it makes sense,” said behavioral ecologist Albert Kao with the University of Massachusetts Boston, who had no role in the study.

The immune cells are located near nerve fibers in the liver. That might be how they transmit their “magnetic sense” to the brain “and help the pigeons to navigate,” said study co-author Clivia Lisowski with the University of Bonn.

The researchers think other birds and animals like mice could operate using a similar magnetic GPS. But outside experts say more work is needed to verify the pigeons navigate this way and to firm up how these signals get to the brain. While the researchers found the strongest magnetic signal in the pigeons' livers, such immune cells have also been spotted in other areas including the beak and spleen.

It's possible this magnetic puzzle doesn't have a single answer, wrote veterinary pathologist Simon Spiro and biologist Hal Drakesmith in an accompanying editorial. The birds could use different techniques to sense magnetic fields depending on the task, be it traveling long distances or finding a specific destination.

“Indeed, it could be prudent to have more than one way of getting home in the dark,” they wrote.

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

He looks likely to sharply escalate the Russian aerial attacks on the Ukrainian capital in the hope it will shore up his sagging domestic approval ratings and persuade an increasingly pessimistic audience at home that Moscow is winning the war, now in its fifth year.

Russia’s warning to carry out “consistent and systematic” missile strikes on Kyiv, accompanied by a call for evacuating foreign embassies from the capital, signals Putin’s intention to expand Russia's barrage despite the heavy costs and potential international outrage.

Massive drills of Russia's nuclear forces earlier this month and a series of belligerent statements from Moscow warning Kyiv’s European allies about possible retaliation for what the Kremlin cast as their involvement in Ukrainian drone attacks have underlined Putin’s intention to up the ante.

As Russia's advance stalls, Ukraine boosts long-range strikes

After a series of gains last year, Russia’s advances along the over 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line have ground to a near halt recently, and Ukraine’s armed forces have launched successful counterstrikes and reclaimed some ground.

“The character of the war is shifting in favor of Ukrainian forces, at least for now,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a recent analysis. “Russian forces’ rates of advances are stagnating while Ukrainian forces are employing novel tactics and operational concepts in efforts to break out of positional warfare.”

The battlefield gridlock undermines Putin’s declared goal of quickly capturing the eastern Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control. Kyiv has rejected his demands to withdraw from the region as a condition for a ceasefire.

At the same time, Ukraine has significantly expanded its long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities and arms factories, inflicting increasing damage.

Putin scaled down the annual May 9 Victory Day parade, fearing Ukrainian drone strikes. Days later, a massive drone attack on Moscow's suburbs killed three and showed that even the densely protected capital isn’t fully immune from assault, shattering Kremlin efforts to cast the conflict as something distant that doesn’t affect ordinary Russians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attacks were “significantly changing the situation — and, more broadly, the world’s perception of Russia’s war.”

Acknowledging the growing threat of Ukraine's deep strikes, Russian lawmakers this week approved a bill that says the country’s banks should bear the cost of installing drone-jamming systems on their premises, rather than rely on the military.

“From Russia’s perspective, these attacks are just going to get worse,” said Thomas Withington of the Royal United Services Institute in London. He added that Ukraine's increasingly audacious drone attacks were “exacting not only a political but an economic cost in Russia.”

The war is taking a toll on the Russian economy and morale

Russia’s economy has stagnated as the initial boost from massive military spending has petered out. The government has raised taxes and increased domestic borrowing to keep the budget deficit under control. And even though the U.S. war in Iran has meant windfall oil revenues for Russia, fundamental economic challenges remain.

Putin is expected to play down the negative dynamics at next week's international economic forum in St. Petersburg, an annual event intended to showcase Russia’s achievements.

Nigel Gould-Davies of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said in an analysis that “war-fueled high prices of capital, labor and goods, as well as rising taxes, have begun to depress the civilian sectors,” resulting in "a dual economy of overheated military output and civilian stagnation.”

While Russia has relied on volunteer soldiers to fight the war, offering them comparatively high wages and other benefits, Gould-Davies argued that “there are signs that this incentive may no longer be working effectively, and that Russia has begun to lose more troops than it can recruit.”

To sustain the war, the Kremlin will have to forcibly mobilize human and material resources, requiring it to “curtail the last remaining post-Soviet market freedoms, labor freedom, and freedom of movement,” he said.

In a sign of brewing discontent, some social media influencers previously loyal to the Kremlin have started to openly criticize government policies.

A move by authorities to restrict cellphone internet and block popular messaging apps has upset daily routines for millions, causing open grumbling. Natalya Kasperskaya, a prominent IT entrepreneur and a staunch Kremlin supporter, harshly criticized the shutdowns and attempts to block virtual private networks, warning that they cause massive damage to the tech sector.

Tatyana Stanovaya, a Russia expert who founded the R.Politik newsletter focused on Kremlin politics, noted the spreading Ukrainian drone attacks along with mobile internet shutdowns and rising taxes have eroded Putin’s standing. While he faces no immediate threats to his rule, “the gradual fading of Putin’s credibility is real,” she said.

In early spring, Russian opinion polls, including one by a government-run pollster, recorded a dip in Putin’s approval ratings, although they rose slightly in May in the state-controlled poll after the organization changed its methodology to include face-to-face interviews. Many observers believe the numbers may be inflated amid a widespread crackdown on dissent.

“Putin is losing his magic,” Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center wrote in a commentary. “Power remains undivided in his hands, but its spell is fading. Even loyalists complain about the mounting restrictions and repression, and once-upbeat businesspeople are now despondent.”

Russia's new threats to Ukraine and the West

Citing a May 22 Ukrainian drone attack on a college dormitory in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine that Moscow said killed 21 people, Putin ordered a massive missile strike on Kyiv and its surrounding region. Sunday's barrage that involved Russia’s new hypersonic Oreshnik missile killed two, injured scores of others and destroyed or damaged many buildings.

On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow will launch “consistent and systematic” strikes on Kyiv to target drone-making facilities and “decision-making centers.” It urged foreign diplomats to leave the capital — a demand rejected by Ukraine’s allies.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to warn him of the coming strikes and push for the evacuation of its diplomats.

“The danger in all of these wars as they continue and then they go on is that they always have the threat of escalation, of spreading into something new,” Rubio told reporters after the call.

The Iran war has effectively put U.S. mediation efforts in Ukraine on hold and drained American missile arsenals, delaying the delivery of U.S.-made Patriot missiles that Ukraine desperately needs to fend off Russian attacks.

Moscow-based military analyst Sergei Poletaev said Russia sees the shortage of air defense assets in Kyiv as an opportunity.

“Kyiv’s air defenses have been exhausted enough to make a massive attack efficient,” he said in a recent commentary.

Accompanying the declared blitz on Kyiv, Russia issued a barrage of threats aimed at Ukraine's European allies.

The Defense Ministry published a list of facilities in Europe that it said were involved in manufacturing drones and their components for Ukraine. And Moscow’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned the Baltic nations that their NATO membership won’t protect them from Moscow’s retaliation if they allow Ukraine to launch attacks from their territory. Those allies have denounced Moscow's claims.

“We are actually very, very close to direct military confrontation,” said Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s envoy to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Blue Origin said its New Glenn rocket exploded during an engine-firing test being conducted ahead of a satellite launch planned for next week. No one was hurt, according to officials at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

“It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it," Bezos said via X. "Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.”

The massive New Glenn was grounded in April after it left a satellite in the wrong orbit because of engine failure. It was only the third flight of the rocket that Blue Origin intends to use to launch landers to the moon for NASA, including the landers that will take astronauts to the lunar surface.

The company had been on track to launch a prototype lunar lander to the moon on a flight test this fall. Earlier this week, the space agency awarded Blue Origin a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to launch a pair of moon buggies in the next few years as part of the Artemis program.

“Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said via X. He promised to provide information on any impacts to the Artemis program, including the moon base that he recently outlined.

Homes shook in nearby Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach around 9 p.m., with residents turning to social media to wonder what happened. Launch Complex 36 is visible from the beach, and the internet quickly filled with photos of an orange fireball.

The rocket was supposed to blast off next week with internet satellites that are part of the Amazon Leo constellation in orbit.

Emergency crews remained more than an hour after the explosion. Officials stressed there was no threat due to fumes or other potential hazards.

Space Force officials said the explosion would not affect upcoming launches by other companies from other pads. United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket is due to blast off Friday night with a batch of Amazon Leo satellites, the same kind that this rocket was supposed to take up.

SpaceX's Elon Musk, who's had his own share of rocket explosions, offered his condolences. “Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly,” he told Blue Origin via X.

Towering at 321 feet (98 meters), New Glenn made its debut in 2025. It is named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, and is much bigger and more powerful than the New Shepard rockets that have carried tourists to the fringes of space from Texas.

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

Smalley, still seeking his first PGA Tour victory, had one of a bevy of bogey-free 5-under 65s on Thursday and was one of 12 players a shot behind six first-round leaders.

Lee Hodges, among those who had to sit through a two-hour weather delay during his round, finished with a bogey at the par-4 ninth. He was at 64 along with reigning U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun, Ryan Gerard, Andrew Putnam, Tom Kim and Matt McCarty, who birdied No. 9 two groups ahead of Hodges.

It's the second-most leaders after 18 holes at Colonial behind the eight atop the leaderboard in 2022.

Keegan Bradley, Brian Harman, Jordan Smith, Ricky Castillo and Luke Clanton matched Smalley with five birdies and no bogeys. The other six players at 5 under included 2019 U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland and eight-time tour winner Billy Horschel.

There were another 13 players at 4 under, putting 31 players within two shots of the lead at Hogan's Alley. Defending champion Ben Griffin, whose won three times last year, was 2 under.

“It’s one of my favorite courses we play all year because I don’t think there’s any one person that it caters to,” Hodges said. “You don’t have to bomb it. You’ve got to have your whole game here. I think it’s a great test of golf.”

Smalley finished three shots behind Aaron Rai at the PGA, tied with Jon Rahm after leading by two through 54 holes. The Duke alum spent the next few days focused more on travel plans for the U.S. Open and British Open than his return to Texas.

