The S&P 500 fell 0.2% a day after dropping from its all-time high and coming just short of its longest winning streak in more than three decades. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 496 points, or 1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.8% lower.

Most stocks on Wall Street climbed, aided by a 2.6% drop for the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, to $95.18 per barrel. That gave back a chunk of its climb this week caused by the latest flare-ups of fighting between Iran and the United States and its allies.

The hope and general expectation on Wall Street seems to be that the United States and Iran will ultimately agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers. That would improve the global flow of crude and hopefully lower its price. Such hopes, along with strong profit reports from U.S. companies, helped launch the S&P 500 on a nine-day winning streak that ended Wednesday.

More U.S. companies joined the list of those topping analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter, but many dropped nevertheless, particularly in the high-flying technology industry.

Broadcom sank 14.4%, even though both profit and revenue in the latest quarter topped analysts’ expectations for the chip company. CEO Hock Tan said its AI semiconductor revenue more than doubled to $10.8 billion during the quarter and that demand is only getting bigger. He is forecasting AI semiconductor growth to top 200% in the current quarter.

Investors, though, may have been expecting even more after Broadcom’s stock came into the day with a 38.5% surge for the year so far. That towered over the already strong 10.3% rise for the S&P 500 index, and Broadcom has grown to become Wall Street’s sixth-biggest stock and one of its most influential.

Analysts have been saying AI stocks may have run too high and the broad U.S. stock market may be set for a slowdown following an unrelenting streak of nine straight winning weeks for the S&P 500, its longest since 2023.

Other AI winners likewise gave back some of their big gains. Marvell Technology sank 4.4% after soaring 47% through the start of the week. Micron Technology, the latest company to see its total value top $1 trillion because of AI euphoria, fell 6.2%.

CrowdStrike Holdings dropped 9.7% even though the cybersecurity company’s profit and revenue for the latest quarter topped analysts’ expectations. CEO George Kurtz said the latest quarter was when “the worlds of cybersecurity and frontier AI collided,” and the company said it’s splitting its stock to make its share price more affordable.

But its stock came into the day with a 59.5% surge for the year so far. And it beat forecasts for some financial measures by less than it usually does.

Outside of tech, PVH Corp., the company behind the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, tumbled 29.2% even though it also beat Wall Street’s first-quarter sales and profit targets. CEO Stefan Larsson warned that it’s feeling “the prolonged effects of the Middle East conflict, which is putting pressure on” customers in the region.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased with oil prices. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.46% from 4.49% late Wednesday. That can lessen the pressure on not only stock prices but also the economy in general.

High yields worldwide are threatening to slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments. They have already forced the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its most expensive level in nine months, and they could curtail companies’ borrowing to build the artificial-intelligence data centers that have supported the U.S. economy’s growth recently.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a weaker finish in Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.8%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.5% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.4% for some of the larger losses.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

The Hezbollah announcement came as Israeli strikes killed at least four people, according to local authorities, and a U.N. peacekeeper was killed in the crossfire.

Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, in a written statement read on TV, said the agreement’s demand that Hezbollah fighters leave southern Lebanon under fire would mean “surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy’s goals.”

“What we are concerned about is an end to the aggression, ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal,” he said, underscoring that Hezbollah had not made any commitment to stop fighting. “So long as our villages are not safe and are being bombed and destroyed and our people are killed," he said, northern Israel “will not be safe.”

Kassem called the negotiations “absurd, humiliating, and insulting” and designed to give Israel control of what it has been unable to wrest through war.

The ongoing fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for oil and gas. Its closure has jolted the world economy.

Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who faced a rare rebuke from Congress on Wednesday, has sought to downplay the diplomatic deadlock and the failure of declared ceasefires to end the fighting. He told reporters that in the Middle East, "a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

Peacekeeper killed in crossfire

A Serbian peacekeeper was killed, and two other peacekeepers were wounded, when a mortar struck their location near Marjayoun, a Christian-majority town that has seen intense fighting, according to the U.N. mission, known as UNIFIL, and Serbia's Defense Ministry.

Neither said whether the mortar fire came from Israel or Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said a drone strike killed a motorcyclist and wounded four people in the village of Maaroub. It said airstrikes on the village of Sohmor in the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon, killed three people and wounded others. It also reported airstrikes in other areas of the south.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has warned people not to go into parts of southern Lebanon where it says it is striking Hezbollah facilities.

Fighting has raged despite declared ceasefires

Hezbollah resumed rocket fire days after Israel and the United States launched their surprise Feb. 28 attack on Iran, which backs Hezbollah. Before then, Israel had regularly carried out strikes in Lebanon against what it said were militant targets, often killing civilians, despite an earlier truce reached in 2024.

Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, acknowledged Thursday that the ongoing war was straining northern Israeli towns living under the threat of Hezbollah fire. He said Israel's operations in Iran and Lebanon had “created a new security reality,” by weaking Iran and Hezbollah “to an unprecedented degree.”

After Hezbollah's rocket and drone attacks resumed, Israeli troops seized around a fifth of Lebanon, pushing further into the country's south than at any time since the end of Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation.

In the southern city of Sidon, residents reacted to Wednesday's ceasefire announcement with skepticism, saying previous agreements had failed to stop the violence.

“Every few days a ceasefire is announced, but people keep getting killed,” said Mayada Hijazi.

“It’s all talk and no action,” said Salah Nassab. “We keep going back to our homes, and then we get displaced again, back and forth. We’re very tired."

More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon and over 1.2 million have been displaced. The fighting has killed 27 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.

The ceasefire came from ongoing Israeli-Lebanese talks

The latest declared ceasefire came about through U.S. brokered talks held between Israel and Lebanon's government, which accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and had made efforts to disarm it before the latest hostilities.

The ceasefire agreement calls for Lebanon's armed forces to take control of security zones in Lebanon from which the militants would be banned.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday called the new agreement "the last chance to enter a final and comprehensive ceasefire.” He said Lebanon was ready to implement Wednesday's deal once he receives responses from relevant factions in Lebanon, including Hezbollah. The United States — and Trump himself — would determine how and when the deal is implemented, Aoun told journalists on Thursday.

The agreement terms Hezbollah “an enemy" of Israel, the U.S. and Lebanon and calls for dismantling it. The government has promised to do so in the past but does not have the capabilities to disarm Hezbollah by force.

The latest agreement did not say when Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon but said the U.S. would support the Lebanese army as it works to assert control in areas where Hezbollah has long wielded power.

Iran has demanded a durable Lebanon ceasefire

A top Iranian general on Thursday reiterated Tehran's demand for a full ceasefire in Lebanon and called for Israel to pull troops back to where they were when the wider war began. At that time, Israel held five strategic points along the border.

“Supporting the resistance in Lebanon is the duty of all of us, and eliminating Israel from the region is an achievable goal for Muslims,” Esmail Qaani, the head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies.

As diplomatic efforts have repeatedly faltered, Iran and the U.S. have traded fire in and around the Strait of Hormuz, which remains effectively closed. Before the war, around a fifth of the world's oil and gas, as well as large shipments of fertilizer and other goods, passed through the narrow waterway.

The U.S. has targeted what it says are Iranian threats to commercial shipping and its own forces, while Iran has launched missile and drone attacks on Gulf states hosting U.S. troops.

___ Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Metz from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press reporter Malak Harb in Beirut contributed.

No official casualty figures were immediately available from the violence that prompted calls for restraint from the United Nations and the United States as the government and opposition traded blame for the violence.

Residents reported heavy gunfire and explosions as fighting broke out in several neighborhoods Wednesday.

“We heard heavy weapons fire, and people were fleeing their homes,” said Abdullahi Mohamed, who lives in the city's Howlwadaag district. “Many families left the area looking for safer places.”

The clashes underscore growing political tensions as disputes over Somalia's elections and the constitution have increasingly strained relations between the government and opposition leaders. Somalia is also fighting al-Shabab militants while seeking to strengthen state institutions with support from international partners.

Several buildings were hit by heavy gunfire and mortar shells during the clashes, with some catching fire.

Gunfire subsided on Thursday afternoon following mediation efforts led by the director of the National Intelligence and Security Agency, who visited the area and held talks with former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire. The discussions reportedly led to an agreement to halt the fighting.

Opposition figures say the rally planned for later Thursday was intended to protest what they call constitutional violations and efforts by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to extend his tenure. The government has rejected those allegations.

On Thursday morning, there were signs of mobilization on the streets, but a heavy security presence remained in place with police patrolling major roads.

Mogadishu police said the violence stemmed from “organized attacks” carried out by armed militias.

“The incidents were not the organization of peaceful public demonstrations, but rather coordinated armed acts that directly threatened the security, order and stability of the capital,” the police said in a statement.

State security forces repelled attacks on their positions and launched investigations to identify those responsible for organizing, financing and carrying out the violence, police said.

Opposition leaders accused security forces of attacking residences linked to former Prime Minister Khaire and former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

“We are under attack,” Khaire said in a statement. “For the second time in less than 24 hours, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has directed armed forces against our peaceful gatherings.”

Traditional elders, politicians, and community leaders were meeting at Khaire's residence when the attack occurred, he said. The government disputed that account.

The U.N. expressed alarm over the clashes. Secretary-General António Guterres said the violence resulted in deaths, injuries to civilians, and damage to critical infrastructure.

“The Secretary-General strongly condemns all acts of violence and incitement to violence undertaken for political advantage,” he said in a statement. Guterres also called on all parties to exercise restraint, protect civilians and resolve political differences through dialogue.

The U.S. also voiced concern over the fighting. The U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu described the violence as “reckless” and urged Somali leaders to seek a peaceful resolution.

“Somali leaders on all sides have a responsibility to preserve stability and resolve differences through peaceful means,” the embassy said. “Actions taken in the coming hours and days may have lasting consequences for Somalia’s security, unity, and future.”

Khaire accused Mohamud of deploying state security forces against political opponents and alleged that troops trained and equipped by international partners to fight the al-Shabab extremist group had been used against opposition figures.

The nine people were killed in at least four separate strikes in Gaza City, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies. The hospital said the victims included two women and two children.

Footage of one of the strikes showed a massive hole in an upper floor in what appeared to be a residential apartment building. The blast blew holes through interior walls and scattered blood-stained belongings across the room and into the street.

“They say the war has stopped, but the war has not stopped,” said Walid Shbeir, the uncle of one of the men killed in the strikes, as family members sobbed over the bodies of the victims at the hospital. “Every night there is killing, and we have martyrs. Every night, in the morning, in the evening, and at night, this killing is continuous for us.”

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes. Last week, Israel killed the top Hamas military leader, two weeks after strikes that killed his predecessor.

More than 900 Palestinians killed since ceasefire began

The fatalities were the latest in the coastal enclave since an October ceasefire deal attempted to halt a more than two-year war between Israel and the Palestinian militant Hamas group in Gaza. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, the shaky ceasefire has seen almost daily Israeli fire.

Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes and frequently opened fire on Palestinians near military-held zones, killing more than 936 since the ceasefire took effect, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, is generally seen as reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.

Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to violations of the truce or threats to its troops. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas' October 2023 attack that killed some 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

Flotilla says 11 activists detained in Libya

At least 11 international activists attempting to bring attention to Israel's blockade of Gaza have been detained in Libya for more than a week while trying to reach the territory by land, according to the Global Sumud Flotilla.

According to the Libyan media, the activists were detained in connection with illegal entry and lack of permits. The Global Sumud organizers said the participants all had valid visas.

The organization also ran a maritime flotilla earlier this spring consisting of dozens of boats, which was intercepted before reaching Gaza. Hundreds of activists were deported via Israel and Greece. Israel accused the flotilla of being a “PR stunt” carrying very little amounts of aid.

More than 200 health workers and activists have been attempting a separate route overland to reach Gaza started in Mauritania on May 15 and had been heading towards Egypt to enter Gaza via the Rafah crossing.

According to the organization, a Tunisian national was arrested on May 19, around 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the Libya-Tunisia border while returning home. Another 10 people were detained on May 24 while trying to negotiate safe passage for their convoy at a checkpoint near Sitre, Libya, along the Mediterranean coast less than halfway between Tunisia and Egypt.

The organization said Libyan authorities first announced the detention of the activists, who hail from Tunisia, Argentina, Portugal, Italy, the US, Uruguay, Poland, and Spain, on May 25, and that the detention was extended another 10 days on Tuesday. The organization condemned the detentions as “unlawful” and “arbitrary.” __ Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel.

Meanwhile, the Republican-led Senate is moving forward with legislation to fund immigration enforcement agencies after forcing the Trump administration to say it will drop its settlement fund for political allies and stripping a separate proposal for White House security from the bill.

And Trump said Wednesday that he'll nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general, tapping his former personal lawyer who's aggressively pursued the Republican president’s agenda while leading the Justice Department in an acting role.

Here's the latest:

US jobless aid filings, a proxy for layoffs, hit highest level since Iran war began in February

The number of Americans filing for jobless aid hit their highest level in four months last week, but layoffs remain historically low despite ongoing economic uncertainty brought on by the war in Iran.

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending May 30 increased by 13,000 to 225,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s the most since early February, before the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran, but still a historically low level. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected 211,000 new applications.

Weekly filings for unemployment benefits are considered a proxy for U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.

Despite historically low layoffs, the labor market seems to be mired in what economists call a “low-hire, low-fire” state. That’s kept the unemployment rate low at 4.3%, but left many of those out of work struggling to find new employment.

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Trump officials went after dozens of colleges. Now they’re rewriting the rules for all of academia

A year ago, the White House was unleashing a blitz on higher education. At one campus after another, Trump officials opened investigations and cut federal funding unless schools fell in line with the Republican president’s political agenda.

Now, after a campaign that put dozens of universities under investigation, Trump’s administration is taking a wider approach, moving to rewrite the federal rules that govern all of higher education. Demands that were being pressed on individual schools are being written into the fine print for thousands of U.S. universities.