Smalley found that his Lone Star State vibe is still a good one. He is on a six-tournament run of finishing 21st or better. The first two were in Houston and San Antonio, followed by a tie for second in the team event in New Orleans.

The PGA finish matched that career best, and Smalley finally picked up a golf club again last Thursday, then picked up where he left off at Colonial. Four of his five birdie putts were inside 5 feet, including a 134-yard approach to inside a foot at the par-4 15th.

Colonial is tough when it's dry and windy, but it's neither right now in North Texas. Plenty of recent rain has been accompanied by calm winds.

“We would throw grass up and it was kind of coming right back down to our feet,” Smalley said. “So definitely more of the scorable conditions I’ve seen around here, but still not an easy golf course. To have no bogeys on the scorecard anywhere is nice, especially here.”

Kim, a South Korea native who lives in Dallas, is the closest thing to a hometown favorite with top-ranked Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth skipping Colonial for the first time since the Dallas residents became household names. Both cited busy schedules.

Kim twice had the lead by himself at 7 under, but bogeyed the par-4 fifth and followed a birdie at the sixth hole with another bogey at No. 7, his 16th.

Hodges went in front with five birdies in a six-hole stretch to start his back nine, but he had to punch out of the rough at No. 9 and ended up missing a long par putt.

Gerard made all 17 of his putts inside 15 feet, finishing with eight birdies and two bogeys. Putnam's bogey-free round included four birdies over his final eight holes, which were on the front nine.

“It was nice to get a couple putts to go in,” said Gerard, whose only tour victory came at last year's Barracuda Championship, seven years after Putnam's only tour win at the same event. “I know the stats are probably going to lean more putting, but I’ve been hitting my driver really well.”

Harman, the 2023 British Open champion playing Colonial for the 13th consecutive year and 14th time in 15 years, ran off third birdies over four holes early and had two more on the first three holes of his back nine.

“I love playing golf in Texas, man,” said Harman, who has two top 10s at Colonial. “I love this weather. I like it hot. I like the course a lot. It’s holding up pretty good for itself. The greens are soft and the scores are still, there’s nothing crazy out there.”

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

A white cargo plane with aid donated by the European Union delivered masks, gloves, boots and medications, which all are in short supply, to the northeastern town of Bunia at the heart of the outbreak in Congo's Ituri province. U.N.-branded forklifts lifted several cases into trucks.

Health workers with scant supplies have been struggling to contain an outbreak of the Bundibugyo virus, a kind of Ebola that has no approved treatment or vaccine. In some areas, doctors have resorted to wearing expired medical masks while treating suspected patients.

Dangers faced by health workers have been heightened by anger among residents over the stringent medical protocols for dealing with the bodies of victims, which clash with local burial rites. Residents have launched at least three attacks against health centers in Ituri province.

Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba said that during outbreaks people in remote communities can feel overwhelmed by an incoming flood of information and people.

“We’ve seen in every epidemic that there’s always resistance,” Kamba said. "Communities always ask themselves, ‘What’s going on?’ And in epidemics like this one, it is really risk communication and community engagement that ultimately change perceptions.”

Aid donated by the EU is expected to arrive in batches over the next eight days, said Jérôme Kouachi, head of emergency operations at UNICEF in Congo.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was on his way to Congo to witness the efforts. The WHO has declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, in the hope of ramping up aid.

The United States on Thursday said it is increasing aid to Congo and Uganda by $80 million, bringing its commitment to more than $112 million since the outbreak.

The additional money would pay for personal protective equipment for health care workers, Ebola test kits, support for health screening at airports and contact tracing, the U.S. State Department said.

Dr. Jean Kaseya, the Africa Centres for Disease Control director-general, said the organization on Monday believed it had secured funding pledges of nearly $500 million toward Africa’s emergency response, but as of Thursday afternoon the amount had dwindled to $290 million as partners withdrew or reduced pledges.

He also said the Africa CDC hoped to have treatments and a vaccine for the Bundibugyo virus by the end of the year and there were some vaccine candidates already in the works.

The Congolese government has confirmed more than 1,000 suspected cases, with at least 220 deaths, since it declared an outbreak on May 15. But the virus had been spreading undetected for weeks and the WHO suspects it is much larger than what has been reported.

The virus also has reached neighboring Uganda, which has confirmed seven cases and one death.

On Wednesday, the Congolese government said the first survivor to recover from the virus had left a health center.

“We are trying to catch up,” Congo Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said earlier this week. “It is a race against the clock.”

The ground response has been hampered by multiple challenges including customs' red tape, insufficient storage facilities, bad roads and weak telecommunications, humanitarian agencies said in a report Thursday.

Tedros on Wednesday called for a ceasefire in a region where armed groups have staged violent attacks for decades.

“We cannot build community trust or isolate the sick while bombs are falling,” he said.

Tucked in the northeastern part of Congo close to the Ugandan border, Ituri province has been reeling from attacks by the Allied Democratic Force, a rebel group allied with the Islamic State group, and a coalition of ethnic militias. In early May, the ADF killed at least 40 people and burned several homes in Ituri.

The illness also has been reported in the Congolese provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, south of Ituri, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls many key cities including Goma and Bukavu. The rebels have reported two cases.

The region’s main airport in Goma, which doubles as a staging ground for humanitarian efforts into the region, has been closed since January 2025, when M23 seized the city.

The conflict has precipitated one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with at least 7 million people displaced in eastern Congo.

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Ope Adetayo reported from Lagos, Nigeria. Mathew Lee contributed from Washington and Mogomotsi Magome contributed from Johannesburg, South Africa.

Game 7 is Saturday night in Oklahoma City, with the winner hosting the New York Knicks on Wednesday night to open the NBA Finals.

Wembanyama and the Spurs responded to a listless 127-114 loss in Game 5 on Tuesday night with their most energized outing of this see-saw series.

“(Playing with desperation) just feels like it erases kind of all the little mistakes that we do that are human nature, whether it’s in the regular season or previous games,” Wembanyama said. “Just got to fight that all the time and put your backs against the wall. It feels like it’s the best opportunity to be able to play.”

Dylan Harper had 18 points, Stephon Castle added 17 and Devin Vassell had 12 points and two thunderous blocks for San Antonio.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was limited to a team-high 15 points on 6-for-18 shooting for defending champion Oklahoma City.

“I just think all of our focus and attention was on the defensive end,” Castle said. “I don’t think scoring against them has been a problem for us. I think just our self-infliced mistakes, like turnovers and allowing them to get offensive rebounds and easy buckets is what slows us down."

The Thunder were scoreless for eight minutes in the third as the Spurs ran off 22 straight points to make it 92-64 with 56 seconds left in the quarter.

“I don’t know that it was necessarily anything we did wrong,” Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said. “I thought we were ready to play. I felt confident going into the game, and I felt confident at halftime. It had the makings of a road win if we could be the team that threw the punch in the third and they were the team that did that.”

The average margin of victory has been 15.3 points, with the Spurs winning by an average of 18.3 points.

Wembanyama has been at the forefront of all three victories.

The 7-foot-4 star joined Hall of Famers David Robinson and Tim Duncan as the only players in franchise history with five games of 25 points and 10 rebounds in a single postseason.

Wembanyama made his first two shots — both 3-pointers — and blocked Gilgeous-Alexander’s layup in the first 1:27 as San Antonio took a 9-2 lead.

“I think we were consistent and we did what we needed to do,” Wembanyama said. “Trusted the game, trusted the basketball gods.”

Wembanyama had 11 points, five rebounds an assist and a block in the opening quarter.

The series remained physical and contentious, with the Thunder's Chet Holmgren jawing with and bumping into Vassell after the Spurs' wing blocked the 7-footer’s dunk attempt in the second quarter.

Oklahoma City's Jalen Williams returned after reinjuring his hamstring in Game 2 and missing the next three games. Williams was limited to one point on 0-for-1 shooting in 10 minutes.

Holmgren had 10 points and 11 rebounds.

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

There was the long robe that the San Antonio star wore to his home arena on Thursday night, done to celebrate an Islamic holiday but also reminding some of his look last summer at a Shaolin temple he visited while seeking physical, mental and spiritual growth. There was the freshly cropped hair, another sign that he was all business.

“I’d seen a picture pregame,” Spurs guard Devin Vassell told NBA TV afterward. “I knew he was locked in from there, for sure.”

Sure enough, on the court, Wembanyama was back to his dominant self as well.

Facing an elimination game for the first time in his career, Wembanyama — who had a fiery pregame address for teammates, something he doesn’t typically do — seemed as comfortable as could be. He had 28 points, 10 rebounds, three blocks and two assists, on 10-for-21 shooting in 28 minutes, leading the Spurs past the Oklahoma City Thunder 118-91 to tie the Western Conference finals at 3-3.

“I think we were consistent,” Wembanyama said. “And we did what we needed to do.”

Game 7 is Saturday night in Oklahoma City, the place where Wembanyama started this West title series with a 41-point, 24-rebound masterpiece that carried the Spurs to a double-overtime win. If he gets another win on Saturday, he and the Spurs will be heading to the NBA Finals against the New York Knicks.

From the outset, Wembanyama’s imprint was on Game 6. After winning the opening tip-off, his next three plays went like this — made 3-pointer, blocked shot, another made 3-pointer. The tone was set, and the Spurs never trailed.

It was a very different approach from Game 5, when Wembanyama had 20 points on just 4-for-15 shooting.

“I would say his overall activity,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said, when asked to describe the biggest differences between Games 5 and 6 for his biggest and best player. “That, probably from my perspective, was just from his will and intent on leaving his imprints on the game.”

Wembanyama got most of the fourth quarter off, with the game having long been decided. Game 6 wasn’t over, but it’s a safe bet that he was already thinking about Game 7. Harrison Barnes, the team’s third-oldest player, was in Wembanyama’s ear during the fourth quarter on the Spurs’ bench, offering some wisdom.

He spoke. Wembanyama nodded. Whatever the message was, it was clear.

“Listening to the experienced people, whether it’s on our team, on our staff or outside,” Wembanyama said when asked what’s the first thing he thinks of when preparing for a Game 7.

The robe that he wore to Thursday’s game, he confirmed in French during his postgame news conference, wasn’t an homage to his time last June in China at the Shaolin temple — but rather to celebrate Eid al-Adha, an Islamic holiday. And during that same French portion of his remarks, he was asked if he can take a moment to even contemplate how far the Spurs have come.

Short answer: no.

“I have absolutely no desire to do that right now,” he said.

The formula for this series held true again Thursday. When Wembanyama is the most dominant player, the Spurs have won. When he isn’t, they’ve lost. Good hasn’t been good enough — in the three Spurs losses, he’s averaged 22.3 points on 43% shooting. In the three Spurs wins, he’s averaged 34 points on 51% shooting.

“He’s not always perfect and we’ve got to help him at times, obviously,” Johnson said. “He’s 22 years old, but his passion and desire for being right where he is and at the forefront of it all and to take the responsibility and the role and the burden of what he does ... I don’t know what else to say. He is comfortable with that regardless of the outcome and what that may look like.”

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

The Spartans will return to the region championship to face E.C. Glass. The Hilltoppers defeated Jefferson Forest, 13-5.

On the girls side, Rockbridge County continues to roll. The Wildcats beat E.C. Glass 17-9 while Salem held on for a slim 7-6 victory at Blacksburg. The Wildcats and Spartans will meet in the region final.

A reminder that all teams that reach the region final also qualify for the VHSL state tournament.

The Palm Beach County Sherriff’s Office said Thursday that deputies responded just after 3 a.m. to the scene of an apparent suicide at the family’s furniture store in Lake Park, Florida. The office said the victim was believed to be Lemieux, who was found in a rear warehouse by one of his sons.

The NHL Alumni Association announced Lemieux’s death in a post on social media.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org

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Just three days ago, Lemieux was the Montreal Canadiens’ torch bearer prior to Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final at Bell Centre. Former teammate Chris Nilan reposted a photo of him, Lemieux and Sergio Momesso from the arena with the message: “You never know when you’re going to see someone for the last time. Rest in Peace, Mon Ami.”

“Today is a dark day for the Canadiens family and the entire hockey community," Canadiens owner Geoff Molson said. “A fierce competitor who rose to the occasion in big moments, Claude was a relentless, courageous and tenacious player who led the team to the highest honors. He embodied the very essence of being a Montreal Canadiens player. Today we mourn the untimely passing of one of our champions. Our thoughts are with his family on this difficult day.”

President Donald Trump, in a post on social media, called Lemieux a “true Legend of the Game and one of the fiercest competitors Hockey has ever seen." He described Lemieux as a tremendous Trump supporter, saying he ”will be missed by all who love Winning and Toughness."

As a player, the 6-foot-1, 215-pound Lemieux was a bruising mix of talent and abrasiveness, not afraid to cross the line in the name of competition over 21 seasons in the NHL. He wound up with nearly 400 goals, about the same number of assists and nearly 1,800 penalty minutes, the epitome of a guy you wanted on your team but dreaded facing on the ice.

“Just hard-nosed, hard-nosed player,” said Montreal coach Martin St. Louis, a former star for Tampa Bay. “When I played against Claude, you had to fight for every inch on the ice with him. He competed hard. He always toed the line. He was a hard player to play against.”

Lemieux won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP after scoring 13 goals in 20 games for the New Jersey Devils to help them win their first championship in 1995.

A year later with the Colorado Avalanche, he was suspended for two games for a hit from behind on Detroit's Kris Draper that fueled one of the nastiest rivalries in the history of the NHL. Lemieux returned to score the first goal in Game 3 of the final against Florida on the way to the Avalanche sweeping the Panthers to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in their first season since moving from his native Quebec.

Darren McCarty, a truculent member of the Red Wings who had multiple fights with Lemieux, posted a broken heart emoji on social media and heard the news from Draper. McCarty said Lemieux the person was totally different than the player, and the two later met for an interview with smiles about their clashes.

“Sad day: another brother gone," McCarty said in a video message posted to YouTube. "If you’re struggling out there, no matter what, just reach out for some help. It can never be that bad. It’s a sad day, no matter what. Rest in peace, Claude.”

Colorado president of hockey operations Joe Sakic, who was teammates with Lemieux on the Avalanche, said the organization was devastated.

“‘Pepe’ was a terrific hockey player, a fierce competitor and a champion in every way. He was also a loyal friend who would do anything for his teammates and someone you could always count on,” Sakic said. "Gone but never forgotten. Rest in peace my friend.”

Lemieux also won the Cup with Montreal in 1986 and returned to the Devils to be a part of their title run in 2000. He played 1,449 regular-season and playoff games with six different teams from 1983-2009, finishing with Phoenix, Dallas and San Jose.

His 80 career playoff goals rank ninth in league history. Commissioner Gary Bettman called Lemieux “one of the greatest big-game players in hockey history.”

Lemieux had become an agent in the years since his playing career ended and represented Carolina’s Frederik Andersen, New Jersey's Timo Meier, Detroit's Moritz Seider and Boston's Hampus Lindholm among more than a dozen clients in the NHL.

Part of a hockey family, Lemieux's brother Jocelyn and son Brendan also played in the league. Brendan's feisty style over more than 300 games most resembled his father's.

At a gathering in December to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of Colorado's '96 Stanley Cup championship, Lemieux said of winning, “When it’s happening, when you’re in the middle of it, you don’t quite appreciate it as much as you should.” Late former teammate Chris Simon was represented during the on-ice ceremony by his children. He died in 2024 at 52.

“It’s very difficult, and especially with Chris passing at such a young age,” Lemieux said. “We have to count our blessings — be grateful for the days that we have and enjoy and appreciate those times when we get together.”

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Associated Press writer David Fischer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and AP Sports Writers Pat Graham in Denver and Aaron Beard in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

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

While the rain was very much needed, Southwest and Southside picked up a bit too much rain in a very short amount of time. Along with the flash flooding, we had several storm reports last night of wind damage and isolated instances of hail.

This morning, although the showers have dried up, it still feels very muggy outside! Dew points are in the 50s and 60s. We will see a much drier air mass move in for the next few days, along with a calm weather pattern!

This is why we are finally ending our active pattern; a cold front will move south of us, blocking all of the Gulf moisture from reaching the area. The southeast out towards the plains will still have the abundant moisture and rain chances, which will lead to the chance of flash flooding for that region.

Now that the front is out of our hair, the poolcast looks amazing! Just a few passing clouds today with a high of 85 degrees. It will feel like summertime!

We stay dry for the second part of the day and through the weekend, with only a small chance of rain overnight Saturday. Have a great day!

Rozier, 32, was charged Thursday in a superseding indictment in Brooklyn federal court with bribery in sporting contests and honest services wire fraud conspiracy. Superseding indictments are used when prosecutors want to change or add new charges to an existing criminal case.

Rozier has denied participating in the gambling scheme, and has been fighting to have the case dismissed after pleading not guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy charges in December. His attorneys argue in part that the government’s theory of the case — that he prevented sportsbooks from making informed decisions about accepting certain bets — runs afoul of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that narrowed the federal wire fraud statute.

The new indictment "just confirms that our motion to dismiss was righteous — new charges, new theories, but all just an effort to make something stick,” Rozier's attorney, Jim Trusty, wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

Rozier was arrested in October along with former NBA player Damon Jones, who pleaded guilty last month for his role in schemes to defraud major sportsbooks including DraftKings and FanDuel. Others charged in the case include sports bettor and influencer Marves Fairley, who pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy, bribery and other federal charges in connection with gambling schemes targeting basketball games in the U.S. and China.

Rozier remains free on $3 million bond. The case has kept him off the court this season.

The new indictment alleges that Rozier not only defrauded sportsbooks, but also the NBA and the team he was playing for at the time, the Charlotte Hornets.

Rozier is accused of conspiring with gamblers to leave a game early, citing a lingering lower leg injury, so they could cash in on more than $250,000 in bets that his points, assists and other totals would be lower than what the sportsbooks had set as betting lines.

Not all of the bets were successful because Rozier collected four rebounds, which was more than the betting line, the superseding indictment said. As a result, after the game, Rozier and his co-conspirators negotiated a discount on his bribe, cutting it from $100,000 to about $70,000, the superseding indictment said.

The new indictment against Rozier was filed within hours of the guilty pleas by Fairley, who goes by the name “Vezino Locks" on Instagram. As part of his plea, Fairley admitted to prosecutors’ allegations that he used insider information to get an edge when betting on NBA, NCAA and Chinese Professional Basketball League games — including paying Rozier’s longtime friend $100,000 in exchange for a tip that Rozier was going to leave a game early.”

Fairley's attorney Eric Siegle said his client “deeply regrets and is ashamed of his conduct.”

“By publicly acknowledging his guilt and conduct today, Marves is taking the first step toward atoning for his wrongful conduct and to starting his ‘second half’ on the right foot,” Siegle said. ____ Associated Press reporter Michael R. Sisak contributed from New York. Boone reported from Boise, Idaho.

“You know, I never thought I would run for governor, so I guess I should know better than to say any of it. Never say never,” Whitmer said when asked later Thursday about the remarks.

“At this juncture, I’ve got nothing to announce,” Whitmer said during an onstage interview following her annual speech at the Mackinac policy conference.

Whitmer has long been viewed by some Democrats as a possible White House contender after her decisive election victories in the closely contested state that Republican Donald Trump has carried twice in presidential votes. Whitmer is term-limited and will be done after this year.

For months Whitmer had offered only cautious answers about her political future. She seemed to put an end to the speculation during an interview earlier Thursday, telling Fox 2 Detroit: “I think there will be a robust group of people running for president. I will not be one of them in 2028."

But she backtracked later in the day, saying she wanted to “correct the record.” Whitmer said she was answering the “100th question of the morning about it” and said she wasn't making any plans.

“I guess I’ll smile and say, ‘I’m going to stay focused’ and leave it at that for now," Whitmer said.

Whitmer has previously said she plans to take time before deciding on her next move politically.

“I don’t know that I’ll put my name on the ballot again. I’m just not sure,” Whitmer said at an April breakfast in Detroit. “But I also am 54 years old. I got a lot of gas in the tank.”