“We’re coming over the higher education system and course correcting,” Nicholas Kent, undersecretary for the Education Department, said in an Associated Press interview. Unlike investigations that target individual campuses, he said the new tactic has power “to affect 6,000 institutions.”

The shift comes after federal judges blocked Trump’s administration from making crippling cuts at Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles. It also follows a mass exodus in civil rights lawyers who traditionally guide investigations against universities. Still, Trump hasn’t backed down from his campaign to end what he calls “wokeness” run amok in academia.

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Buffalo named Donald Trump for his golden locks is a sensation at a Bangladesh zoo

With his shock of golden hair and trim 700-kilogram (1,500-pound) build, Donald Trump has been drawing crowds from across Bangladesh since he arrived at the national zoo last week.

The rare albino buffalo became a sensation when a farmer noticed that his blond tuft of hair resembled the distinctive locks of the U.S. president. After a video of the pale horned mammal went viral on social media, large numbers of people started showing up at the farm outside Dhaka to see him for themselves.

The animal was originally meant to be slaughtered for the Muslim festival of sacrifice. But citing security concerns, the government ordered him transferred to the zoo in the capital, where large crowds are now braving sweltering heat to see him.

“There is a resemblance to Donald Trump in its eyes, hairstyle, and skin color,” said Mohammed Nasim, a student in Dhaka. “And just as Donald Trump has a distinctive personality and lifestyle, this buffalo, after going viral, is now living a similar kind of life, enjoying a lot of attention and special treatment.”

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Trump slams the 4 Republicans who voted in favor of war powers resolution

The president says the symbolic House vote approving a war powers resolution that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran, was “meaningless.”

Still, Trump is livid that four House Republicans joined the Democrats in supporting the resolution.

“The Democrats are fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump said in a post on his social media site. “They would rather have our Country fail than give me another, of many, victories. The four Republicans, that’s a whole other story - They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refuses to say whether Trump remains exempt from IRS audits

Bessent refused to say Wednesday whether Trump and his family would still get immunity from IRS audits after the administration abandoned plans for a $1.776 billion compensation fund that would have benefited the president’s allies.

“There’s continuing litigation, and I’m unable to comment on ongoing litigation,” Bessent told lawmakers at the Senate Finance Committee hearing.

It was a frustrating answer for Democratic lawmakers looking to get answers from Bessent at a hearing ostensibly focused on the Treasury Department’s budget and came a day after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche seemed to indicate that the portion of the settlement dealing with the IRS audit immunity would still be in effect for the Republican president.

After several failed attempts to get Bessent to answer, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said, “It’s been very clear you’re dodging this and you’re trying to use it as an excuse. It’s just outrageous on behalf of the American public.”

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Trump says he'll nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general

Trump said Wednesday that he will nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general, tapping his former personal lawyer who has aggressively pursued the Republican president’s agenda while leading the Justice Department in an acting role.

Trump said at a dinner at the White House that he plans to nominate Blanche formally on Thursday, according to a video of the event posted on social media by a White House aide.

“We are going to make him permanent attorney general,” Trump said at the Rose Garden event.

Blanche was brought into the Justice Department as deputy attorney general and was elevated after Bondi’s ousting over her failed efforts to prosecute Trump’s perceived political opponents. Blanche insisted he wasn’t auditioning for the permanent post but made clear through splashy moves since taking the reins his intent on proving his loyalty to Trump.

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Senate begins voting on funding immigration enforcement after Trump’s settlement fund is dropped

The Republican-led Senate is moving forward with legislation to fund immigration enforcement agencies after forcing the Trump administration to say it will drop its settlement fund for political allies and stripping a separate proposal for White House security from the bill.

The Senate voted 53-46 on Wednesday to begin debate on the roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. The legislation was delayed for weeks as Republican senators navigated the various obstacles to passage created by President Donald Trump and the White House, but they are now moving quickly to pass it after paring it back to its original form.

“Right now, the goal is to get the base bill across the finish line,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

Still, Republicans will need to find enough votes to beat back multiple amendments that Democrats — and some Republicans — say they will offer to permanently ban Trump’s $1.776 billion settlement fund.

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With Trump in a holding pattern on Iran war, allies and critics worry he risks getting boxed in

Trump is facing warnings from foes and allies alike that he’s getting boxed in on the Iran war, a conflict he sold as a brief military incursion but that has since settled into a holding pattern.

It’s been nearly a week since U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement to extend the ceasefire in the conflict by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program that required Trump’s sign off.

But Trump has called for unspecified changes to the agreement and Iranian officials — perhaps calculating that he is reluctant to restart the bombardment after burning through key weapons systems — are showing no signs they’ll give in to new demands.

A series of strikes by the U.S. and Iran this week has raised fresh concern that the ceasefire could collapse. Trump on Wednesday downplayed the significance.

There’s growing concern inside the administration and among key advisers and allies that Trump now finds himself in a bind, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the administration’s internal deliberations.

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— Aamer Madhani and Matthew Lee

House approves war powers resolution to halt military action against Iran in a rebuke of Trump

The House for the first time Wednesday approved a war powers resolution that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran, defying Trump, as a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to end the three-month-long conflict that has reordered politics at home and abroad.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had tried to prevent an outcome that would show the mounting opposition to the war, abruptly shutting down floor action two weeks ago when the resolution was on the verge of approval. But displeasure has only grown as the conflict drags on and as Trump struggles to negotiate a plan for peace.

“Enough is enough,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who led the effort.

“It is time for the president to do the right thing,” he said. “The people are tired of suffering because of his war of choice — suffering at the gas pump, suffering at the supermarkets.”

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Turns out he might still hand over the Coupe des Mousquetaires to a fellow Italian after the men’s singles final on Sunday after being invited by Roland Garros to take care of the honors on the anniversary of his 1976 triumph.

Despite Sinner’s stunning loss in the second round, Italy is assured to have a player in the championship match since Flavio Cobolli will face compatriot Matteo Arnaldi in the semifinals on Friday.

Cobolli comes from the same tennis club in Rome as Panatta did. Panatta’s father was the caretaker at the Tennis Club Parioli.

Several years ago, Cobolli and his father and coach, Stefano, paid Panatta a visit at the club in Treviso, northern Italy, that Panatta created after his playing career.

“I told them he was going to be a great player,” Panatta said. “Of course, I didn’t realize it would be so soon.”

While Sinner came close last year when he had three match points in a five-set loss to Carlos Alcaraz in the final, no Italian man has raised the singles trophy in Paris since Panatta.

Panatta recently looked back on the 1976 tournament in an interview with The Associated Press.

Beating Borg

Panatta was the only man to beat Bjorn Borg twice at the French Open, in the fourth round in 1973 and in the quarterfinals in 1976. The only other time they met in Paris was in 1975 when Borg won in the semifinals and went on to claim the second of his six Roland Garros titles.

“I liked playing these clay-court specialists like Borg and (Guillermo) Vilas,” said Panatta, who beat Vilas in the Italian Open final just before winning the French Open. “I had a very varied game and attacked a lot and hit a lot of drop shots. I didn’t play like them.

“If two players play the same way, the stronger player always wins. I played with a different style and that probably bothered them.”

Sneaker emergency

Panatta beat two more clay-court specialists, Americans Eddie Dibbs and Harold Solomon, in the semifinals and final, respectively.

The final was a rematch of a controversial quarterfinal in Rome between Panatta and Solomon in which Solomon walked away while serving for the match after getting infuriated over a perceived missed call.

“He’s the one who made it an incident," Panatta said. “When you walk away, you’re responsible.”

Needless to say, both players were motivated for the rematch in the Paris final.

But Panatta had a problem when he realized that his doubles partner, Paolo Bertolucci, had mistakenly taken his tennis sneakers home with him.

“(Bertolucci) had to fly back from Rome the morning of the final with my sneakers,” Panatta said.

Fortunately, the sneakers arrived in time and Panatta again beat Solomon — this time by winning a fourth-set tiebreaker.

$30,000 winner's check

Panatta said he received $30,000 for his French Open title — about what players who lose in the first round of qualifying earn now.

He’s having a hard time wrapping his head around the current players’ protesting for a bigger share of tournament revenues.

“I don’t really know the reasons behind it,” Panatta said. “But it makes me laugh.”

Panatta recalls how players boycotted Wimbledon in 1973 after Croatian player Nikola Pilić was suspended.

“We didn’t do it for money," Panatta said. “We did it because of Pilić.”

Sinner's perfection

While Panatta pines for the old days when there were more players like him who employed serve-and-volley tactics, he still appreciates players like Sinner who push the limits of baseline tennis.

“When there’s excellence, it’s never boring,” Panatta said. “When someone performs near the limit of perfection, it’s inspiring.”

Sinner’s sense of humor

Panatta was also invited to participate in the trophy ceremony in Rome last month when Sinner became the first Italian man to win that title since Panatta in 1976.

During the ceremony, Sinner jokingly told the 75-year-old Panatta that obviously he’s too young to have seen him play and that “my parents probably hadn’t even gotten together yet” back then.

Panatta was amused by Sinner’s comment and said it showed that Sinner “has got a sense of humor.”

Like Panatta, who drove rally cars and speed boats after he retired from tennis, Sinner has a taste for speed and likes to race go-karts and watch Formula 1.

“I hope he races when he stops playing, too,” Panatta said.

Davis Cup

Panatta crowned his extraordinary 1976 season by leading Italy to the Davis Cup title with a win over Chile in Santiago that was played amid the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

“That was when the Davis Cup was the real Davis Cup,” Panatta said. “It was worth just as much as a Grand Slam.”

So how does he distinguish his Italian Open, French Open and Davis Cup titles?

“Rome was the most sentimental because the Foro Italico was where I started to play tennis. Roland Garros was the most important one because it was a Grand Slam. And the Davis Cup was a team event and we had a team of players who knew each other since they were little kids,” Panatta said. “They were three entirely different emotions.”

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

The Obama Presidential Center opens to the general public on Juneteenth after a celebratory dedication in Chicago with dignitaries. But tens of thousands of people — friends and family of museum staff, students and journalists — have already been offered a sneak peek of the nearly 20-acre campus as crews finish final art installations and landscaping.

The roughly $850 million project covers the political and personal realms of the nation’s first Black president. Campaign memorabilia and presidential artifacts are displayed in the admission-based museum tower while public spaces of the sprawling campus feature other things important to Obama: a new library, basketball court and picnic area with grills.

“This is a safe space for people to come and, yes, reflect on the historic moments of this presidency and the campaigns, but also to come together as a community to think about what change you can bring to your own neighborhood,” Josh Harris, the Obama Foundation’s vice president of public engagement, said during a recent tour with The Associated Press.

Here’s a closer look at the top attractions of the campus that is expected to draw as many as 1 million visitors annually.

President for a day

Obama's presidential museum will be the first fully digital museum of its kind. There will be no official papers on display. Instead, visitors will experience high-tech and hands-on exhibits spanning the campaigns, key moments of Obama's presidency and life at the White House.

One of the largest attractions is a life-sized replica of the Oval Office.

On a recent day, a stream of visitors, including schoolchildren, walked through the circular room, stopping to sit behind the desk and pose for pictures. The top drawer holds a copy of a handwritten letter from his predecessor, President George W. Bush, and Obama’s beloved BlackBerry phone.

“We want to make sure that people from all walks of life have the opportunity sit behind the Resolute Desk,” said Harris. “You think about the possibilities that if a young organizer from the South Side of Chicago can be president, you can be president too."

Other sections of the museum detail the Affordable Care Act, immigration policies, and smaller moments such as when Obama unexpectedly sang during a 2015 eulogy for those killed in a South Carolina church shooting. A large television screen plays a clip of Obama singing “Amazing Grace.”

Peppered throughout are areas for personal reflection, which museum organizers say is key.

“We're passing that baton and inviting people to bring change home, however change may be defined, both small or large,” said Louise Bernard, the museum's director, echoing Obama's campaign slogan.

Touching iconic ballgowns

When Obama touted the museum’s contents at its groundbreaking in 2021, he predicted one of the top draws.

“We want this center to be more than a static museum or a source of archival research,” Obama joked at the site. “It won’t just be a collection of campaign memorabilia or Michelle’s ballgowns, although I know everybody will come see those.”

Roughly a dozen outfits on mannequins are behind glass, including a black and red dress designed by Narciso Rodriguez that the former first lady wore on Election Night in 2008 in Chicago.

Visitors will also get a chance to touch swatches of the fabrics, including the rose gold chain mail Atelier Versace evening gown she wore at her final state dinner in 2016.

Obama’s personal touches

The museum’s location is near where Barack Obama started his political career, taught law at the University of Chicago and where the family lived. Michelle Obama also grew up on the South Side.

A lifelong basketball lover, Obama requested a glass-paneled, professional grade basketball court to be used for community programs.

The former first lady designed a garden, where lettuce and strawberry plants are sprouting. There are also charcoal grills available for public use — an element that Obama envisioned when he pitched the plan in community meetings nearly a decade ago.

“President Obama always talked about his feelings of being in Chicago and one of his memorable moments was grilling in the park,” Harris said.

The Obamas' design tastes and love of history are also evident.

The museum campus features dozens of commissioned works of art while different parts of the campus are named after prominent figures. The central “John Lewis Plaza,” named for the late congressman and Civil Rights leader, is designed as a public gathering spot.

Inside a new Chicago Public Library branch, a 70-foot (21-meter) mural depicts literary figures, including Walt Whitman and James Baldwin. At the center, Toni Morrison reads to a boy in wearing orange shirt, representing a young Obama.

The presidential reading room features thousands of books chosen by the Obamas, ranging from presidential biographies to best-selling fiction. One of Obama's favorite parts are two high-backed chairs with blue, yellow and black stripes. They were selected by the former president as top-notch reading chairs similar to ones he has at home.

Pricey admission with free options

Tickets are $30, the highest of any U.S. presidential museum or library. Next on the list is the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California, where tickets are $29.

Obama Foundation leaders say the prices are justified for the state-of-the-art facility.

Tickets at the adjacent Griffin Museum of Science and Industry are $25.95. In downstate Illinois, tickets to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield cost $15.

Along with free days and discounts for Illinois residents, Obama Foundation officials also argue that most of the campus is free, with only four floors of the museum tower requiring tickets.

Anyone can walk the campus, use the playground, library, sledding hill or grilling area. The tower's top floor, which feature panoramic views of the nation's third-largest city, is also free.

“The idea behind this institution, this campus, was to make it accessible to as many people as possible,” Harris said.

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending May 30 increased by 13,000 to 225,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s the most since early February, before the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran, but still a historically low level. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected 211,000 new applications.

Weekly filings for unemployment benefits are considered a proxy for U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.

Despite historically low layoffs, the labor market seems to be mired in what economists call a “low-hire, low-fire” state. That’s kept the unemployment rate low at 4.3%, but left many of those out of work struggling to find new employment.

Though U.S. employers delivered a surprising 115,000 new jobs in April, the Iran war has injected a large degree of uncertainty about the broader U.S. economy and labor market.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which travels one-fifth of the world’s oil, remains closed. Since the beginning of the war in late February, oil prices have spiked about 50% and the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. is now $4.24, up from less than $3 in late February. Besides hitting consumers’ pocketbooks, those higher costs can make businesses reluctant to hire.

Data from the U.S. government showed that inflation at the consumer level rose 3.8% from April 2025, the biggest jump in three years. Food prices are also up, but may not yet fully reflect rising energy costs due to the Iran war, analysts say.

Another recent report showed that wholesale prices shot up 6% from a year ago, the highest point in more than three years.

This comes at a time when U.S. inflation is already above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The Fed opted to leave its benchmark rate alone at its last meeting, citing economic uncertainty caused by instability in the Middle East and still-elevated inflation. Most analysts don’t expect the Fed to cut rates any time soon.

Lower interest rates can boost the economy and hiring, but also tend to stoke inflation, leading a number of Fed policymakers to say they are actually willing to consider an interest rate hike this year.

On top of that, the recent artificial intelligence boom and the investment required to develop it could alter or even replace some jobs.

Among the companies that have cut jobs recently are Verizon, UPS, Amazon, Disney, Starbucks and Walmart.

Weekly jobless aid applications have stabilized in a range mostly between 200,000 and 250,000 since the U.S. economy emerged from the pandemic recession. However, hiring began slowing about two years ago and tapered further in 2025 due to President Donald Trump’s erratic tariff rollouts, his purge of the federal workforce and the lingering effects of high interest rates meant to control inflation.

Employers added fewer than 200,000 jobs last year, compared with about 1.5 million in 2024, according to the data firm FactSet.

The government issues its May jobs report on Friday.

The Labor Department’s report Thursday showed that the four-week moving average of jobless claims, which softens some of the weekly volatility, rose by 6,500 to 214,750.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending May 23 fell by 8,000 to 1.78 million, in line with analyst forecasts.

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Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.

Relatives from a group called Tiananmen Mothers visited the graves for more than 30 years, reading memorial statements while police kept watch, Amnesty International said.

Hundreds of people, and possibly thousands, were killed in 1989 as troops advanced through crowds that were trying to stop the military from reaching the protesters on Tiananmen Square, a vast plaza in the center of the Chinese capital. The decision by the Communist Party leadership to send in the military was a pivotal moment in China's modern history, determining that the market reform that transformed the country into the world's second largest economy would not be coupled with political liberalization.

Rubio says censorship can't erase the past

In Hong Kong, police stepped up security Thursday at or near a park where a massive candlelight vigil lit up the night every year until a clampdown following major anti-government protests in 2019. A handful of people showed up in the evening. Officers allowed some to go freely — including a man holding flowers and an activist who said she bowed 37 times — but took at least three others away.

The U.S., the EU and Britain posted messages on social media marking the anniversary. “No amount of censorship can erase the past,” a statement from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio read. “Those who sacrificed to uphold their unalienable rights of free expression and peaceful assembly will be vindicated someday.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed his words as a smear on her nation's political system. “We urge the U.S. side to ... stop using so-called democracy and human rights as a pretext to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” she said.

Tiananmen Mothers calls crackdown a crime

Tiananmen Mothers issued an annual appeal for justice ahead of this year's anniversary. The statement, signed by 107 people, demanded full disclosure of what happened, compensation for the victims and their families and the pursuit of legal accountability for those responsible.

“The sacrifice of our family members is an indelible pain etched in our hearts. Our tears have run dry, grief is buried deep within, what remains is eternal remembrance of our family members and hatred for the crime of massacring the people,” Zhang Xianling, a member of the group, said in a video message posted on Facebook — which is blocked in China.

Amnesty said it is deeply troubling that China's suppression of the commemoration appears to be escalating. “Banning the relatives of people killed in the Tiananmen crackdown from visiting their loved ones’ graves is a heartless act by the Chinese authorities," Sarah Brooks, the organization's deputy director for Asia, said in a statement.

The Beijing Public Security Bureau did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Hong Kong has banned an annual vigil

Authorities in Hong Kong have banned the vigil since 2020, at first citing the COVID-19 pandemic. Simon Ng, a past participant, walked around the nearby Causeway Bay shopping district to mark the anniversary. “There are some things I can neither forget nor let go, so I have to come and and take a walk,” he said.

Three of the organizers of the vigil have been charged under a 2020 national security law. One pleaded guilty, which may result in a lesser sentence. The other two have been tried and are awaiting a verdict.

One of them, lawyer Chow Hang-tung, said in an online post published last weekend that she would go on a 37-hour hunger strike in prison. “Behind the glitter of power and dictatorship lies the blood and broken dreams of ordinary people. For in amnesia lies the demise of democracy,” she wrote.

Derek Chu, a former district councilor, said on Instagram that he visited Chow on Thursday and told her he would also stop eating for 37 hours in support. He added that a shop he runs is giving out LED candles that can be used to remember the victims.

An annual vigil was held in Taiwan, but a driving thunderstorm reduced turnout to about 200 people. China, which claims the self-governing island as its territory, sanctioned four New Zealand lawmakers on Thursday to protest their recent visit to Taiwan.

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Leung reported from Hong Kong. AP video journalist Taijing Wu in Taipei, Taiwan contributed to this report.

The fire started late Wednesday at the home in Anguruwatota town. Fifty-one residents were rescued, police spokesman Fredrick Wootler said. He said people with mental illnesses were also housed there.

The director of the home was arrested on suspicion of causing deaths through negligence. He appeared before a court and was ordered to be detained for a week while an investigation is underway.

Associated Press footage showed the building gutted with its charred furniture and equipment. Bodies lay nearby.

Local television channel Hiru showed image of firefighters, police and residents trying to contain the raging fire. Those rescued were assisted by police and soldiers in boarding buses to a safe location.

Chathura Mihudum, director of the National Secretariat for Elders, said the facility was not registered as a nursing home and had been warned to follow laws and guidelines.

He said it was overcrowded with beds for just about 15 people in a space where 71 people were living.

Government officials had previously visited the institution and had instructed the management to follow laws, he said, without elaborating.

We’ll get into the mid to upper 80s today, potentially hitting 90 in the Southside! With the abundance of sunshine, we’ll end up with temperatures rising quite quickly.

That leads to tomorrow, where highs will rocket into the low 90s throughout the state. While usually we deal with oppressive humidity when temperatures get this high, that isn’t the case this go around. Humidity values are relatively low, meaning it’ll feel dry and hot.

Going into the weekend, the 90s continue, but the rain shower and storm chances arrive as well on Sunday. These chances arrive after about 2 PM Sunday, and will resume on Monday.

Enjoy this summer feel!

Dawa Sherpa was last seen around May 29 descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled.

Dawa was located by a cleaning crew Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above base camp, said Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, which coordinated the search.

He was quickly carried down to safety and given food and water. A rescue helicopter flew him to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu, where his wife and daughter, who already had begun funeral rituals for him, were waiting.

"We first heard that he was still alive on the local news and from a person we know who called with the news that ... he is being brought down," said his wife, Damu Sherpa.

Though Dawa had been missing since last week, there was a delay in organizing a search team. No reasons were given for the delay, but when helicopters were finally sent to look for him, they could not find him.

His family had given up hope. Dawa’s teenage daughter, Mendo Lhamu Sherpa, said they were on the second day of a funeral ritual, which lasts for several days.

“When we first heard about it (the rescue), we could not be sure if that person was indeed our father,” Mendo Lhamu said. “So to be certain we asked for photos to be sent and then only we were sure and very happy.”

The team that spotted him was part of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, which lays the ladders and ropes on the route at the start of each climbing season and then removes the equipment and cleans up the site after climbers have left.

Dawa was last seen at spot called Yellow Band above the Camp 3, which is located at 7,200 meters (23,622 feet). The base camp is at 5,300 meters (17,388 feet).

Dawa, 52, works for a small Kathmandu-based company called Himalayan Traverse, and he was guiding a Polish climber. He comes from the town of Okhaldhunga, south of Everest.

Nepal's mountaineering community has hailed Dawa's survival as miraculous.

“This is nothing short of a miracle surviving so many days on the mountains facing such harsh condition,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, a leading figure in the community.

“Sherpas are built tough growing up in the mountains,” Ang Tshering said. “If there was someone else in his place they might not have survived.”

Members of the Sherpa community were mostly yak herders and traders living deep within the Himalayas until Nepal opened its borders in the 1950s. Their stamina and familiarity with the mountains quickly made them sought-after guides and porters, eventually allowing them to dominate the Himalyan climbing business.

More than 1,000 climbers and their guides scaled Everest this May, which was the busiest climbing season ever on the world's highest mountain. It began late because of a massive ice block on the route just above the base camp that took about two weeks to clear.

The 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) high peak was first climbed on May 29, 1953, by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay.

In exclusive interviews with The Associated Press during a team camp in Turkey, two members of Iran’s squad described how the conflict is affecting its World Cup preparations.

“Well, to be honest, it’s not easy,” said Saeid Ezatolahi, a 29-year-old midfielder who also played for Iran in the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

“That’s going to be my third World Cup. So for me and some of the other players, it might be easier to manage these kind of things,” he said in English on the sidelines of a training session on Wednesday. “But at the end ... it is going to be difficult for us because at the same time, we are following the news in our country and the political things, of course, can affect the mind of the players and the people."

The Iran team has spent more than two weeks in Turkey, mostly practicing at the coastal resort Antalya, and some went to the capital Ankara to submit visa applications at the U.S. embassy. Media access to their World Cup preparations has been limited, and the players rarely speak to international journalists.

Iran will be based in Mexico during the World Cup

The team is set to travel to Mexico this weekend after receiving visas from the Mexican embassy in Ankara. The team said Thursday that the process of obtaining entry permits had been finalized for all members of the squad. Problems with visa processing meant Iran's World Cup training base was moved from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, on Mexico's border with California.

Iran will play its first two games near Los Angeles, which has a large Iranian community, many of whom oppose the current government.

“So for sure, we are expecting to have a lot fans during our games at the stadium," Ezatolahi said. "And this is going to be a lot pressure for us because the expectation is going be high. I just wish we can make them proud and show them that Iranians, they are prepared for every hard job in the world,” he said.

Mohammad Ghorbani, 24, is going to his first World Cup for Iran.

“It’s true that we are facing special circumstances right now but we are football players and we have to play, practice, and prepare ourselves for the competitions we have ahead,” the Abu Dhabi-based player told the AP in Farsi.

“On the other hand, we know that our people have been going through a lot of difficulties throughout the war, and we are going there for them, to get the best results for their joy and the joy of the people of our country.”

The U.S. and Israel launched its war against Iran on Feb. 28, killing its supreme leader and other top officials. Iran responded with strikes targeting Israel, U.S. forces and the Gulf Arab states. It also has maintained a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, imperiling global energy supplies.

Despite a nominal ceasefire being in place, Iran and the U.S. have yet to negotiate a permanent end to the war and attacks continue in the region.

Iran is in Group G with New Zealand, Belgium and Egypt

Iran's team is not required to enter the United States until June 14, one day before its first match against New Zealand at the Los Angeles Rams’ stadium in Inglewood.

Iran returns to Inglewood to face Belgium on June 21 and completes Group G in Seattle, against Egypt on June 26.

"I’m really proud to be part of my national team,” said Ezatolahi, whose career has taken him to play for clubs in Spain, Russia, England, Belgium, Denmark, Qatar and now Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

“We need to clear up our minds and be fresh because our target and our duty is to fight for our people, to represent our country and to show how good we are,” he said.

Ghorbani agreed, saying the team wants to bring joy to Iranians.

“The best message I can give right now is that the Iranian team is showing what it means to be a team,” he said. “We are showing that we are one team under one flag that can bring joy to our whole country, and to show the power of Iranian players and Iranian people to the world.”

___

AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report.

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

“Her passing marks the loss of a leading figure of French culture and an artist devoted to freedom, whose work carried a universal message and earned her immense international acclaim,” the French presidency said in a statement.

President Emmanuel Macron and his wife “pay tribute to a remarkable artist who transformed an Iranian childhood into a universal fable,” the statement said.

News broadcaster BFM TV and other French media reported Satrapi has “died of sadness” a little over a year after the death of her husband, Swedish film producer and actor Mattias Ripa, according to a statement from people close to the artist.

The French Academy of Fine Arts, of which she was a member, expressed its deep sadness in a social media statement, paying tribute to “a passionate advocate for cinema and film education” who earlier this year created a foundation to help international students come to Paris to study film.