The Mackinac conference has become a hub of presidential speculation, with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin — both considered possible 2028 contenders — also in attendance.

“If there was someone I believed in, I'd be all in,” Slotkin told The Associated Press. “But I'm not taking it off the table because I want to be a part of that next generation of leaders.”

Scheduled performers also include Milli Vanilli, the pop duo from the 1980s who were discredited after it was revealed that their frontmen, Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, were only lip-syncing.

Milli Vanilli won a Grammy in 1990 for Best New Artist, but the award was rescinded after the scandal broke. Pilatus died in 1998, while Morvan has attempted a solo career and published a memoir, “You Know It’s True: The Real Story of Milli Vanilli.”

Morvan recently told The Guardian newspaper that he owns the Milli Vanilli name, and he said in a statement Thursday that he would be performing at the Great American State Fair.

“I am here to entertain and unite people, not divide them,” Morvan said. “Let’s celebrate life & music and take a trip down memory lane. I feel honored to be a part of as it will celebrate the 250 Year Anniversary of America with so many other accomplished artists.”

A Freedom 250 spokesperson did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment. Freedom 250, which Trump launched late last year, describes itself as a “national, non-partisan organization leading the celebration of our Nation’s 250th birthday.” Trump appointed Keith Krach, who served as an under secretary of state during his first term, as the organization’s CEO.

Trump and his supporters have long had a contentious relationship with the music community. Celine Dion, Elton John and Guns ’N Roses are among the many artists who have objected to their music being played at Trump rallies.

Country singer McBride wrote Thursday on social media that she had agreed to perform after she “was assured this was a nonpartisan event.”

“Yesterday things started changing and what we were told is, in fact, not what is happening,” she said.

In an Instagram post, Young MC questioned whether the National Mall shows would be nonpartisan. “The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,” he wrote, adding that he hoped to “perform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged.”

Day posted on Instagram, “Contrary to rumor, Morris Day & The Time will not be performing at the 'GREAT AMERICAN STATE FAIR.”

McBride was scheduled for June 25. Young MC and Milli Vanilli were among those on the roster for an “I Love the '90s” concert on June 26. Day was listed for June 27. Other performers announced include Flo Rida and Bret Michaels. The Great American State Fair is scheduled to run June 25-July 10.

At least one “I Love the 90s” act will be there: Vanilla Ice.

“He is proud to help celebrate America’s 250th Anniversary!” a representative for the “Ice Ice Baby” rapper wrote in an email to the AP. “Everyone is welcome to attend and celebrate USA’s Birthday and our Freedom!”

The Judicial Council of the 11th Judicial Circuit, which includes Alabama, Florida and Georgia, said in a February order that the judge would receive a private reprimand. The Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States last week affirmed that order.

The judge’s name and court location within the 11th Circuit were not disclosed, and The Associated Press was unable to confirm the judge's identity.

Federal judges are appointed for life but can be subject to disciplinary action, including censure, public or private reprimands and temporary withholding of cases. They can only be removed through impeachment by Congress.

According to the investigation, the judge and the unidentified officer had “sexual intercourse in the judge’s chambers during business hours within hearing distance of staff” and that the judge went to a partisan political event. The judge initially called the allegations “outrageous” and denied them.

In deciding to impose a private reprimand that kept the judge's name secret, the committee said it took into account that the judge recanted the false statements. The committee also found that the judge was unlikely to engage in similar misconduct in the future, noting that the judge had ended the relationship and committed to avoiding partisan political events in the future. And the committee took into account the judge’s “otherwise exemplary service to the court.”

“Although the special committee is deeply troubled by the conduct in which the judge engaged, the Subject Judge has demonstrated a strong propensity for rehabilitation and continued diligent service to the judiciary,” the committee’s report says.

Lester Tate, a lawyer who often defends Georgia judges facing misconduct in the state judicial system, said the punishment feels like a “slap on the wrist.”

“I'm shocked that there was not a more severe punishment for the false statements that were made by this judge during the course of the investigation,” he said, adding that he always advises his clients that it is best to tell the truth.

A person who is appointed for life and sits in judgment of others needs to be honest about their own flaws, and most people would likely find “being held up for a little public scorn” appropriate in this case, Tate said.

The genesis for the investigation was one of the judge's law clerks reporting the judge had engaged in sexual activity with an officer on multiple occasions in the judge’s office. It also was alleged the judge didn’t properly supervise clerks and on one occasion yelled and cursed at staff.

William Pryor, chief judge of the 11th Circuit, asked the judge to respond to the allegations. The judge replied the same day and “specifically denied” each allegation. In a follow-up email the next day, the judge speculated to Pryor that the law clerk may have invented things in retaliation for being required to work in the office. Pryor appointed a special committee to investigate.

The committee's review of logs and security footage showed an officer had frequently visited the judge's chambers in uniform around lunchtime. Six clerks recalled seeing someone who fit the officer's description, with three remembering overhearing what may have been sexual activity in the judge's office.

Three clerks remembered bringing summer interns on their first day to watch the judge presiding over a hearing in a criminal case. Right after that, they told the committee, the judge declined to have lunch with the interns, acknowledging having too many martinis the night before at a primary election victory party for a district attorney friend.

The clerks said the judge didn't provide sufficient guidance and “rarely, if ever, substantively edited civil orders the clerks drafted.” While clerks described an “eggshell culture,” the committee didn't find evidence of abusive behavior.

The judge ultimately admitted to having an extramarital sexual relationship with the officer but denied the allegations about mistreatment of staff, the committee wrote. The judge acknowledged to the committee having gone to a “mixer” of former employees of a district attorney's office, where the judge used to work, but said it was in a separate room from the victory party.

The judge also agreed to write apology letters to six former law clerks, not to accept the position of chief judge of the district when eligible and to refrain from serving on any Judicial Conference committee.

The families of detainees and their supporters said Thursday that immigrants being held at Delaney Hall in Newark have been subjected to pepper spray and physical force as the situation inside deteriorates.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said state health officials were also “denied full access” to the facility to conduct an inspection Thursday. The Democrat said they were allowed to inspect only a limited area.

“Unrest within Delaney Hall is directly related to its rampant inhumane conditions and the Trump administration’s refusal to dedicate appropriate resources for basic human needs like food and health care,” Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said in statement.

The GEO Group, the private contractor that runs the facility, confirmed that a “physical altercation” involving people detained at the facility prompted staff on Thursday to enact “response and control measures” including the "limited use of chemical agents.”

The company didn't elaborate on the nature of the altercation or how many people were involved but said all affected people were "promptly evaluated by on-site medical personnel and were cleared with no serious injuries.”

The company also denied allegations of poor conditions inside, dismissing them as “part of a coordinated, politically motivated campaign” by groups opposed to federal immigration enforcement.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees federal immigration enforcement, didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment but has previously denied there is any hunger strike, abuse or poor conditions inside the center.

Thursday's developments followed violent confrontations Wednesday night between protesters and U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement officers.

Groups of demonstrators, many wearing gas masks and other face coverings, linked arms in a human chain, videos and photos posted on social media show.

Some used trash cans, old mattresses, umbrellas and other materials as makeshift shields and barricades as they confronted U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement officers.

Others attempted to block people and vehicles from entering and exiting the building or threw orange traffic cones and other objects in the direction of ICE officers as they taunted them with expletives and vulgar chants.

The ICE officers, many of whom wore helmets and tactical vests, used pepper spray to try and disperse the protesters, according to videos posted to social media. Some used their batons to beat and push back protesters as the officers attempted to clear the roadway for vehicles.

DHS said about six demonstrators were arrested for assaulting law enforcement officers.

Earlier Wednesday, Democratic members of Congress from New York City toured the facility as part of an oversight visit. Reps. Jerry Nadler, Daniel Goldman and Adriano Espaillat, who all represent Manhattan, described dire conditions where people held in the facility are fed small portions of often spoiled food and their varied medical needs are ignored.

Baseball owners hadn’t proposed a firm cap since 1994. Their effort prompted a 7 1/2-month strike that forced the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years.

MLB's proposal would cap spending in 2027 at $245.3 million, using figures for luxury tax payrolls that include $20.1 million for benefits and the pre-arbitration bonus pool. It also would establish a payroll floor of $171.2 million, forcing some teams to spend more. The Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball's biggest spenders, had a $415.2 million payroll on opening day this year — around $170 million over the proposed cap.

“The cap is pretty much a nonstarter,” Pittsburgh outfielder Bryan Reynolds said.

Owners said they would discuss with the union both a phase-in schedule that would give teams like the Dodgers time to comply with the cap and an escrow system as part of a proposed seven-year deal. In an escrow system, a portion of a player's salary is withheld to ensure the agreed-to-revenue split when final figures are accounted for.

MLB maintained all current contracts would remain guaranteed and there would be no prohibition of guaranteed contracts under the cap system.

MLB said it would centralize local media revenue from the 30 teams equally and give players a 50-50 split as part of a proposal that would eliminate the current revenue-sharing plan among the clubs.

“Our salary cap and floor proposal levels the playing field while sharing baseball revenue with the players 50/50 as we grow the game together,” MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement. “Further, by sharing media revenue equally as part of our proposal, we can address another top fan concern of local TV blackouts.”

Baseball’s current five-year deal, agreed to in March 2022 after a 99-day lockout, expires Dec. 1. While a lockout next winter is expected, talks are not likely to intensify until late February or early March 2027, when the possibilities of losing regular-season games and revenue near. If regular-season games are lost, negotiations may become a standoff of which side can tolerate the most economic loss.

“Billionaire owners are not seeking to cap their profits or asset values, only player salaries,” union head Bruce Meyer said in a statement. “This isn’t out of generosity or a desire to protect the game’s well-being. It’s a play to control costs, increase profits and maximize franchise values — all at the expense of players past, present and future.”

Based on 2026 opening day figures, eight teams would have to cut payroll to get under the cap. The teams over are the two-time reigning World Series champion Dodgers, New York Mets ($379.2 million), New York Yankees ($339.6 million), Toronto ($319.5 million), Philadelphia ($315.2 million), Boston ($263.7 million), San Diego ($260.1 million) and Atlanta ($247.9 million).