Satrapi is best-known for her monochrome autobiographical comic book and film “Persepolis,” a coming-of-age tale set against the Islamic Revolution in her native Iran.

“Persepolis” won the Film Critics Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival in 2007 and the César Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2008, in addition to being nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2008 Oscars.

The film, which details her life in Tehran as the willful daughter of intellectual Marxists, is a reminder that Iranians are just like everyone else, Satrapi told The Associated Press in a 2007 interview in Cannes.

“What we wanted to say is, if these people scare you, look closer: They have parents, they have lovers, they have hope, they have stories," she said.

Iranian authorities at the time protested the movie’s inclusion at Cannes, sending a letter to the French Embassy in Tehran.

Satrapi was born on Nov. 22, 1969, in Rasht, Iran, but her parents sent her to Vienna, Austria, in 1983 to finish her studies because of the extremism in their country following the 1979 Revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power.

But Satrapi, who found Austria hostile and who desperately missed her parents, returned to Iran in 1989 to attend Tehran University, where she earned a degree in visual communications.

By the time she graduated, Satrapi decided she finally was ready to leave Iran and accept the opportunities her parents had been so desperate to give her a decade before. In 1994 she moved to France. She studied in Strasbourg and later moved to Paris.

Her graphic novels also include “Broderies” (“Embroideries”) and “Poulet aux prunes” (“Chicken with plums”), which also was adapted into a film. As a filmmaker, she has directed several works including “La Bande des Jotas” (“The Gang of Jotas”) and “Radioactive” (“Madame Curie”), a biography about the Polish physicist Marie Curie.

Satrapi in 2023 coordinated the book “Femme, vie, liberté” (“Woman, Life, Freedom”) together with a group of artists and academics to illustrate the revolts that occurred in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 at the hands of the so-called “morality police.” The work denounces the repression and lack of human rights that Iranian society, especially women, suffers at the hands of the Iranian regime, the foundation said.

Satrapi was elected member of the French Academy of Fine Arts in 2024. She also was offered France's highest award, the Legion of Honor, that same year but declined it, arguing France was not doing enough to support Iranian people fighting for democracy.

“Supporting the women’s revolution in Iran cannot be reduced to photos or speeches,” she wrote in a January 2025 letter to French authorities. “When people are fighting for democracy, we should support them.”

In 2024, Satrapi won the Princess of Asturias Foundation award in Spain for communication and humanities. The organization said she was “an essential voice in the defense of human rights and freedom.” The judges described her as “a symbol of civic engagement led by women."

Satrapi's husband died in April 2025 at 53. On her Instagram page, only one message was left in a series of posts: “Because I have lost the love of my life.”

Now, after a campaign that put dozens of universities under investigation, President Donald Trump's administration is taking a wider approach, moving to rewrite the federal rules that govern all of higher education. Demands that were being pressed on individual schools are being written into the fine print for thousands of U.S. universities.

“We’re coming over the higher education system and course correcting,” Nicholas Kent, undersecretary for the Education Department, said in an Associated Press interview. Unlike investigations that target individual campuses, he said the new tactic has power “to affect 6,000 institutions.”

The shift comes after federal judges blocked Trump's administration from making crippling cuts at Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles. It also follows a mass exodus in civil rights lawyers who traditionally guide investigations against universities. Still, Trump hasn’t backed down from his campaign to end what he calls “wokeness” run amok in academia.

Through regulation, the administration is going after many of the same targets it hammered with investigations — diversity, equity and inclusion policies, transgender athletes, antisemitism and a variety of practices perceived as anti-white discrimination.

Several US agencies propose new rules

One new rule being proposed by the Education Department would overhaul the system that decides which colleges can receive federal money, known as the accreditation process. Among other changes, the proposal would require accreditors to make sure colleges have “intellectual diversity,” a veiled call for more conservative voices.

Many people in higher education are alarmed by a proposal from the Office of Management and Budget that would order agencies to ensure federal grants “advance the President’s policy priorities.” Trump officials would verify that grants aren't used to promote DEI, “anti-American values” or anything denying “the sex binary in humans," according to the proposal issued last week. An OMB spokesperson said the rule aims to promote transparency.

Another proposal from the General Services Administration would require federal grant recipients, including universities and their contractors, to certify they don't have DEI policies deemed unlawful by the administration.

At least 11 new rules have been proposed at the Education Department, including one aimed at “streamlining the process” to cut money for schools that violate the Trump administration's interpretation of civil rights law.

Making federal rules can take months of debate in humdrum bureaucratic processes. But unlike earlier strategies that tested the limits of White House power, the rulemaking process is a widely accepted route to establish federal policy into law — without needing to go through Congress.

Some in higher education welcome the change. Unlike last year's attacks, the new approach opens the door for a conversation, said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents college and university presidents.

“We’re playing a game that has rules and referees, and that’s good,” said Mitchell, a former Education Department official under President Barack Obama, a Democrat. “It gives us an opportunity to talk about where we might agree with the administration. That was impossible to do when these were just straight-on attacks.”

The administration launches fewer new investigations

Meantime, the Education and Justice departments have announced fewer higher-education investigations, issuing news releases on roughly a dozen at U.S. universities so far this year. In the same span last year, they announced more than 70, according to an AP analysis. The exact number of new investigations is unclear — a public database has not been updated since January 2025.

Kent said the Education Department will continue to open investigations as needed, describing it as using a “scalpel to cut out the bad.” But he said colleges have started to come to heel on the administration’s priorities.

“Folks realize that it’s a new day and that we’re paying attention,” Kent said.

The vast majority of the investigations opened last year are still open. The White House struck deals with Columbia, Brown and a handful of other campuses, but most cases are unresolved with no public update in months.

Catherine Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said the barrage of investigations amounted to “performance art” that grabbed attention but had little impact. After pushback from schools, she said, the Trump administration is backing off.

“It stopped putting itself in a position to lose,” said Lhamon, who now leads the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Still, some fights have intensified. The White House has doubled down on battles with Harvard and UCLA after federal judges blocked the administration from cutting off research funding from the campuses.

The Justice Department has sued Harvard and UCLA four times since February, alleging that both campuses tolerated antisemitism and that Harvard refused to release admissions data sought by the administration. Leaders of both universities say they have worked to fight antisemitism.

Admissions cases become a top priority

A White House official said the investigative slowdown is also the result of a mounting focus on college admissions. The administration has been building cases against colleges accused of considering race in admissions decisions even after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action. Those investigations can take more time because they require large data collections, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy.

Some of those cases are now coming to bear.

The Justice Department recently concluded that medical schools at Yale and UCLA discriminated against white and Asian American students by allegedly favoring Black and Latino applicants. The universities have defended their admissions processes, saying they were rigorous and based on merit.

Trump officials are taking a hard-line approach against any use of race in admissions, clashing with colleges that invite students to discuss their race in application essays. In its 2023 decision, the Supreme Court said nothing stops schools from considering how applicants’ race speaks to broader qualities.

“We are making sure," Kent said, “that we are elevating our best and our brightest and that we’re not putting the thumb on the scale because of somebody’s skin color.”

Higher education has already been changed

Facing last year’s blitz, many campuses quietly made changes to avoid scrutiny. Some closed DEI offices. The NCAA moved to limit transgender athletes. Universities from UCLA to Columbia tightened campus protest rules after pro-Palestinian demonstrations were the subject of federal investigations.

Research has been scaled back as top schools face continued funding cuts.

In the classroom, there’s been a chilling effect as professors fear that what they say or teach could attract federal attention, said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors.

Still, he’s optimistic the balance of power is shifting in universities' favor. Students and faculty members on several campuses built pressure to reject a White House invitation last fall to sign on to aspects of Trump’s agenda in exchange for favorable access to research funding, he said. The AAUP has brought several lawsuits against the administration, including one that stopped funding cuts at UCLA.

“The sector is getting its feet under it, and it’s only getting stronger,” Wolfson said. “I can promise you that we will fight them tooth and nail.”

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

Jess Asato, a legislator with the governing Labour Party, says someone used Grok to create fake images of her in a bikini without her consent in January after she criticized the spread of deepfake pornography online.

She filed a claim Wednesday at the High Court in London, citing misuse of private information under the Data Protection Act.

She is seeking damages and says she wants to create a precedent that companies can be held liable for the design of their AI systems.

“Nobody would be able to walk up to me in the street and strip me and put me in a bikini, and I don’t see why anybody should be able to do that to me online, because the feeling, while it is not quite the same, is very similar,” she said. “It is like somebody has digitally stripped me without my consent.”

Asato said she hopes others will join the claim.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he supports Asato's legal action "100%.”

“Jess Asato is absolutely right in the action that she is taking," Starmer told reporters. “Disgusting images were created in her particular case by Grok.”

Following an international outcry against deepfake pornography, Musk’s company said in January it would no longer allow Grok users to edit images of real people to remove their clothing.

A law passed last year in the U.K. made it illegal to create or request a non-consensual deepfake image of an adult. But Asato says xAI should be held accountable for harm that has already been done.

“Once the damage is done, the damage is done,” she said. “If you think about any other products, like a car, for example, that might have been manufactured with a fault, it doesn’t matter if, you know, the cars get recalled and the faults are fixed and no more harm is done.”

In January, American writer Ashley St. Clair, mother of Musk’s son Romulus, filed a lawsuit against xAI in New York. She alleges that explicit images of her were generated by AI chatbot Grok, including one in which she was underage.

xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The Venice Biennale opened its most chaotic and contested edition in recent memory on May 9, with the prestigious Golden Lion yanked from contention after the jury quit in protest of Israel’s and Russia’s participation. The week of previews leading up to the public opening was characterized by loud protests outside the Israeli and Russian pavilions.

Instead of jury awards, the Biennale announced voting by visitors to the two main venues, the Giardini and the Arsenale, for two awards recognizing the best national pavilion and best participant in the main show, titled “In Minor Keys,” curated according to a plan by the late Koyo Kouoh. The awards are to be made public on the Biennale's closing day, Nov. 22.

The protest letter made public on Wednesday said that the voting process “lacked transparency and accountability,” and complained that the Biennale had not responded to the artists' first request to remove their names, made on May 20. It was also signed by curators and commissioners.

The artists said that they were beginning steps toward legal action.

In response to a request for comment, the Biennale furnished a May 28 letter to the artists, curators and commissioners saying that they would keep all of the names on the ballot “to guarantee all visitors have the freedom of expression,” but said none of the signatories would be considered for the prizes.

The protest letter called the procedure “a waste of time” by asking visitors “to cast votes that cannot be counted.”

The jury in its resignation announcement singled out Russia and Israel, citing investigations by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Signatories seeking to be removed from visitor prize contention include some 70 artists participating in the main show and nearly 40 national pavilions, including those of Iceland, Norway and Denmark, which have led the call to have Russia barred from returning to the Biennale for the first time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

They also include Austrian artist Florentina Holzinger, whose exhibition features recycled waste water from portable toilets outside the Austrian Pavilion, has been one of the most popular of the Biennale.

Gregory Dale Jordan was last seen on June 3 around noon on Sunburst Road and is believed to be walking. He is described as 6 feet tall and weighs approximately 210 pounds.

Authorities say he suffers from a cognitive impairment and his disapperance poses a threat to his health and safety.

You’re asked to contact the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office [24/7 dispatch] with any information regarding his location at 434-332-9574.

China has hit lawmakers from other countries with sanctions related to contact with Taiwan before, but it's the first time for New Zealand parliamentarians, the government in Wellington said. Beijing has been increasing pressure in recent years on the democratically governed island that it claims as its own territory.

Two lawmakers reached by the AP on Thursday rejected the demand for an apology, while the other two could not be immediately reached. New Zealand's government said it would express concern about the travel bans to Beijing.

Beijing views visits to Taiwan as threats to sovereignty

The elected officials visited Taipei in May, as New Zealand parliamentarians have done “for decades,” a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.

Beijing says Taipei has no right to conduct foreign relations and views visits by foreign lawmakers to the island as defying China’s claims of sovereignty over it. Taiwan, in practice, is self-ruled.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Thursday confirmed the sanctions.

“We urge the relevant people to sincerely respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and strictly abide by the One China principle,” Mao said during a regular briefing in Beijing. “Anyone who crosses the red line on the Taiwan question must pay the price.”

China had a particularly forceful response to a visit to Taiwan by former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2022. Beijing had banned her from visiting China, and also launched large-scale live-fire military exercises around Taiwan.

Peters' spokesperson said the officials' visit was “not inconsistent with New Zealand’s One China policy," which includes acknowledgment of Beijing's claim that Taiwan is a province of China. New Zealand is not among the 12 nations worldwide that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan's government.

4 New Zealand officials banned for a year

Emails sent to the lawmakers by New Zealand's Parliamentary Service, and seen by the AP, said that Beijing's embassy in Wellington had asked for a message to be conveyed to the four officials that they were banned from China, Macau and Hong Kong for one year.

The ban might be rescinded if the lawmakers in question apologized for visiting Taiwan, the email said.

“China has consistently opposed visits to China’s Taiwan region by members of the legislatures of countries that have established diplomatic relations with China, including New Zealand, and this case is no exception," a spokesperson for China's embassy in Wellington said in a statement posted to its website Thursday. “The New Zealand side should not be surprised.”

New Zealand officials in Beijing and Wellington would discuss the matter with China “in order to express concern at this departure from past practice and to better understand it,” Peters' spokesperson said. Lawmakers in New Zealand decide individually whether to join delegations traveling abroad and such visits usually include representatives from multiple political parties.

Lawmaker Laura McClure from the libertarian ACT party said that the “demand” for an apology was “frankly insulting” and she wouldn't give one.

Duncan Webb, from the center-left Labour Party, said New Zealand valued democratic institutions and the right to engage with partners abroad.

“If the cost of doing that is to be excluded from China for a year, I will pay that price,” Webb said in an email.

New Zealand and China have generally had good relations

Relations between Wellington and Beijing have in recent years been largely positive. China is New Zealand's largest trading partner and was the first Western country to sign a free trade deal with Beijing.

In New Zealand's nearest neighboring country, Australia, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Thursday that her government too would express concerns about the lawmakers' bans to Beijing and to China's mission in Canberra.

“We agree with the principle expressed by New Zealand that members of parliament, including the Australian Parliament, are free to make their own decisions about their travel independent of government,” she told a Senate committee in Canberra on Thursday.

“Placing pressure on parliamentarians is not appropriate,” she added.

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Associated Press writers E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing, Huizhong Wu in Bangkok and Rod McGuirk in Melbourne contributed to this story.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a report Tuesday that the recall includes certain Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator vehicles with model years 2018 through 2022.

The issue involves seat belts that may lock inadvertently, not allowing them to retract or extend. The NHTSA report says a seat belt that doesn’t retract or extend may result in an injury if a crash happens. Individuals may also face injury in some instances if the seat belt retracts rapidly.

The recall replaces and expands on two previous NHTSA recalls. The report states that Ford Motor Co. is aware of two warranty claims and two field reports related to the latest recall. The company is also aware of one injury.

Vehicle owners will receive a notification in the mail about the recall. They can take their vehicle to a Ford or Lincoln dealer to have both front seat belt retractors inspected and to replace retractors involved in the recall for free.

Ford also issued a do-not-drive warning for thousands of Bronco Sport and Maverick due to problems with the vehicles’ suspension systems.

The NHTSA said that the front lower control arm ball joints may have been incorrectly installed or incorrectly repaired at an assembly plant, and the control arm could disconnect from the front wheel knuckle.

If a control arm detaches, it can cause a loss of control, increasing the chances of a crash.

The recall involves 4,600 Bronco Sport vehicles with model years 2021 through 2026 and Maverick vehicles with model years 2022 through 2026.

Dealers will inspect and repair the front lower control arm ball joints as necessary, for free.

Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332 or the NHTSA at 1-888-327-4236 for more information about the recalls.

Marco Balich, fresh off the Olympics opening ceremony, which included a parade of athletes spread across four venues, said he was up to the challenge of producing three shows in three cities, with teams numbering 260 to 300 people in each city.

The ceremonies' unifying theme will be “the celebration of sports, the passion for soccer, symbolized by the cup itself,” Balich said. “The idea is to narrate with three points of view and languages,” using design aesthetics representative of each culture.

In Canada, a mosaic will represent its multicultural identity. Mexico's motif will be the traditional paper cutouts called papel picado, while the United States will have “a super shiny, glowing cup,” said Balich, who also produced the opening ceremony for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Balich called it a “very good sign” that Canada, Mexico and the U.S. were working together to host “a peaceful World Cup.”

"I think it’s very important that we stress the fact that the three nations are working together to host a very important and relevant championship, especially in this moment where there is so much controversy on the political side,’’ said Balich, founder of Balich Wonder Studios. “But the people are people, and they will get together and enjoy.”

Each ceremony will feature top artistic performances that tap into the national identity, but Balich said spectators shouldn’t expect a Super Bowl-style halftime extravaganza. Instead, the ceremonies will combine welcoming speeches, a parade of flags, the presentation of the match ball and about 30 minutes of musical entertainment.

“It's a celebration of football, FIFA and the fact that, thanks to soccer, people get together in peace and harmony," Balich said.

Each ceremony will be held about 90 minutes before game time, following a 25-minute player warm-up that organizers hope will prompt spectators to arrive early.

While the Super Bowl celebrates “a game that is only famous in the U.S., the rest of the world plays soccer, and has a passion that is shared,’’ Balich said.

The festivities launch on June 11 in Mexico City, ahead of the Mexico City-South Africa match, with a show featuring Latin rock band Maná, Colombian singer J Balvin and South African pop star Tyla.

They continue June 12 in Toronto ahead of the Canada-Bosnia and Herzegovina game, with Alanis Morissette and Michael Bublé headlining, before heading to Los Angeles Stadium later that day for the U.S.-Paraguay opener.

International stars will take the stage at Los Angeles Stadium, including Katy Perry, global pop star LISA, Nigerian Afrobeats star Rema, Brazilian pop artist Anitta, and hip-hop artist Future.

The Italian producer is enjoying the distinction of producing the two biggest sports ceremonies in the world this year — the 2026 Winter Games opening ceremony and 2026 World Cup — even as Italy sits out its third straight World Cup.

“It is very encouraging, actually, to compensate the sad news that Italy is not there this time,” Balich said, adding that Italy's absence “which is a disaster for us, has also enabled us to be very impartial” in celebrating each country “in a similar way.”

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

As of Thursday, June 4, the Virginia average for regular gas is $4.072, according to AAA. Premium averages $4.952 per gallon, while diesel averages $5.251 per gallon.

Taking a closer look at our region, here’s a look at the average price of gas for localities in our area:

• Lynchburg:
• • Regular: $3.977
  • Mid: $4.484
  • Premium: $4.859
  • Diesel: $5.269
• Roanoke:
• • Regular: $3.996
  • Mid: $4.465
  • Premium: $4.870
  • Diesel: $5.254
• Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and Radford (New River Valley area)
• • Regular: $4.051
  • Mid: $4.539
  • Premium: $4.950
  • Diesel: $5.191

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.

Rudrendra Tandon, a senior official in India’s foreign ministry, said the talks held in New Delhi focused on strengthening energy cooperation. He said Venezuela had become India’s third-largest crude oil supplier in recent weeks.

Tandon said India is “aggressively seeking new sources of crude oil and energy to strengthen its energy security,” adding that Venezuela represents an “opportunity and is very much part of our plans.”

Modi and Rodriguez also explored opportunities for Indian companies to invest in Venezuela's sectors including mining, critical minerals, pharmaceuticals and automobiles, he said.

The meeting comes as India has increased imports of Venezuelan crude in recent months, making the South American country a more important supplier for the world’s third-largest oil importer.

India imports about 90% of its oil. Around half of those supplies pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route effectively closed by the Iran war.

Rodriguez also met India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, on Thursday and is scheduled to hold talks with Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri. She is also expected to visit facilities in India’s energy, pharmaceutical and automobile sectors.

If you don’t know how to do CPR, now is a good time to learn – especially since it can double or triple a person’s chances of survival after cardiac arrest.

“Cardiac arrest is when your heart stops beating, and that can be due to many different reasons. One of the most common reasons is a heart attack. That doesn’t always lead to a cardiac arrest, but in the worst cases, it does,” said Grant Reed, MD, cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Reed said cardiac arrest can be deadly within a matter of minutes, which is why it’s important to perform CPR right away.

If you’ve never done it before, here are a few tips to keep in mind.

First, make sure the scene is safe and have someone call 911.

If you’re alone, call and put the phone on speaker.

You should then check to see if the person is breathing and has a pulse. If not, immediately start chest compressions.

The red cross recommends 100 to 120 chest compressions per minute.

Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is optional.

“The most important thing is that you start circulating the blood. If you were to do one thing for a patient, or person who has passed out, and has a cardiac arrest, it is doing chest compressions. It’s actually not a recommendation that you need to do rescue breaths if you’re not comfortable with this,” he said.

Dr. Reed said knowing how to use an AED is just as crucial.

They can be found in many public places and include very simple instructions.

He adds that AEDs are not meant to replace CPR but to be used along with it.

The Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office said the area is safe following a search for a man and a woman believed to be involved in an alleged domestic incident Wednesday evening.

“At this time, we believe it is safe for individuals in the area to resume normal activities,” said Gerald Downey with the sheriff’s office. “We would like to thank all neighboring law enforcement agencies that assisted with this incident.”

Authorities say the incident was isolated, and they have not yet located the individuals in question. We’re told there will be a heavy police presence out of an abundance of caution.

9 p.m. Update:

The Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office announced that officials are currently looking for a man and woman involved in an alleged domestic incident Wednesday evening.

According to officials, deputies responded at 6:30 p.m. to what was described as a domestic incident.

Officials say during the incident, a man was assaulting a woman, and they were both confronted by officers from a neighboring agency.

Both parties then fled into the woods, and what was believed to be a gunshot was then heard.

Additional units from multiple agencies responded to the area and began a systematic search of the area. At this time, the police are still attempting to locate both individuals.

They are described as a white male in a red Adidas shirt, blue jeans, and a ball cap and a white woman in a blue sweatshirt and red hair.

Officials are urging the public not to approach and call 911 if spotted.

Original:

The Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office announced on it’s social media pages that there was a large police presence in the area of Brooklyn Road and Madison Street in the Fairlawn area of the county.

The sheriff’s office is urging residents in the area to stay inside and lock their doors.

The sheriff’s office said that if they see a white male in a red Adidas shirt, blue jeans and a ball cap and a white woman in a blue sweatshirt and red hair to not approach, and if spotted, call 911.

Other information regarding why police are searching for these two individuals is not currently available, but 10 News will continue to update this story as information becomes available.

The new funding announced Thursday pushes French Gates’ donations for women’s health over $600 million in the past two years.

French Gates told The Associated Press in an interview that women’s health is the cornerstone of the work she does through Pivotal, the group of organizations she founded to handle her philanthropy and investments. “It’s just blaringly obvious that women’s health is fundamental — she has to be well to do well in life,” French Gates said.

Since 2024, when she stepped away from The Gates Foundation, which she founded with her now ex-husband Bill Gates and built into one of the world’s largest private funders of health care, French Gates has honed her approach to supporting women.

This latest round of funding reflects an increasingly strategic approach to areas she feels are underfunded. It includes a $40 million donation to Co-Impact for an initiative that embeds mental health support into maternal and primary care, especially in Africa. And French Gates hopes her $10 million donation to the Menopause Society to improve menopause care in the United States, by educating healthcare practitioners and expanding outreach in areas where care is limited, will encourage other funders to begin working on the issue.

According to the World Economic Forum, even though women make up half the population, the health issues that specifically affect them only get 2% of private healthcare funds. The lack of funding has resulted in a lack of products and services dedicated to treating them.

“The role of philanthropy, in my opinion, is to look at some of these societal problems that have been left behind, and shine light on them, show ways of making progress so you can then crowd in other donors and ultimately crowd in government funding,” she said. “Part of what I’m doing here, I hope, is sending a signal to say, ‘This is really important. Let’s do something about it.’ And my hope is that I’ll be able to get others who will join me.”

Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director of The Menopause Society and director of The Mayo Clinic’s Center for Women’s Health, said the United States currently has about 6,000 counties where patients have critically low access to menopause-competent clinicians. She said the donation will allow The Menopause Society to offer its educational resources to more areas of the country that need them.

“Menopause remains one of the most overlooked and underserved areas in medicine, and The Menopause Society believes women deserve better,” Faubion said. “We’re ready to make those changes with the support of donors like Pivotal.”

Research into menopause treatments was already underfunded, even before recent medical research cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration went into effect, Faubion said.

“I think philanthropy is going to fill a greater role than it ever has in the past because we are just not going to have the same type of government funding that we’ve had before,” she said. “Funding is hard to come by these days – much, much harder than it was before. And the need hasn’t gotten away. We still have to do the research somehow.”

Faubion said the substantial size of French Gates’ gift is important, but the attention it brings may be even more crucial.

“It shows that somebody like Melinda Gates and Pivotal feel that this is an important issue,” Faubion said. “It will illuminate the gaps that are still there… and it makes people not only aware, but maybe motivated to take some action.”

For French Gates, bringing more attention to these women’s issues is nearly as important as increasing the funding for them.

“I want women’s health issues to not be invisible,” she said. “I don’t want the default to be that women are expected to deal with pain and suffering. I want them to be seen for what they’re going through, their real life experiences, and have those issues addressed so they can live their very best lives."

______

The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage of women in the workforce and in statehouses from Melinda French Gates’ organization, Pivotal.

_______

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

These are just some of the ways consumers describe the moment the glass in their oven door shattered.

“No one thinks that they’re going to have a ticking time bomb in their kitchen in which glass will fly all over the place,” said Gabe Knight with Consumer Reports.

Consumer Reports’ investigation focused on complaints filed with the Consumer Product Safety Commission over a 15-month period.

They found nearly 400 incidents and more than 40 injuries. In many of those reports, people say the oven wasn’t even on.

“Some were asleep in bed,” Knight said. “They went downstairs. They touched the oven. It was cold to the touch, but there was glass all over the floor.”

Consumer Reports found similar complaints dating back more than a decade in the CPSC’s public database.

And they’re not limited to a single manufacturer.

“Although Frigidaire is cited more than any other company, we’re seeing this issue across brands,” Knight said.

Consumer Reports contacted the five manufacturers with the most complaints.

LG said it’s aware of the complaints, but “has not identified a basis at this time for additional action.” The other four companies said their products meet third-party safety standards.

CR says Samsung is the only company to say it offers free repairs regardless of warranty status.

“We’re calling on these companies to work with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, dig into the incidents, and offer free repairs to consumers.”

Consumer Reports says there may not be obvious warning signs before the glass fails.

“There’s nothing clear besides possibly if there’s a chip, or a crack, or damage in the glass,” Kenneth Sutton with Consumer Reports explained. “And if that was to happen, I would contact the manufacturer immediately.”

And if your oven glass does shatter, Consumer Reports says -- take photos, keep any repair records, contact the manufacturer, and file a report with the CPSC.

Consumer Reports says sharing these incidents with the CPSC at saferproducts.gov can help regulators determine whether additional action is needed.