Twelve teams would be required to increase payroll by a total of $617 million based on 2026 numbers: Miami ($81.8 million), Cleveland ($95.7 million), Tampa Bay ($108.2 million), the Chicago White Sox ($108.6 million), St. Louis ($114.4 million), Washington ($119.1 million), Pittsburgh ($122.6 million), Minnesota ($125.6 million), Milwaukee ($130.9 million), the Athletics ($139.2 million), Colorado ($142.2 million) and Cincinnati ($148.8 million).

“I think If you want to even remotely persuade us on a salary cap or even try to persuade players at all, this was very, very far from it," said Baltimore pitcher Chris Bassitt, a member of the union's eight-man executive subcommittee.

Owners and the union agreed to a luxury tax in 2003 designed to slow spending, but teams feel it has had little or no impact on the Dodgers and Mets in recent years. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was Kansas City in 2015, although Cleveland, Tampa Bay and Milwaukee all lead their divisions as of Thursday, while the Mets and Red Sox are in last place.

MLB said its revenue has grown by 247% since 2003 and player payroll has increased by 149% in that span.

Deputy commissioner Dan Halem and MLB executive vice president of baseball operations Morgan Sword presented the cap plan to players during a bargaining session at the commissioner's office, one day after the union made its economic proposal. Owners say a cap is needed to improve competitive balance and restrain wealthy teams from assembling starrier rosters than their smaller-market brethren.

Players want expanded free agency and salary arbitration rights along with almost doubling the major league minimum, increasing the money high-revenue teams share with the less-wealthy clubs and establishing penalties for teams that drop below payroll floors. MLB's proposal did not address those issues.

Other U.S. major sports leagues operate under a cap. The NBA had a cap in its initial season in 1946-47, then dropped that and began its modern version in 1984-85. NFL players and owners adopted a cap for the 1994 season, and the NHL did so in 2005-06 after a lockout wiped out the entire 2004-05 season.

The Dodgers shattered MLB's spending record with a combined $515 million in payroll and luxury tax last year en route to their second straight World Series title. Los Angeles' total was seven times the $68.7 million payroll of the Marlins, the lowest-spending team, and more than the payrolls of the bottom six clubs combined.

Players say a cap would hurt them, enrich owners and increase franchise values.

“Cap systems are always proposed without any consideration for the billions in franchise value that talent brings to owners," said Scott Boras, baseball's most prominent agent. “The blindness of that concept is something that the Major League Baseball Players Association has dealt with and will continue to deal with as we move forward.”

Without a cap, MLB stars have landed lucrative, guaranteed contracts that outpace what the biggest stars in other U.S. sports leagues make. Juan Soto's $765 million, 15-year contract with the Mets negotiated by Boras is believed to be the biggest in team sports and is far greater than the largest deals in the NFL (Patrick Mahomes at $450 million over 10 years) and NBA (Jayson Tatum at $314 million over five years).

MLB's last salary cap proposal in 1994 offered players a 50-50 split of revenue in a system that would have forced teams to maintain payrolls of 84-110% of the average. Salary arbitration would have been eliminated and the threshold for free agency would have been lowered from six years’ major league service to four — with the provision that a player’s former club could match any offer until he had six years.

MLB's offer came on June 14 that year, and players struck on Aug. 12. MLB withdrew the cap proposal the following Feb. 6 after pressure by the National Labor Relations Board. The strike ended on March 31 after U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor — now a Supreme Court Justice — issued an injunction restoring the work rules of the expired labor contract. Two days later, owners accepted the union's offer to return to work without an agreement. A deal wasn't reached until 1997.

“For generations, our members have fought against cap systems because they harm players at all levels, erode or eliminate contractual guarantees, pit player against player, lead to more work stoppages, not less, and get worse for players over time,” Meyer said. “Caps don’t lower ticket prices for fans, eliminate tanking or ensure teams are run with equal competence. They suffocate competition by offering owners an all-purpose excuse for inaction and mediocrity.”

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AP Sports Writer Noah Trister and AP freelance writer John Perrotto contributed to this report.

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

The fight has gone mostly in Carroll's favor, with one jury finding Trump liable for attacking her and a second awarding her tens of millions of dollars in damages for Trump’s public attacks on her credibility.

But numerous news organizations, citing anonymous sources, have reported that Trump's Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether Carroll lied under oath during the civil litigation. A person familiar with the matter, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing inquiry, said the perjury investigation is being led by the federal prosecutors’ office in Chicago. That person later clarified that the actual focus was on a nonprofit that had helped fund Carroll's case.

Late Thursday, Andrew Boutros, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, denied the reports. He issued a statement saying his office “has not opened — and has never opened — a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll.”

Here's a look at the history of the legal fight between Carroll and Trump.

Carroll's allegations and Trump's denials

Carroll first went public with her story about being sexually assaulted by Trump in June 2019, when an excerpt from her soon-to-be-released memoir “What Do We Need Men For?” was published in New York magazine.

In the book, she described bumping into Trump while shopping at Bergdorf Goodman, flirting with him, then physically fighting him off after he sexually assaulted her in a dressing room.

The claims drew angry denials from Trump.

“I've never met this person in my life. She is trying to sell a new book — that should be sold in the fiction section," he said in a statement.

“Number one, she's not my type. Number two, it never happened," he said in another statement.

Carroll sues Trump for defamation

In 2019, Carroll filed a libel lawsuit against Trump, saying his claims that she made the story up had “smeared her integrity, honesty and dignity — all in the national press.”

That legal claim wound up being bogged down for years over the legal question of whether, in denying the allegations, Trump had been fulfilling his duties as president. Trump claimed that as a federal employee carrying out his job, he was shielded from the defamation lawsuit.

At the time Carroll filed the legal claim, she was barred by law from suing him over the alleged sexual assault because so many years had passed.

New York changes the law

In 2022, New York changed its laws to give sexual abuse survivors a fresh chance to sue over attacks that happened in the distant past. Carroll was one of the first people to take advantage, filing a new legal claim against Trump alleging that he had raped her. She also sued over things he had said about her after leaving the White House.

That lawsuit moved more quickly through the courts. It went to trial in New York City in 2023.

Trump chose not to attend, leaving his lawyers to argue the case on his behalf.

The jury found that while Carroll had not proved she had been raped, under New York’s definition of that crime, Trump had sexually abused her. It also found that he had made some false statements about her that had damaged her reputation. Jurors awarded Carroll $5 million.

A second trial

Months later, in January 2024, a federal judge held a second trial to determine whether other things Trump had said about Carroll were defamatory.

Its purpose was narrow. Since a jury had already found that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll, the testimony was limited to how badly Carroll's reputation had been damaged by his comments assailing her credibility and denying the alleged attack.

This time, Trump attended the proceedings and testified for about three minutes.

“She said something that I considered to be a false accusation,” he told the jury, later adding, “I just wanted to defend myself, my family and, frankly, the presidency.”

Carroll testified that she faced a stream of death threats after Trump repeatedly attacked her story.

The new jury sided with Carroll again, awarding her more than $83 million in damages.

Appeals continue

Carroll has yet to receive any of the money while Trump's appeals of the two verdicts have moved through the courts.

Ruling in one of those appeals, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also addressed the issue of whether Carroll had been honest about who was paying for her legal representation.

Trump's lawyers had accused Carroll of hiding the fact that her lawyers had received money from an organization backed by Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn. The judges ruled that there was no evidence to suggest that Carroll was involved in that funding arrangement or had purposely lied about it when she was asked during a deposition in 2020 whether anyone was paying her legal fees.

“It showed that Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs,” the appeals court said.

A lawyer for Carroll declined to comment through a spokesperson on Thursday.

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Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.

At least five people also went to hospitals with injuries, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesperson Jason Evans said. It was unclear how many residents lived in the two-story complex in the Oak Cliff neighborhood south of downtown Dallas, where a towering plume of black smoke was visible for miles.

Evans did not rule out that more victims could be found as crews continued to sift through the charred remains of the building. By late Thursday, Evans said firefighters had searched less than half of the scene by hand and that some areas would require excavation.

“This was enormous,” Evans said of the fire.

As dozens of firefighters swarmed to the neighborhood, some residents’ friends and relatives worried as they tried unsuccessfully to reach each loved ones. Dozens of firefighters searched through the smoldering rubble of the building even as colleagues continued to drench the blackened debris.

Berry said firefighters were responding to a call of a gas leak when an explosion happened.

“We had the cavalry coming," Dallas Fire-Rescue Deputy Chief Mark Berry said. "But the explosion had already taken place.”

Atmos Energy, a natural gas provider, said in a statement they were told by fire officials that a construction crew unrelated to the company had damaged a pipeline near the site of the fire.

Kacee Proctor, a resident of the apartment building, said her mother had smelled gas inside a day earlier, but Proctor didn't think much of it at the time.

She wasn't home during the blast and was devastated that her cat, Shirley, was stuck inside.

“I’ve been sitting over there crying for several hours. I don’t know what to do. This is all I have right here,” Proctor said, gesturing to the clothes she was wearing.

She spent the afternoon chatting with neighbors who had evacuated, including a girl who was home babysitting her little sister and carried both the child and their dog to safety.

Natural gas service to the area remained shut off, and company officials were working with investigators on-site, the company said.

Authorities set up a family reunification center at a nearby high school. Several hours after the blaze, Frances Rizo was still trying to find her friend who lived in the building.

“She’s not answering her phone,” Rizo said.

Firefighters rushed to the scene as flames and black smoke billowed into the sky. Some trained their hoses on piles of smoking debris while others removed lumber and other burned wreckage to look for anyone trapped underneath. Little more than a blackened shell of the original building remained.

“The fire is contained, but our members are still working on the scene to do primary searches,” said Dallas Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief James Russ.

Julie Jensen said she was at home less than a block from the burning building when she heard a noise like an explosion that left her ears ringing.

“I was sitting on my couch watching TV — stuff flew off our walls,” Jensen said.

Jensen said she saw rising smoke and neighbors running when she looked out the window. She grabbed her family’s cat and left, finding a nearby parking lot to wait until she knew it was safe to return.