Makki, 47, who cooks Lebanese dishes like couscous stews and traditional kibbeh balls in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights, immigrated to Michigan in 1990. But her heart never left her childhood village of Bint Jbeil, now one of the hardest-hit areas in southern Lebanon.

Nearly every Lebanese American has felt the impact of the latest round of fighting, which has displaced more than 1 million people — roughly one in every six Lebanese — and killed more than 3,500 people. It’s Israel’s deepest invasion into Lebanon in more than a quarter-century.

“I was thinking, ‘What can I do for other people?’” Makki said. “So I used my business.”

Even with the rising cost of living in the U.S., she said, “the money I can spare personally, I’ve been sending it to family.”

In areas like metro Detroit, where Arabic signs adorn restaurants, coffee houses and bakeries on bustling suburban avenues, a sense of grief has blanketed the war-weary community as they watch the crisis unfold thousands of miles away.

Like Makki, many grapple with guilt and hopelessness. It’s not easy to help loved ones who are unwilling or unable to leave their country and face a worsening economic crisis.

“Honestly it’s hard. Like, what do you say?” Makki said. “They’re going to ask me what I’m doing. Let’s say I’m at work. They lost their jobs. Let’s say I tell them I’m home. They lost their homes.”

The global diaspora has shaped Lebanon

Lebanese immigration to the U.S. dates to the late 1800s. Roughly 625,000 Lebanese Americans live here now, according to census data, though some estimates put the number closer to 1.4 million.

Opinions about the Lebanese government, Hezbollah and Israel vary among the diaspora as they do in Lebanon, where views are heavily influenced by religious affiliation. The population there is about equally split between Sunni Muslim, Shiite Muslim and Christian denominations, along with a smaller Druze community.

Despite their differences, the global diaspora remains deeply connected to their home country, in part through billions of dollars sent back each year.

“There is really no Lebanese homeland without the Lebanese diaspora,” Edward Curtis, director of Arabic Studies at Indiana University, said.

A population who relies on each other

Lebanese Americans often rally around common causes, like during the 2024 U.S. presidential election for the “ uncommitted movement ” protesting U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza, or to condemn the Michigan synagogue attack carried out by a Lebanese man in March.

“When they see suffering in Lebanon, people’s immediate reaction ... is for the community to come together, raise funds, raise money, and try to help everybody as much as they can,” Akram Khater, director of Lebanese Diaspora Studies at North Carolina State University, said.

Most rely on one another, rather than looking to Washington for help.

Curtis said many Lebanese Americans have grown disillusioned with U.S. politics, instead seeking to “celebrate Lebanese life when other peoples are threatening its death.”

Maya Attoui, whose parents still live in Beirut, is organizing a metro Detroit fundraiser to support Lebanon and raise awareness about the conflict. She said she doesn’t have enough money to spare to support her numerous relatives, but hopes an event with activities and speakers will generate far more funds.

“We don’t feel like talking, we don’t feel like cooking in our houses,” Attoui said. “We’re just 24/7 on the phone or on the news. Our heart is really melting and breaking because of whatever we see.”

A financial lifeline

Although people send remittances to countries all over the world, Lebanon is particularly dependent on its vast diaspora. The country’s economy has been shredded in recent years, to the point where the U.S. dollar is gradually becoming the de facto currency.

Makki visited Lebanon in February and saw how much prices had risen. Where $200 used to cover a car rental and a hotel room, this time it barely paid for a dinner out.

Some people crowdsource funds online. There are established relief organizations, but most prefer to send money directly to loved ones.

Makki doesn't want to send more than $10,000 in total, to avoid appearing suspicious. After that, she laughed, “Maybe take it there myself?”

Nadia Bryant, 37, of Troy, Michigan, has been sending money to her half sisters in Lebanon, who are in temporary housing after their village of Ayta ash-Shab was invaded by Israeli forces.

Rather than spending the money on themselves, Bryant said, her sisters used it to help orphaned children.

“They’re such righteous people,” Bryant said. “They are not even trying to take the money and get themselves a better house or anything. They’re like, ‘Oh, we have shelter, but this person needs a mattress.’”

Over WhatsApp, her sister sent her a photo of a steaming teapot over a fire amid the strewn debris of what had been their home. The caption read: “Best cup of tea since 9 october 2023.”

“I don’t even ask, ‘How are you?’ That feels so stupid to me,” Bryant said. “I ask, you know, ‘What does today look like,’ or ‘Where are you today?’”

Attoui, the fundraiser organizer, has tried to convince her family to move to the U.S. multiple times since she came in 2006. They don't want to leave. Regardless, the U.S. stopped processing immigrant visas to Lebanese nationals in late January.

“I have all my aunts and my cousins over there,” she said. “So like, how many people can you bring here?”

Last month, along with nine other young boys, he flew to Mexico to represent Brazil in the Street Child World Cup, a tournament with teams from 30 countries composed of boys from impoverished backgrounds, organized ahead of this year’s FIFA World Cup.

“I never could have imagined that one day this would happen, that I would represent my country, doing what I most love — playing soccer — in another country,” said Gonçalves, who is 18. The Brazil team went undefeated and won the tournament, enhancing the thrill of the experience.

Like many Brazilians, Gonçalves and his teammates grew up kicking a ball around and closely following members of the Seleção, Brazil’s national soccer team. They dream of one day becoming professional soccer players like their heroes.

The project has already changed their lives, they say.

Beyond being the gateway to climatic moments, the Street Child United Brazil project in the Penha complex of favelas allows participants to at least momentarily escape from everyday life marked by deprivation and violence, fostering a sense of safety, belonging and hope.

The initiative began in 2014, when Brazil hosted the FIFA World Cup. Today, some 100 youths take part in the year-round training sessions that take place four days a week. The project welcomes girls and boys aged 6 and above.

Playing soccer represents “love, passion, the realization of dreams,” said Ryan Mercedes, a 17-year-old who also went to Mexico. “When we enter the field, it’s time for us to have fun and be happy.”

But soccer enthusiast Rafael Gomes says that the reality of life in the favela has sometimes caught up with them. The soccer fans have had to at least once interrupt a game due to a police operation in the favela.

“We were training when all of a sudden there were shots, we had to run and stay in the corners,” said Gomes.

Last year, more than 120 people died in a deadly police operation in Penha and the neighboring Alemao complex of favelas targeting members of the criminal group Red Command.

The drug-trafficking group — which the Trump administration recently decided to classify as a foreign terrorist organization — controls parts of the favela. It represents a temptation for minors who might be drawn to crime as a quick way of making cash.

Drica Santos, a coordinator for the project, says that the organization aims to offer an alternative to that way of life.

“If the project didn’t exist, we would have lost a lot of lives,” said Santos. “We’re not going to save everyone, but the greatest number of children that we manage to save — that don’t get involved in drug-trafficking — that will already be our victory.”

Carlos Cassiano da Silva, a community leader in the favela, says that parents are grateful for the project because they know that their children will be occupied for a certain amount of time and stay out of trouble.

The initiative also casts Penha in a good light, da Silva added. “Many people aren’t used to seeing Penha in a positive manner, they don’t know of the good things we have here too,” he said.

As the World Cup approaches, Gonçalves said he hoped that the Seleção would follow in his teammates' footsteps and bring back the trophy.

“We did our part. Now it’s up to the Brazilian national team,” Gonçalves said.

___

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

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the case was in a 3-week-old calf in LaPryor, Texas, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Mexico border. Texas State Veterinarian Bud Dinges said he has established a 12-mile (20-kilometer) quarantine zone, prohibiting the movement of any warm-blooded animal — including pets — outside that zone without an inspection.

Rollins said there have been no other detections of the fly in the U.S., and officials were quick to say that while the fly’s larvae are a threat to livestock production, they don’t infest food. Properly treated, even the infested calf should recover, Rollins said.

Rollins, U.S. and Texas agriculture officials, and cattle industry leaders have been sounding public alarms about the fly’s movement across Mexico for more than a year, spurred on by memories of it causing tens of millions of dollars of losses — potentially billions in today’s dollars — before its eradication in the 1970s.

It is the first case confirmed in Texas since 1966, Rollins said.

The months of effort to keep the fly out of the U.S. have included dropping millions of sterile screwworm flies in the area to mate with wild females — the same method used successfully before the fly was eradicated. Rollins said the USDA is confident enough in its preparations that it believes “there is no threat of mass infestation.”

“There is no reason to believe this incursion will result in establishment of the pest in our country," Rollins said.

The announcement of the suspected case comes only a day after Rollins had an online news conference to highlight the nearness of the threat, with cases been confirmed in Mexico as close as 25 miles (40 km) from the border — and to outline the USDA's efforts to combat it.

The New World Screwworm fly is a tropical species that decades ago infested cattle in warm weather across the southern United States, but it was contained in Panama until late in 2024.

The female fly lays its eggs in open wounds or mucous membranes and they hatch into larvae that eat flesh — making them unlike most fly species — and can infest livestock, wild mammals, household pets and even humans. Infestations can lead to death if left untreated.

In August 2025, federal health officials confirmed a case in a Maryland resident who had traveled to El Salvador, but the victim recovered and officials found no transmission of the parasite. Before that, the last outbreak was in the Florida Keys in September 2016, mostly among wild deer, and it was contained early the next year without spreading further.

The female flies mate once in their monthslong lives, and if they do so with a sterile fly, their eggs would not hatch — and the population would die out over time. Past eradication efforts were so successful that the U.S. shut down facilities for breeding sterile flies, leaving only one in Panama for decades.

That is changing. The USDA dedicated $21 million to convert a fruit-fly breeding facility in southern Mexico into one for breeding screwworm flies, opened a new center for dispersing sterile flies bred elsewhere in southern Texas and has started construction on a $750 million screwworm fly factory there. The breeding facility in Mexico should be operating next month, Rollins said.

Officials also deployed 8,000 fly traps along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Rollins said the USDA has tested more than 58,000 fly samples, along with 19,000 wild animals.

Rollins also closed the U.S.-Mexico border last year to livestock imports from Mexico, a decision she defended during her news conference Tuesday. The fly also can travel with people and their pets and with wild animals, officials noted, but Rollins stressed Wednesday evening that it doesn't fly great distances on its own.

Dinges said ranchers and pet owners need to understand that it's important to respect the quarantine zone.

“Please help us prevent any further movement of this pest by staying put,” he said.

Until the ending.

The French star had 26 points in his finals debut, though had to work for all of them — misfiring on 15 of his 21 shots from the field, some of them even hitting the top of the backboard, and seeing waves of New York defenders all game long. The worst part of all for Wembanyama, the best defensive player in the game, was seeing the Knicks score the game's final 11 points and steal away home-court advantage with a 105-95 victory.

“I was bad tonight," Wembanyama said. “It's not more complicated than that.”

He said it calmly, without panic, very matter-of-factly. The Spurs lost a game. The series isn't over. He's not worried, yet.

“I would say that he definitely holds himself accountable,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “I expect he’ll learn a lot of things from tonight’s game and come out with a good approach in Game 2.”

There's been a history of that for both Wembanyama and the Spurs. They lost home-court advantage to Portland in Round 1 before winning the final three games of that series, lost home-court again to Minnesota in Round 2 after dropping Game 1, and didn't even have the home-court edge against Oklahoma City in the Western Conference finals — a series where San Antonio trailed 2-1 and 3-2 before prevailing.

Then again, they're playing a Knicks team that hasn't lost since April. And it's now June. New York is 12-0 in its last 12 games, and the Spurs now have to try and beat them in four of the next six to win this title.

“Obviously, we’ve been down in a series before,” Wembanyama said. “Never in the finals, obviously. But I’m not kicking myself about anything really. I’m not worried the slightest.”

It's not a question if he can bounce back, or if the finals lights are too bright. Wembanyama has handled everything that has been thrown his way since he entered the NBA three years ago — even the scare that came last year when his season ended early because of deep vein thrombosis — with what would appear to be ease.

Beating the Knicks won't be easy. But Wembanyama finding a way to play better on Friday in Game 2, that's to be expected.

“Players come along every once in a while that, in addition to having this incredible skill, love the promotional side of it and want to play that role for the league,” Commissioner Adam Silver said of Wembanyama before the game. “We saw the role he played at All-Star, even leading the other young players, saying, let’s take this seriously, this really matters.”

Even going back to the years when the NBA was waiting for Wembanyama, Silver has never wanted to say if he or the league has an expectation for him. The reasoning is simple: There was, and is, enough pressure on Wembanyama. Silver, to his credit, hasn't added to it.

“He came in highly touted. He was somebody who even before he came into the NBA was blowing up the internet in terms of his highlights,” Silver said. “Did I have a specific expectation in terms of numbers of years it would take him to get to the finals? No. But I would say, just trying to be an objective observer, he’s ahead of any timeline that people had in mind.”

That may be true. He's just not ahead in the series. And Friday's test will be a big one.

“We’re all confident,” Spurs guard Dylan Harper said. “I feel like that is kind of who he is. He never backs down from the moment. He always kind of steps up and meets it.”

___

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

Jalen Brunson scored 30 points, Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds, and the Knicks erased a 14-point second-half deficit to beat the San Antonio Spurs 105-95 in Game 1 of the finals on Wednesday night.

OG Anunoby had 17 points for New York — which has won 12 consecutive playoff games, the seventh team to have such a streak in NBA history, and is the third to do it in a single season. Brunson scored 13 points in the fourth, only six fewer than San Antonio managed as a team in that quarter, and sealed it with a spinning jumper while falling to the court with 38 seconds left.

“He's a gamer, man,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “In the biggest moments, he shows up. That's what MVPs are supposed to do.”

And the Knicks, who finished on an 11-0 run, made a little more history. They became the first team to beat San Antonio in a Game 1 of the title series — the Spurs were 6-0 in those — and this is also the first time the Spurs have trailed a finals before the finish.

As far as single-season playoff winning streaks — Golden State won 15 straight games in the 2017 postseason on its way to the title. San Antonio won 12 straight in 1999 on its way to the title. And now New York has won 12 in a row, with its title status to be determined.

“I think we know what we have to do,” Brunson said. “I think we're a pretty together group.”

Victor Wembanyama had 26 points and 12 rebounds for the Spurs, but he shot 6 for 21 from the field in his finals debut. Stephon Castle scored 17, while Julian Champagnie and Dylan Harper each had 16 for San Antonio.

“I was bad tonight,” Wembanyama said. “It's not more complicated than that.”

Game 2 is Friday in San Antonio.

Former San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich was at the game, as he’s been for every finals game in Spurs history, albeit watching from a suite and not stomping the San Antonio sideline. The Spurs legends — David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Bruce Bowen and more — were there, too.

So were Knicks great Patrick Ewing and the world’s most recognizable New York fans: Spike Lee, Tracy Morgan, Ben Stiller, Fat Joe, Timothée Chalamet and more. Plenty of non-celeb Knicks fans made the trip as well; Tommy Sherlock, a auto sales manager from Brooklyn, said it cost less for two Game 1 tickets in San Antonio, with hotel and airfare, than Game 3 tickets in New York would have set him back.

“First-class air, too,” Sherlock said. “By a lot.”

The Knicks led 14-7 early, the Spurs answered with a 20-13 run to go up by 10, the Knicks rallied and the second quarter saw six lead changes before San Antonio took a 55-48 lead into the break.

San Antonio pushed the lead to 14 midway through the third quarter before the Knicks stormed back, finishing the period on a 22-9 run and sending the game into the fourth tied at 76.

New York's lead was eight midway through the final period. Wembanyama made a pair of free throws with 2:16 left to put San Antonio up 95-94, but Brunson made a corner 3 on the next possession to put the Knicks on top for good.

“I think we let that one go,” Wembanyama said.

San Antonio's run of never trailing the finals had some close calls over the years. The Spurs were tied twice with New Jersey in 2003 finals, tied with Detroit twice in 2005, tied with Miami three times in 2013 — they lost that series in seven games, so they only trailed when it was over — and then were tied with the Heat once more in 2014.

It's only 1-0. But the Knicks are only three wins away from their first title in 53 years, and they just took home-court advantage away from San Antonio.

“We have a long way to go,” Brunson said.

___

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

Auburn struck quickly, scoring in the top of the first, but in the bottom half of the frame, Fort Chiswell tied the game at 1-1.

The Pioneers would keep the pressure on however, scoring two more runs in the following innings to give themselves a 3-1 cushion until Auburn battled back to tie the game at 3-3.

Fort Chiswell delivered in the clutch though, scoring the winning run and hoisting the 1C trophy.

In Region 4D, Jefferson Forest defeated James Wood 3-1 to claim that title and a home game in the state quarterfinals.

The rare albino buffalo became a sensation when a farmer noticed that his blond tuft of hair resembled the distinctive locks of the U.S. president. After a video of the pale horned mammal went viral on social media, large numbers of people started showing up at the farm outside Dhaka to see him for themselves.

The animal was originally meant to be slaughtered for the Muslim festival of sacrifice. But citing security concerns, the government ordered him transferred to the zoo in the capital, where large crowds are now braving sweltering heat to see him.

On Tuesday, visitors pressed against the fence of the buffalo's enclosure, filming with their phones as some fathers hoisted small children on their shoulders for a better view.

A zoo worker pampered the animal, brushing his hair to one side and hosing him down with water to keep him cool as fans blew on him.

“There is a resemblance to Donald Trump in its eyes, hairstyle, and skin color,” said Mohammed Nasim, a student in Dhaka. “And just as Donald Trump has a distinctive personality and lifestyle, this buffalo, after going viral, is now living a similar kind of life, enjoying a lot of attention and special treatment.”

Local media reported that the exhibit initially included a sign that said “Donald Trump,” which has since been removed. The zoo curator was fired Saturday, though no official cause was given for the dismissal.

Some clearly found the naming in poor taste.

“Giving a farm animal the name of one of the world’s most influential leaders was certainly the wrong thing to do," said Dhaka resident Mohammad Joynal Adedin, who visited the zoo to see the buffalo anyway. “It seems disrespectful. I think the farmer who did this made a poor decision.”

The buffalo was sold ahead of Eid al-Adha, the “Feast of Sacrifice.” When Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed ordered police to take the animal into custody, the authorities refunded the buyer.

"Since before Eid, I had been seeing posts on Facebook saying that ‘Donald Trump’ would be sacrificed. Later, I heard that instead of being sacrificed, it had been placed in a zoo,” said Mohammad Habibur Rahman, a visitor to the zoo from the southwestern Bangladeshi city of Jashore.

“So, I thought I would come to the zoo and see ‘Donald Trump’ for myself," he said.

The government says the development on the Adriatic coast would be transformational for the former communist nation as it seeks to enter the high-end tourism market and pushes for European Union membership.

But the venture, spanning an abandoned island and a nearby stretch of seafront on Albania’s southern coast, has drawn opposition from environmental campaigners and critics of long-time Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Kushner and Ivanka Trump found the site on a barefoot hike

The luxury project has two components: a coastal development in the Narta Lagoon area, which is a wildlife reserve, and a smaller resort on the nearby uninhabited island of Sazan, a communist-era military base.

The planned development of hotels, apartments, villas and a marina is linked to Kushner and Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump.

In an interview this week with U.S. podcaster David Senra, Ivanka Trump said they discovered the site by accident.

“We were on a friend’s boat, and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that’s how we found it,” she said. “We swam to the island. We went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated.”

An investment firm linked to Kushner has been granted special investor status by Albanian authorities.

Harsh rule, pristine beaches

Albania has 450 kilometers (280 miles) of coast that remained largely underdeveloped during decades of harsh communist rule.

Protest groups fear the sections of that pristine coastline could be snapped up by powerful investors. And public anger grew after video showed an activist being dragged by a private security guard while demonstrating at the site.

The development is planned within a nature reserve and one of Albania’s most valuable biodiversity areas, a key stopover for migratory birds along the Adriatic coast.

Protesters have carried cardboard cut-outs of pink flamingos, one of the protected migratory bird species, at rallies in the capital Tirana.

Since late May, excavators and other heavy machinery have entered the area, opening access routes, digging into the sand, clearing land among pine trees and installing fencing.

Environmental groups from Albania and elsewhere in Europe condemned the work, with one prominent local group charging that long-protected habitats are being "irreversibly destroyed.”

A multi-billion dollar bonanza?

Albania’s state anti-corruption agency has confirmed it opened an investigation related to the project but has not disclosed details.

The government says the land earmarked for the project is privately owned. But competing claims have emerged questioning the privatization — a common type of legal dispute.

Rama has committed to the venture, saying it would align with Albania’s ambition to become a major global tourism destination.

“Albania should not be a country that fears an extraordinary project like this one, where exceptional partners have come together to invest 4 billion euros ($4.6 billion),” Rama said.

He added: “There is no chance for this investment to stop as long as I am here.”

However, the demise of a similar project in Serbia offers a cautionary tale. In November, Serbia's Parliament passed a special law to enable the building of a luxury complex in the capital, Belgrade, to be financed by an investment company linked to Kushner.

The following month, Serbia's prosecutor for organized crime charged four people, including a government minister, with abuse of office and falsifying of documents to help pave the way for the development.

Kushner later withdrew from the planned multi-million investment that would have replaced a sprawling bombed-out military complex, a designated heritage zone whose legal protection was lifted by the former officials now on trial.

With Putin set to arrive Thursday in his hometown that is hosting the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Ukrainian attack a day earlier that set an oil terminal ablaze was another embarrassing blow to his efforts to minimize the impact of the 4-year-old conflict and cast it as a distant event with no effect on Russian daily life.

The attack, which also targeted a naval base near Russia's second-largest city on the Gulf of Finland, underlined Ukraine’s growing capability to hit deep inside its neighbor and demonstrated that even the heavily protected city where Putin was born is increasingly vulnerable.

Scores of flights were delayed or diverted at St. Petersburg’s airport and authorities cut cellphone internet service to try to prevent drone attacks.

Putin had scaled down Russia's annual Victory Day parade on May 9, fearing Ukrainian drone strikes. Days later, a massive drone attack on Moscow’s suburbs killed three and showed the capital’s vulnerability.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia's forces were pressing inside Ukraine “in order to prevent such attacks” like the one on St. Petersburg. He noted that “systematic” strikes on Kyiv that Russia threatened last week are underway.

On Tuesday, Russia hit Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles, killing 23 and wounding 151 others.

Putin has used the forum to showcase his country's economic advances and encourage foreign investment. Often styled as the Russian version of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, it usually draws tens of thousands of delegates from around the world.

While Western officials and business people have stayed away from the forum after Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, Russia has sought to attract more guests from other regions to underline its declared goal of promoting a "multipolar world.”

Saudi Arabia, which is a special guest this year, has sent a large delegation. The presidents of Uzbekistan and Tanzania and China’s vice president also are attending. A U.S. official, Rodney Mims Cook Jr., head of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, will attend the event for the first time in years.

Russia’s economic outlook has clouded as the initial boost from massive military spending has fizzled. The government has raised taxes and increased domestic borrowing to keep its budget deficit under control.

Putin is expected to minimize Russia’s economic problems during his forum appearance, but the Ukrainian attack on St. Petersburg's port about 15 kilometers (about 9 miles) from the forum’s venue have underlined the growing challenges posed by the conflict.

Hours before the forum opened Wednesday, Ukrainian drones also hit the Kronstadt naval base on an island in the Gulf of Finland, the home of Russia’s Baltic Fleet since Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg. While most of the fleet has moved to Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, Kronstadt retains its symbolic importance as the seat of the country's naval glory, with its historic cathedral and old fortifications.

The amount of money involved in building and maintaining artificial intelligence models, the pursuit of artificial general intelligence that can surpass humans at many tasks, and widespread AI adoption all have led to an air of excitement around the technology that has helped lift the stock market to record highs.

“These companies are now burning through cash to win the AI race, and public equity is the cheapest source available, particularly in a rising interest rate environment,” said Michael Field, chief equity analyst at Morningstar.

But amid the billions — even trillions — at stake, worries about an AI bubble are looming in the background. Some experts fear tech companies and venture capitalists are pouring too much money into a still-nascent and unproven technology.

For now, though, the market shows no signs of a slowdown. Here's a look at some of the biggest AI-focused companies.

SpaceX

Elon Musk’s SpaceX was valued at $800 billion last year, but its value grew to $1.25 trillion after the space exploration company merged in February with Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI. Now, SpaceX plans an IPO that could become one of the biggest stock sales ever — even though the company is currently losing billions of dollars a year. SpaceX lost $2.6 billion from operations last year on $18.7 billion in revenue, according to a May regulatory filing, and the losses kept piling up at the start of this year. xAI, which features the Grok chatbot, lost $6.4 billion in operations last year, according to a company document.

Musk got SpaceX to buy xAI earlier this year despite protests from some SpaceX investors that it was a bailout and unethical given that he was a controlling shareholder in both.

SpaceX said on Wednesday it plans to raise up to $75 billion when it goes public this month, setting the stage for the largest-ever stock market debut and putting Musk on course to becoming the world’s first trillionaire. An offering of that size would easily break the record for the largest IPO, which was set by Saudi Aramco in 2019 when the oil giant went public and raised $26 billion.

Anthropic

Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, was formed in 2021 by ex-OpenAI leaders. It was recently valued at $965 billion, making it one of the world’s most valuable startups. It has been a meteoric rise for what was once a little-known research laboratory. The San Francisco-based company is moving toward going public on Wall Street, announcing June 1 that it has submitted a confidential filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO.

Anthropic has said it is making annualized revenue of $47 billion from selling its technology to people and organizations using Claude to write code and do other work and personal tasks on their behalf.

OpenAI

The maker of ChatGPT began in 2015 as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the common good. It is now a company valued at $852 billion planning an IPO as soon as this fall.

While OpenAI may have helped set off the current AI boom, Anthropic’s meteoric rise and Claude’s growing popularity have left the ChatGPT maker playing catch-up.

In an unsuccessful lawsuit against OpenAI and its top executives, Elon Musk, an OpenAI co-founder, claimed the company diverted from its founding mission to make more money. OpenAI had countered that Musk was simply seeking a bigger slice of the company. OpenAI has not yet reported filing initial IPO paperwork with the SEC.

Several AI heavyweights are already public companies

Google designed the Gemini AI assistant in response to a competitive threat posed by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which came out in late 2022. Gemini AI models are integrated into Google search and other products such as Maps. The market value of Alphabet, Google's Mountain View, California-based parent company, was $4.54 trillion at the beginning of June, up from $2.3 trillion a year earlier. That growth is a sign that Alphabet’s spending spree on AI is producing dividends so far, despite investor worries about some of its peers' massive AI investments.

Meta's AI push has meant integrating its assistant, Llama, into all aspects of its business, including advertising and consumer-facing tools such as a digital assistant that can help with daily tasks, as well as image and video creation. Unlike many rival models, Llama is open source, meaning it is largely available to the public and to developers. Meta AI is available as a standalone app and it is integrated into the Menlo Park, California-based company's smart glasses. Meta's market value as of early June was $1.55 trillion, down from $1.76 trillion a year earlier amid investor concerns about the company's massive AI spending.

Microsoft, which went public 40 years ago, likely would have been running behind in the AI race were it not for a timely multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI. Microsoft provided the computing power and financial backing that helped OpenAI build ChatGPT. In turn, Microsoft was able to use the same technical foundation to power its own AI assistant, now called Copilot. The once-exclusive partnership has since evolved as both companies look to other partners to advance their AI ambitions.

It's been nearly a week since U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement to extend the ceasefire in the conflict by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program that required Trump's sign off.