Sal De La Rosa was at work at a nearby auto repair shop when “all of a sudden we just heard and felt this huge boom.”

“We felt where the building kind of shook a little bit,” De La Rosa said.

He said a co-worker went outside and saw thick, black smoke rising into the air.

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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Frances Rizo's last name in one instance. It is Rizo, not Rizzo.

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Associated Press journalists Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed.

The fire happened at the Utumishi Girls School, which has more than 800 students, in the Gilgil area of central Kenya, Education Minister Julius Ogamba said, adding that 79 students were injured in the disaster.

Detectives were questioning students to determine whether any wrongdoing triggered the fire, and Ogamba said authorities were trying to find out whether the school's fire safety manual had been adhered to.

The victims were not yet been identified, a source of anger and frustration for parents who gathered outside the ruined dormitory. Some of them angrily confronted police guarding the site, demanding to see the remains of still-uncollected victims.

Bernard Omwandho, a representative of the parents’ association, urged calm as the police investigation continued.

“Most of the parents who are still here are those whose daughters are being questioned,” he said, adding that he hoped that those being questioned will be “able to at least shed some light or give us a hint on what really transpired.”

The school is located about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of the capital, Nairobi. The government-owned secondary school is managed and sponsored by the Kenya Police Service. Many of the students are the daughters of police officers.

Elizabeth Rioba, a mother of two girls at the school, said she was relieved to see her daughters but expressed concern because one of the girls saw her friend get stuck while trying to jump out of a window.

“She’s very traumatized, but I’m relieved she’s OK and I’m sad for all these children who have died,” she told The Associated Press.

The Kenya Red Cross said several students were evacuated and are receiving treatment in various hospitals. The group said it sent psychological support teams for students and their families.

Kenyan President William Ruto expressed his condolences in a statement. “No words can truly ease the pain of losing young lives filled with promise, hope, and dreams for the future,” Ruto said. “As a nation, we mourn with the parents, guardians, teachers, and fellow students who are enduring this unimaginable tragedy.”

Fires at schools have been a cause of concern for education officials in East Africa, where classrooms and dormitories are often crowded, and there’s usually no firefighting equipment in place. Officials sometimes cite poor electrical connections as sparking blazes.

In 2024, 21 students burned to death in a school fire in central Kenya. Ruto declared three days of mourning.

Kenya’s deadliest school fire in recent history occurred in 2001 when 67 students died in a dormitory fire in Machakos County.

In 2017, 10 students died in a school fire in Nairobi. A student was charged with murder.

It’s no coincidence the Indy 500 runs during Memorial Day weekend. The big event has a long history of honoring not just race winners, but military members and Gold Star families--including that of Drew Ross.

The Rockbridge County grad and Lexington native was killed in action in 2018 while deployed in Afghanistan. Since forming the Drew Ross Memorial Foundation, the goal has always been to steer Drew’s story into positive inspiration.

“I said, you know, I’ve actually been wanting to get Drew’s name on some sort of a car,” said Drew’s sister Sarah Ross Geisen.

Thanks to a partnership between Legacies Alive and United Rentals, Sarah’s dream shifted into gear when she received a phone call on Good Friday, informing her that Drew Ross’ name would be displayed on the United Rentals car in the 110th running of the Indy 500.

“I was just sobbing,” Sarah said. “They were crying. I was crying. So it was just, it was just really,really cool.”

She and her family were flown out to IMS where they had the honor of revealing the stickers on the car to be driven by Graham Rahal.

“We get over to the transporter and they had me, you know, pull that off and two of my sons were able to pull it off on the other side. And it was, it was really surreal to see it,” Sarah recounted. “Graham realized that they were born just 22 days apart. So Graham looked at the date and said, ‘I was also born in January of 1989.’ And I was speechless.”

Rahal finished 20th in the race, but for Sarah and her family, it’s considered a win. Driving a Legacy in the Indy 500 that began nearly 500 miles away.

“Obviously not everybody there knew that Drew’s name was on this car, but you know, they see Drew’s spirit, you know, running around that track at 200 and some miles an hour. And there’s just a little bit of Drew there. And that, that’s enough for me, you know, just to put a little bit of Drew in as many places as we can,” Sarah said.

The National Assembly voted 254-0 — a rare show of unanimity — to adopt a bill repealing Code Noir, or Black Code, the 1685 decree King Louis XIV signed to govern slaves across France’s colonies.

The law turned human beings into chattel, allowing them to be worked, beaten, sold, raped and murdered.

And the realization that France never formally did away with it left many aghast. Debate in the chamber turned raw on Thursday.

Steevy Gustave — a lawmaker descended from enslaved people on the Caribbean island of Martinique, now a French overseas department — told colleagues that the repeal was necessary, “but no vote alone can repair centuries of shattered lives.”

“We are not descendants of slaves,” he said, bursting into tears. “We are descendants of human beings born free, then reduced to the worst — reduced to slavery.”

The code’s reach was total. Article 44 declared the enslaved “movable property” — assets a master could acquire like real estate. Those who fled faced branding, the amputation of their ears, and even death. The word of an enslaved person counted for nothing.

Code Noir’s 60 articles “should never have survived the abolition of slavery” in the 19th century, President Emmanuel Macron said last week.

“The silence, even the indifference, that we have maintained for nearly two centuries toward this Black Code is no longer an oversight,” Macron said. “It has become a form of offense.”

Like French presidents before him, Macron stopped short of an apology.

France ran the third-largest slave trade, shipping about 1.4 million Africans to plantations whose sugar wealth built the French cities of Nantes and Bordeaux. The French empire later spanned four continents.

Others see the repeal as something more telling — a symptom, they argue, of a country that has yet to reckon fully with that past, one of many slow steps along the way.

Calls for France to face its past

In law, officially eliminating it is the easy part, observers say. Code Noir lost all authority in 1848, when France abolished slavery.

France didn't relinquish its slave colonies: the four oldest — Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana and Réunion — were made full French overseas departments in 1946. That means they're governed from Paris like any other.

Their roughly 1.9 million people, most descended from the enslaved, are French citizens.

Despite being fully part of France, the overseas departments remain among its poorest territories. Unemployment runs roughly double the mainland rate, and more than three-quarters of households in the Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte live below the national poverty line.

Shocked to find the law wasn't annulled

Before he discovered the truth, the French lawmaker who put forward the proposal to repeal the law didn't know it still existed.

Max Mathiasin, from Guadeloupe, had bought copies of the text over the years and left them on his shelf.

“As the great-great-grandson of people who were enslaved, I had never been able to read it in full,” he said. “This was made by human beings — against human beings.”

For him, the vote is “a way of restoring our ancestors, restoring our humanity” before a France whose motto is liberty, equality, fraternity. “It means living up to the Republican promise.”

That promise, he says, is still unkept at home.

“In Guadeloupe,” Mathiasin said, “in the most important positions, in the structures of the state, they are white.”

A colonial exception that never ended

The Foundation for the Memory of Slavery is chaired by a former prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, and its deputy director is Pierre-Yves Bocquet — both white men.

Bocquet calls Code Noir the birthplace of France’s “colonial exception” — the principle that the French Republic’s founding rights could be suspended for those under its rule.

The principle outlived the empire, he said: “Even today, we accept that people in the overseas territories can have fewer rights than in mainland France.”

France is hardly the only country still holding fragments of empire — the United Kingdom, the United States and the Netherlands still have overseas territories.

But what sets France apart, observers say, is that it made its slave colonies equal departments of the Republic, not dependencies it governs from afar.

The state insists that the overseas departments are France like anywhere else, even as the people who live there say they are treated as less.

Most major colonial powers, including Britain, Spain and Portugal, had laws governing slavery in their colonies. In each case, those laws fell away when slavery itself was abolished, leaving no single text to repeal.

France’s Code Noir was different, experts say: a single, named royal law that no one ever formally erased, even after France abolished slavery.

France is 'still in a form of apartheid’

For Max Relouzat, 81, president of the Association for the Memory of Slaveries, the repeal matters, because so little else has.

His African ancestor had no name under the law, only a number and a registration code — the family that lived in Martinique was given the name Relouzat at emancipation, likely after Nelouzat, a village in the Auvergne region of central France.

What galls him, he said, is what the symbolism leaves untouched: systemic racism in France.

“Under the cover of departmentalization, a colonial system was maintained,” Relouzat said. “If the overseas departments are part of France, why is there a ministry for the overseas?”

In France, he said, “we are still today in a form of apartheid … a form of colonial continuity.”

‘Racism is the legacy of slavery itself’

For some who have fought longest, Thursday isn't the milestone it appears.

For Florence Alexis, a slavery expert and daughter of the Haitian writer Jacques Stephen Alexis, the real turning point came 25 years ago. In 2001, the Taubira law made France the first country to call the slave trade, and slavery, crimes against humanity.

“That is what changed my life,” Alexis said.

For her, racism is the legacy of slavery itself, not of one edict.

“When I was a child at school, they called me the little monkey,” she said. “People made animal cries when I walked past — as they still do in football stadiums today.”

Paris-born Élodie Léon, 29, whose family is from French Guiana, welcomes the repeal, but resents the delay.

“Symbolic neglect is also neglect,” she said.

“It shocks me,” said Muriel Jean-Baptiste, a Paris-born nurse whose parents are from Martinique. “A law that treated Black people as property was left sitting there.”

The history of reparations

At the Taubira law’s 25th anniversary on May 21, Macron floated the idea of reparations — something that France has long stayed away from addressing.

He called it “a question we must not refuse,” but one on which “we must not make false promises.”

He committed no money, instead defining repair first as truth-telling, education and historical work.

The wealthiest of France's plantations were in Saint-Domingue, in the Caribbean, where the enslaved rose up and won independence in 1804 as Haiti. France then forced the freed to pay reparations for the loss of their masters — a debt cleared only in 1947.

France isn't alone. In the United States, federal reparations legislation has stalled for decades. California approved an apology, but no cash.

But the timing of Macron's latest speech was awkward. Two months earlier, France abstained when the U.N. General Assembly voted 123-3, with 52 abstentions, to call the trans-Atlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity.

And this month at the Africa Forward Summit in Kenya, days after declaring himself a “pan-Africanist,” Macron seized a microphone and ordered the room to quiet down.

“As soon as he sets foot on the African continent,” French opposition lawmaker Danièle Obono said, “he can’t help but behave like a colonizer.”

The repeal of the nCode Noir, said Bocquet, “will have no direct effect.” Whether it helps France fight racism and inequality in its overseas territories, he said, “remains to be seen.”

“It is easy for the French authorities, and for Macron, to do this,” Alexis added. “Because it commits them to nothing.”

The Associated Press and other news organizations, citing anonymous sources, reported that the federal prosecutors’ office in Chicago had opened an investigation into Carroll examining possible perjury allegations.

But Andrew Boutros, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, issued a statement roughly 24 hours after the first report was published saying that his office “has not opened — and has never opened — a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll.”

A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, initially told the AP on Thursday morning that investigators were focused on Carroll but later clarified that the actual focus was on a nonprofit that had helped fund her case.

A lawyer for Carroll declined to comment through a spokesperson on Thursday.

The Justice Department investigation into Carroll was first reported by CNN on Wednesday evening.

Reports of the investigation added to the perception from Democrats and other former officials that a Justice Department meant to make prosecutorial decisions independent of the White House is being weaponized against the president’s political enemies. Trump's Justice Department has opened multiple investigations into perceived adversaries of the Republican president, including securing an indictment last month against former FBI Director James Comey.

Carroll has said a flirtatious, chance encounter with Trump in 1996 at Bergdorf Goodman’s Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan ended violently. She said Trump slammed her against a dressing room wall, pulled down her tights and forced himself on her. Trump has called the allegations a “made-up scam," and he has attacked her motivations, saying they were politically driven or arose from a desire to promote her memoir.

A jury in 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her, and she was awarded $5 million. The following year, another jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in a defamation case related to Trump's social media posts about her.

The reports this week said the Justice Department was scrutinizing a statement Carroll made in the course of the civil litigation that no one else was paying her legal fees. It later became public that a Chicago-based organization backed by Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, had helped fund Carroll's case. Trump's lawyers in the civil case accused Carroll of concealing that information, which they said called into question whether the case was politically motivated.

Multiple news organizations, including The Washington Post and NBC News, cited unnamed sources in reporting Thursday that the investigation was actually centered on Hoffman's nonprofit, which the person familiar with the matter confirmed to AP.

A month before the first trial in 2023, then-Trump lawyer Alina Habba sought to delay it, saying in court papers that new revelations about Hoffman partially funding Carroll’s case “raises significant questions as to Plaintiff’s credibility, as well as her motive for commencing and/or continuing the instant action.”

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a Dec. 30, 2024, ruling, upheld the $5 million jury award from 2023. The court addressed Carroll’s credibility after Trump accused her of lying, during a deposition, about how her case was funded.

The court cited Carroll’s explanation that when the question about Hoffman's contributions was first posed to her in 2022, she had forgotten about “the limited outside funding” received in September 2020.

“It showed that Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs,” the appeals court said.

Hoffman has defended the financial assistance, saying in a social media post that “supporting women's fight for progress and justice in philanthropy, politics and business has been a longstanding priority of mine, as is supporting America against the threat of Trump.”

A court entry earlier this month said Trump will not have to pay the award until the U.S. Supreme Court gets a chance to review the case or reject an appeal. The appeals court agreed to a request by one of Trump’s lawyers that it let Trump delay the payment to Carroll, though he was required to post a $7.4 million bond to cover any additional interest costs, a request Carroll’s attorney had made.

____

Associated Press reporter Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.

The setting sun was framed by a canyon of skyscrapers Thursday as it sunk below the horizon, perfectly aligned with the Manhattan street grid.

The dramatic spectacle was just the first of the year. A fuller version of the setting sun is expected to be seen between New York's famed skyscrapers on Friday. The phenomenon then repeats on July 11 and 12.

Manhattanhenge happens about three weeks before and after the summer solstice.

Over the years, it has become a must-see event, bringing photographers and others out onto the city sidewalks on spring and summer evenings.

Some background on the uniquely New York experience:

Where does the name Manhattanhenge come from?

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson coined the term in a 1997 article in the magazine “Natural History.” Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium at New York's American Museum of Natural History, said he was inspired by a visit to Stonehenge as a teenager.

The future host of TV shows such as PBS' "Nova ScienceNow" was part of an expedition led by Gerald Hawkins, the scientist who first theorized that Stonehenge's mysterious megaliths were an ancient astronomical observatory.

It struck Tyson, a native New Yorker, that the setting sun framed by Manhattan's high-rises could be compared to the sun's rays striking the center of the Stonehenge circle on the solstice.

Unlike the Neolithic Stonehenge builders, the planners who laid out Manhattan did not mean to channel the sun. It just worked out that way.

When is Manhattanhenge?

Manhattanhenge does not take place on the summer solstice itself, which is June 21 this year. Instead, it happens about three weeks before and after the solstice. That's when the sun aligns itself perfectly with the Manhattan grid's east-west streets.

Viewers get to choose between two different versions of the phenomenon.

On Thursday, and again on July 12, half the sun is above the horizon and half below it at the moment of alignment with Manhattan's streets, according to the Hayden Planetarium.

On Friday and July 11, the whole sun will appear to hover between buildings just before sinking into the New Jersey horizon across the Hudson River.

Where can you see Manhattanhenge?

The traditional viewing spots are along the city's broad east-west thoroughfares: 14th Street, 23rd Street, 34th Street, 42nd Street and 57th Street.

The farther east you go, the more dramatic the vista as the sun hits building facades on either side of the street. It is also possible to see Manhattanhenge across the East River in the Long Island City section of Queens.

Is Manhattanhenge an organized event?

No, not really.

Seeing Manhattanhenge is mostly a DIY affair. People gather on east-west streets a half-hour or so before sunset and snap photos as dusk approaches. That's if the weather is fine. There's no visible Manhattanhenge on rainy or cloudy days.

Do other cities have similar sunset events?

Similar effects occur in other cities with uniform street grids. Chicagohenge and Baltimorehenge happen when the setting sun lines up with the gridded streets in those cities in March and September, around the spring and fall equinoxes. Torontohenge occurs in February and October.

But Manhattanhenge is particularly striking because of the height of the buildings and the unobstructed path to the Hudson River.

The state party chairs of five Democratic parties wrote a letter Thursday to the Democratic National Committee calling on party leaders "to do everything in your power to ensure South Carolina continues to serve as the indispensable first proving ground for Democratic presidential nominees." The DNC is currently debating the order in which states will vote in the next round of presidential primaries.

The state should hold the first presidential balloting in 2028, they argued, in part because it “is not simply a geographic starting point. It is a moral and political compass for our party and our nation.”

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting this week, hearing presentations from the dozen states seeking to lead off its 2028 calendar. Other southern states, including Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, are in the mix.

South Carolina chair Christale Spain, who made her argument on behalf of the state Thursday afternoon, has said she believes her state has “more to offer than other states do,” including “the role of Black folks.”

“The fight for voting rights is no longer just a courtroom battle, it is an electoral one,” the Democratic chairs from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia wrote in the letter, provided to The Associated Press ahead of its release. “And it begins in South Carolina.”

“Any effort to diminish South Carolina’s role in the primary process would be a step backward for the Democratic Party’s stated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” they wrote. “It would signal to Southern Democrats and to Black voters in particular, that their loyalty to this party is taken for granted. We refuse to accept that, and we will stand firmly against it.”

In a separate letter to DNC leaders, Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus Institute — which has partnered with the South Carolina Democratic Party on several presidential debates in the past — reiterated those sentiments.

“To remove or diminish South Carolina’s standing in the primary calendar would send precisely the wrong message to Black voters and to every voter who has been told their voice does not matter until after the outcome is already decided,” Thompson wrote.

For years, South Carolina has held one of the earliest Democratic primaries in the country. As the first southern state to hold its primary, South Carolina has been the initial gauge of a candidate’s ability to appeal to Black voters, who play an outsized role among the state's Democratic voters.

In 2020, Joe Biden's ability to make that appeal — along with a coveted endorsement from Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state's lone congressional Democrat and for a time the top Black Democratic lawmaker on Capitol Hill — helped him revive a flagging primary campaign, win a resounding victory in South Carolina, and go on to secure the nomination.

For the 2024 cycle, Biden led a DNC effort to have South Carolina go first overall in the party’s primary, citing the state’s more racially diverse population compared to the traditional first-in-the-nation states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are overwhelmingly white. New Hampshire, which rejected the DNC’s plan, held a leadoff primary ahead of South Carolina anyway, and Biden — who didn’t campaign or have his name on the ballot — still won by a sizable margin after supporters mounted a write-in campaign on his behalf.

Biden, who also handily won South Carolina's 2024 contest, pushed for a revamped primary calendar that saw Nevada go second. He also pushed the Democratic primary in Michigan — a large and diverse swing state — ahead of the expansive field of states voting on Super Tuesday, the date in early March when multiple states hold primaries and the largest number of delegates needed to win the nomination are up for grabs.

Although the calendar won't officially be set until later this summer, Democrats likely to be among their party's 2028 contenders have been making the rounds in South Carolina for months. ___

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

In all, 11 people were killed in the disaster, including the three yet to be recovered, and eight injured. It’s one of the deadliest U.S. workplace accidents in recent decades.

A tank containing more than 500,000 gallons (1.9 million liters) of a chemical mixture used to break down wood for making paper collapsed Tuesday morning at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. in Longview, a city along the Columbia River.

The collapse occurred during a shift change, and the six workers whose remains were recovered had been in an area where they would congregate in the morning as they awaited their assignments for the day, said Matt Amos, Longview fire battalion chief.

Among the victims were a grandfather who was always willing to help anyone and a young husband described as selfless and caring, according to friends who organized fundraisers for the victims’ families.

The recovery of the victims has been slow and deliberate, complicated by the dangers posed by the remaining chemicals and other industrial hazards, Amos said. Crews were steering clear of a zone closest to the tank, in case of further collapse. They have been working with engineers to determine whether damaged buildings around the tank are safe to enter.

As they collect the remains, crews must decontaminate them before turning them over to the coroner's office for identification. The searchers also must decontaminate themselves.

Authorities said the cause of the disaster is still under investigation. They have not released the names of those who were killed, but friends and relatives had begun confirming their names and posting online fundraisers to support their families.

Gilbert Bernal, a grandfather who was an electrician at the plant, was the first confirmed death, said his friend Todd Cornwell.

“He was one of the most genuinely good people that you’ve ever met. He would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He was always there willing to help in whatever needed to be done," Cornwell said.

CJ Doran, who was 26, was among those presumed dead, according to a GoFundMe post verified by the crowdfunding site.

He was a husband who was “the spiritual leader of their family, the joy of their home, and the family provider,” the post said.

Other victims included John Forsberg, a father to two young children; Jared Ammons, who had two children and another on the way; and Braydon Finkas, an electrician at the plant who, along with his longtime partner, Kaitlyn Kincaid, took in exchange students and others in need at their home in Cathlamet, according to their friend Rex Czuba.

Finkas was always willing to help someone cut hay or to buy a beer for a new face in their small town, he said.

“He was a really big part of the town,” Czuba said. “He really jumped in and became a part of the community so quickly.”

The tank failure also injured eight people, including a firefighter. Some suffered burns or inhalation injuries, authorities said.

The mill's Japanese parent company, Nippon Paper Group, said in a statement Wednesday that it was offering its “deepest condolences and heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved families.”

Authorities said Thursday the spill hadn’t contaminated the air and drinking water in and around Longview, a city of about 40,000 people along Washington's border with Oregon.

The community, which was founded at the confluence of the Cowlitz and Columbia rivers by a Kansas City timber baron in the 1920s, has deep ties to paper and lumber industries.

Generations of families have worked in the mills, and many residents who spoke with The Associated Press had family members or friends connected to the Nippon Dynawave plant. The sprawling facility, which employs about 1,000 people, makes material for tissues, printing paper, cups, plates, and cartons. It sits along the Columbia next to other timber, paper and chemical businesses.

Crews were working to flush water from ditches near the plant and dilute it before pumping it into the river.

Some contamination has reached the river, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it has had no noticeable effect.

___

Johnson reported from Seattle. Associated Press Martha Bellisle and Hallie Golden in Seattle, Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

The move Wednesday by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine comes as tax breaks for energy-hungry AI data centers are increasingly playing a role in state budgets and the industry is under pressure to pay the full costs of the vast network of its computing warehouses needed to power AI.

The size of Ohio's tax break skyrocketed, dwarfing previous projections, as opposition to data centers is sweeping through cities, suburbs and towns there and prompting lawmakers to form a committee to study the impact.

In the meantime, residents are trying to bypass the GOP-controlled Legislature and get a referendum on November's midterm election ballot that's designed to permanently ban hyperscale data centers, likely the strictest such statewide ban under consideration in the U.S.

DeWine's office cited the rising utilization of the tax break and the state Legislature's new research undertaking to declare a “pause” in granting it to new applicants.

"The governor felt it was the right time to let the citizens know, let businesses know that we're going to pause on new offers of this tax incentive while that process plays out," DeWine's spokesperson, Dan Tierney, said Thursday.

DeWine stressed that he supports data centers — calling them a critical component in today’s economy — and that the roughly $37 billion in data center-related investment in 2024 and 2025 in Ohio has been worthwhile. Meanwhile, business groups — including the state Chamber of Commerce — and labor unions warned that pausing the tax break put Ohio at risk of losing tech-sector investments to other states.

The state, in 2024, had used previous history in projecting that the exemption would total $136 million in fiscal 2025 and $142 million in fiscal 2026. It was $554 million in 2024 and nearly $1.6 billion in 2025, the state reported.

The resumption of Ohio's tax break — should it resume — could happen under a new governor: DeWine is term-limited and the race is on to replace him. The Republican nominee, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy — an Ivy League-educated biotech billionaire — likes to talk about turning the Ohio River Valley into the next Silicon Valley.

However, Ramaswamy and Democratic nominee Amy Acton could share the midterm ballot in November with the citizen-led drive to ban the new construction of large data centers across Ohio. It faces a July 1 deadline to gather more than 400,000 voter signatures.

State tax breaks for the massive data center industry are facing growing criticism by governors and lawmakers.

The cost is likely rising as data center and AI-related investments drive higher consumer spending in the U.S. and tech giants keep boosting their spending commitment to hyperscale data centers.

In Virginia, budget negotiations have been hung up for months on a bid by Senate Democrats to eliminate the roughly $1.6 billion annual tax break.

Thirty-eight states have some form of a sales tax break for data centers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Many were approved when data centers were a small, but growing part of the economy, and well before the late 2022 debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched an intensifying buildout of increasingly large data centers.

Ohio's exemption is fairly broad, applying not only to construction materials, but to the expensive equipment — such as server racks and cooling systems — used in data centers. Operators might buy new server racks every couple of years as the technology improves.

DeWine's order was a surprise.

Dorsey Hager, executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, where union members spend much of their time on data center projects, said he was upset with DeWine and trying to understand the governor's reasons.

He worried, he said, that developers that were in the midst of trying to finalize plans or permits for a project might have second thoughts.

Lawmakers acknowledged the opposition in announcing their joint data center committee on May 13, and said their mission was to ensure that Ohioans have accurate information about the economic, environmental and security impact of data center development.

“We’re well aware of initiatives to limit Ohio data center development during this critical point in America’s history,” state Rep. Adam Holmes told a news conference. “This public concern has become a priority issue for us and could have dramatic impact on Ohio and American’s future.”

___

Follow Marc Levy at http://twitter.com/timelywriter

Not everyone at this week's competition appreciates the change.

“I feel like they should not have moved it. The old venue was better. Because it's a bit of a hassle, getting on the bus and going there and then coming back,” said 14-year-old Yahya Mohammed, a three-time speller from Hoffman Estates, Illinois. “The old venue was more spacious, and it feels kind of isolated in the hotel.”

As the National Spelling Bee began with Tuesday's preliminary rounds, spellers and their families marveled at the historical significance of their new venue and the nearby cultural opportunities while also dealing with logistical hurdles: crowded hallways, limited dining options and shuttle bus rides to and from their hotel.

Built in 1929 by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Constitution Hall sits a few blocks from the Washington Monument and the White House. Spellers and their families are staying at the nearby J.W. Marriott, a favored haunt of lobbyists and interest groups, and the quickest route to the competition venue would normally be a stroll across the Ellipse, the grassy expanse south of the Executive Mansion.

However, the Ellipse is surrounded by temporary fencing and security checkpoints as crews construct an outdoor octagon on the South Lawn of the White House for UFC Freedom 250, a June 14 event timed for President Donald Trump's 80th birthday and marking the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.

“Two very disparate forms of entertainment,” said Rajeev Malhotra of Boston, the father of speller Sanjay Malhotra, describing the bee and the mixed martial arts extravaganza.

Venue change brings heavy security but plenty of history and culture

Security was beefed up at the hall, with guards and metal detectors stationed at every entrance and explosive-sniffing dogs patrolling the hallways. Three blocks away and three days earlier, a man opened fire at a White House security checkpoint, injuring a bystander before he was fatally shot by Secret Service officers.

At the prior venue, the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland, spellers moved freely throughout the building, roaming between their hotel rooms, the ballroom that housed the competition stage and a massive food court where they grabbed quick meals between last-minute study sessions.

“Last year was better,” said Arpit Aggarwal of Columbia, Missouri, whose daughter, Ananya, is competing for the second time. “Everything was in one place.”

“It's an adjustment,” Ananya's mom, Deepti Bahl, said diplomatically.

Other spellers appreciated the buzz of gathering downtown, saying it was more appropriate for a national competition. The bee began in 1925 and was held at a series of Washington hotels before it moved to the suburbs in 2011.

“I just love being here, right next to the National Mall. You can see the Smithsonian, you can see the Jefferson Memorial. It's such a lively and unique city and I love being in the heart of it,” said three-time speller Oliver Halkett, a 14-year-old from Los Angeles. “There's so much history, there's so much culture. The memorials and the museums are fascinating to go to.”

Speller Andie Seavey of Fairbanks, Alaska, and her mom, Kristin, went to see the musical “The Great Gatsby” at the National Theater next door to the hotel.

After 80 spellers were eliminated Tuesday during onstage spelling and vocabulary rounds, the remaining 167 competitors reconvened at the hotel for a high-stakes written test that determined the 100 or so who would move on to Wednesday morning's quarterfinals. The competition concludes Thursday night.

At the spelling bee, the bell is not necessarily the end

Last year, Faizan Zaki won the National Spelling Bee even though he misspelled a word and heard the dreaded bell rung by head judge Mary Brooks. In fact, he knew it after a few letters. He stopped spelling and told Brooks, “Just ring the bell.”

Faizan's flub let his two remaining competitors back in, since all three misspelled during the round.

Kushi Gottimukkala of Morrisville, North Carolina, is one of a few spellers competing this year who know what that feels like.

At her regional bee, sponsored by the NFL's Carolina Panthers, it was down to Kushi and two other spellers for the final spot at nationals. She misspelled “anchialine,” and she thought it was over, only to see the other two spellers mess up.

Kushi rode the emotional roller coaster and ultimately got through.

“I was still thinking about the mistake, but I was also really grateful that I got a second chance, and so I took that into consideration and decided to focus on my next word,” she said.

Spellers have to prepare for the possibility that missing a word isn't necessarily the end.

Oliver Halkett, too, has competed in a bee where he got a word wrong but wasn't eliminated. He battled through the disappointment by focusing only on the word in front of him.

“It's a peculiar situation, but I think, above all, mental clarity is so important, especially in those latter rounds,” he said. “I close my eyes and do some deep breathing and I visualize the word, and it's just me and the word. That's how you have to approach every single word.

“Treat every word as if it's your first and last word.”

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This story has been updated to correct the name of Boston speller Sanjay Malhotra, not Rajeev Malhotra.

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Ben Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012. Follow his work here.