But Trump has called for unspecified changes to the agreement and Iranian officials — perhaps calculating that the Republican president is reluctant to restart the bombardment after burning through key weapons systems — are showing no signs they'll give in to new demands.

A series of strikes by the U.S. and Iran this week has raised fresh concern that the ceasefire could collapse. Trump on Wednesday downplayed the significance.

“It’s a different part of the world," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "You know, I’d say in that part of the world, a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

The shaky moment follows repeated claims by Trump since a 14-day ceasefire was agreed to on April 7 — following 38 days of U.S. and Israel bombing of Iran — that a deal is just days away and the Iranian side is begging to come to a settlement. Trump on Wednesday said it was possible something could come together “over the weekend.”

Without an interim settlement in place to reopen the Strait of Hormuz,global energy prices remain elevated and are adding to anxieties around the world about the impact of rising costs spurred by the three-month conflict on the cost of food, fuel and other goods.

After a string of reports this week that Iran was shutting down talks, Trump told CNBC he "couldn't care less” if the negotiations had bogged down and even mused they had become “boring.”

There's anxiety Trump is getting boxed in

There's growing concern inside the administration and among key advisers and allies that Trump now finds himself in a bind, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the administration’s internal deliberations, both of whom spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

He's buffeted by Democrats seizing on oil prices and warnings from hawkish members of his base that an early exit from the conflict would amount to capitulation.

Trump is privately hearing from other Republican lawmakers as well as Pentagon officials and Gulf allies that a return to the bombing campaign is a bad idea.

Those advising against returning to military action note that the U.S. has burned through munitions at too fast of a rate. It could take three years to replenish some key weapons systems.

Meanwhile, Gulf allies are worried that Iran will retaliate against them and their critical infrastructure and energy interests and further set back their economies.

At the same time, Trump has bristled at the idea of accepting a deal that resembles the 2015 nuclear agreement brokered by Democrat Barack Obama's administration, which restricted Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting international economic sanctions.

Trump during his first term abandoned the pact that he said had failed to permanently stop Iran’s nuclear program, ignored Iran’s ballistic missile development, and did not penalize Iran for supporting militant proxy groups across the Middle East.

Now, Trump, according to those familiar with internal deliberations, has made clear he feels strongly he can't make “a bad deal” and is acutely aware that he's at a moment where he's at risk of tarnishing his legacy if he missteps.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly dismissed the notion that Trump has been boxed in or that there's any concern within the administration about the pace of talks.

“These mysterious so-called ‘administration officials’ have no idea what they’re talking about — those actually involved in sensitive discussions know to trust in President Trump, who will always do what is best for U.S. national security,” Kelly said in a statement.

Trump resisted Israel push for Lebanon bombings

Israeli and hawkish allies in Washington have made the case to Trump that a deal at this point would amount to unconditional surrender, urging him to ratchet up economic pressure on Iran and back Israel's assault on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.

But Trump earlier this week in a heated call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded Israel stand down, and on Wednesday, Israel and Lebanon said they agreed to renew a ceasefire. Hezbollah was not part of the Israel-Lebanon talks, which have been held at the ambassadorial level in Washington since the beginning of last month.

Remaining in the current status quo with Tehran — neither a full resumption of hostilities nor sealing an interim agreement to restart nuclear talks — is a situation that Iran appears better poised to exploit, argues Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the hawkish Washington think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Despite being the weaker party, Iran appears to be calculating that the longer the holding pattern lasts, the better the chances are they can “box in” Trump, he added.

“Either way, Tehran appears more resolute than ever to not provide Trump with a victory image, hence why it isn’t budging on the battlefield or negotiating table,” Taleblu said.

Holding pattern isn't helpful for Republicans on the ballot

At the same time, Democrats are trying to capitalize on Trump's handling of the unpopular war ahead of November's midterm elections. The House of Representatives on Wednesday for the first time passed a symbolic resolution calling for a halt in military action against Iran, with four Republican lawmakers joining Democrats in the rebuke of Trump’s war.

During hours of hearings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday and Wednesday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Democrats laced into Trump for discounting the economic impact of the conflict on Americans and for failing to anticipate that Iran would shutter the Strait.

In one tense exchange, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker pointed to the unsteady ceasefire as a sign that Iran has the upper hand.

“We are the strongest nation on the planet Earth, and we’re in a stalemate with Iran,” Booker said. “And now we’re begging to get back into a deal that you all trashed in the first place.”

Rubio dismissed the criticism, underscoring that Iran has been placed on its heels with the strikes that have taken out multiple layers of senior leadership and left Iran's economy in shambles.

“There’s no one begging,” Rubio responded. “I don’t know where you’re getting this perception that Iran is stronger.”

Another Democrat, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, homed in on Trump's comments last month that voter anxiety about the cost of living was “not even a little bit” of a motivating factor for him to reach a deal to end the war.

The president continues to downplay the rising costs for Americans at the pump and predict that gas prices would fall sharply after the conflict ends.

Christopher Borick, the director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Pennsylvania, said that Democrats running in swing districts around the country are already zeroing in on Trump's rhetoric on the war's impact on Americans' pocketbooks.

“There's significant risk in having this thing drag on for Republicans,” Borick said. “It's certainly going to hurt if Trump ends up in a place where the war ends and Iran's nuclear program is in the same place. But for Republicans in some of these tough swing districts, there's a case to be made to rip the bandage off now, get some easing in the oil markets and hope there's enough time for voters to turn the page.”

___ Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri in New York and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Lee's Democratic Party had been widely expected to claim more contests than its main rival, the conservative People Power Party which remains in disarray after President Yoon Suk Yeol was removed from office and sentenced to life in prison over his martial law debacle in late 2024.

But experts said, given the favorable political landscape, the Democratic Party should have won the most crucial race, the one for Seoul mayor, to claim an outright victory in the elections.

With almost all votes counted by Thursday morning, the Democratic Party won 12 of the 16 mayoral and provincial gubernatorial posts up for grabs. The PPP won four, including the Seoul mayoral race.

Democratic Party leader Jung Chung-rae told reporters his party's defeat in the Seoul race was “painful” though he thanked voters for the wins in other races.

Local leadership posts are important for Lee

Thursday marked one year in office for Lee, who won a snap election triggered after Yoon’s ouster. Lee’s approval ratings still exceed 60%. He’s been credited with what he calls “pragmatic diplomacy” that eased concerns his presidency would hurt ties with the U.S. and Japan. His popularity has also been attributed to a booming stock market and efforts to be more transparent about government decision-making procedures.

Lee’s foreign policy agenda will likely remain unchanged. The Democratic Party also boosted its parliamentary majority by winning nine of the 14 parliamentary byelections Wednesday.

But having more allies at mayoral and gubernatorial posts will be essential to Lee's governance as well, especially since the PPP holds 14 of the 16 regional leadership posts currently.

Lee could pursue regional policies more easily and effectively, and that will help his party's preparations for the 2028 parliamentary elections, said Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership.

Much attention is focused on Seoul’s mayoral race

Exit polls and early results had shown Democratic Party candidate Chong Won-o ahead of current Mayor Oh Se-hoon in the Seoul race. But the PPP's Oh dramatically overtook Chong by Thursday morning as more votes were counted.

“Seoul’s future has become brighter,” Oh said in an acceptance speech. ”Our citizens ensured that the Republic of Korea does not tilt excessively toward one direction and preserved Seoul as democracy’s last safeguard.”

In a separate news conference, Chong conceded defeat, saying he “heavily and humbly” accepts the result.

Their race triggered brief, severe disputes Wednesday night after the election commission announced a shortage of ballot papers in some polling stations in Seoul caused a temporary suspension of voting there.

PPP leader Jang Dong-hyeok said the incident seriously hurt voters’ rights to cast their ballots, demanding authorities hold a new election depending on investigation results. The Democratic Party flatly rejected the PPP’s demands, saying they were “not even worth considering.”

Election results are crucial for the conservative opposition

The PPP is still struggling with internal feuding between reformists who joined the Democratic Party-led push to impeach Yoon and his loyalists who attempted to protect the embattled leader.

Among the candidates who won the parliamentary by-elections was Han Dong-hoon, leader of the reformist faction who was eventually expelled from the PPP. Han, now an independent, beat the Democratic Party’s Ha Jung-woo, a former Lee adviser on artificial intelligence, in Busan, the country’s second biggest city.

“I'll rebuild the conservatives, rein in the Lee Jae Myung government's overreach and restore balance in the Republic of Korea,” Han said in a victory speech.

Jeong Han-Wool, director of the Korean People Research Institute, said that a Han victory could help anti-Yoon reformists regroup and emerge as a new force among the struggling conservatives in South Korea. But Choi, the institute head, said Han’s win could worsen a divide in the conservatives because Yoon loyalists would feel a sense of crisis and close ranks further.

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Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.

Auburn took a commanding 2-0 lead against Galax in the first half of the 1C title, however, the Maroon Tide fired two goals within a few minutes of each other to tie the game at 2-2.

An unlikely hero then stepped up. Luis Silva, a freshman, net not only his first goal of the season to put Auburn ahead, but then his second of the season to give the Eagles 4-2 insurance.

In Blacksburg, the Bruins avenged last year’s region final loss to Charlottesville with a 3-0 win on their home turf. Two first half goals set the tone for the Bruins, and a late second half goal by Peyton Cruise provided Blacksburg with extra insurance.

Blacksburg claims their first region title since 2018 and will look to continue their state championship aspirations.

But even as the U.S. president conceded the tensions in an interview released Wednesday, he insisted that his relationship with Netanyahu was solid and that they connected, in part, because they are both “wartime” leaders.

“We’ve worked very well together. I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him,” Trump told The New York Post’s “Pod Force One.”

In an interview on the American business-news channel CNBC, Netanyahu responded that he and Trump sometimes have “tactical disagreements” but have “common goals” and “agree on the main things.”

“He respects me. I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences,” the prime minister said.

The president's comments about the Monday call offered a sign of the growing pressure he faces to resolve the Iran war as higher energy prices and economic uncertainty threaten Republican prospects in the midterm elections and hamper global commerce.

Talks have dragged on for weeks and have been strained by Israel’s broadening war with the Iranian-backed militia group in Lebanon. The conflicts have become increasingly intertwined as Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon.

Israel, Lebanon renew ceasefire

Israel and Lebanon agreed Wednesday to renew their fragile ceasefire and create a number of “pilot” security zones inside Lebanon from which Hezbollah militants would be banned.

In a joint statement released after a fourth round of U.S.-mediated talks at the State Department, the two sides said the ceasefire “is contingent on a complete cessation of Hezbollah fire and the evacuation of all Hezbollah operatives” from areas south of the Litani River, which is roughly 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the northern Israel-Lebanon border. It was not immediately clear how the security zones would be established but the agreement calls for the Lebanese army to take full control of those areas.

“These steps will enable progress towards a comprehensive peace and security agreement,” the statement said. “All countries reaffirmed that the future of the relationship between Israel and Lebanon must be decided by the two sovereign governments. They rejected any attempt, by any state or non-state actor, to hold Lebanon’s future hostage.”

Hezbollah is not part of the Israel-Lebanon talks, which have been held at the ambassadorial level in Washington since the beginning of last month.

“All parties condemned Iran’s attacks on countries in the region, and ongoing activities that undermine stability throughout the Middle East, whether through support for proxies and all other acts of aggression,” the statement said.

A new round of discussions will be held during the week of June 22 with an eye toward “reaching a comprehensive agreement.”

Trump does not commit to timeline for ending Iran war

Trump remained noncommittal about a timeline for settling the Iran conflict, saying the Strait of Hormuz might stay blocked through the Labor Day holiday on Sept. 7. He has insisted that Iran stop any efforts that could lead to a nuclear weapon and that the strait be reopened for shipments of oil and natural gas.

“I don’t know. I mean, I think it could be (closed through Labor Day), but I think it’s unlikely. I think that we’ll have it. I think this will resolve itself fairly quickly,” Trump said.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his late father, is “involved” in peace talks, Trump added.

“They have a lot of respect for him,” the president said in the interview.

Trump said that Khamenei is not doing well due to wounds sustained in an airstrike, but “they say he’s giving approval because that’s the way it has been for a long, long time." Khamenei's father was killed in an airstrike when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February.

Meanwhile, the U.S. House for the first time approved a war powers resolution that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran, defying Trump as a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to end the conflict.

The roll call Wednesday was 215-208, but the next steps are uncertain. Trump would likely reject any measure from Congress to limit his commander-in-chief authority.

Path to a lasting ceasefire in Lebanon is obscured by new strikes

The path toward a lasting ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah remained unclear as hostilities continued in Lebanon.

An Israeli strike Wednesday hit a car on a busy highway just south of Beirut. The strike in Khaldeh came without warning, and it was not immediately clear if the person targeted was killed.

Israel and Lebanon on Monday reached a U.S.-brokered agreement in which Israel would not strike Beirut's southern suburbs and Hezbollah would end its attacks on northern Israel.

The agreement was made hours after Israel announced that it was going to launch strikes across the sprawling urban neighborhoods near the Lebanese capital in what would have been the most intense strikes since a nominal ceasefire went into effect on April 17.

Lebanon hopes to widen the scope of the ceasefire so it becomes comprehensive across the country. Israel wants to disarm Hezbollah immediately before the Israeli military ends its operations in Lebanon and withdraws its troops from dozens of villages and towns.

Israeli military warning rattles coastal city

Israeli strikes over southern Lebanon continued, especially in and around the battered cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh. Two overnight strikes near Tyre, a coastal city, killed four Syrians and two Palestinians.

Israel warned the Christian neighborhoods in Tyre that Hezbollah members were among them. Many Lebanese Shiite Muslims fled to those areas in recent days because they were spared from the aerial bombardment along the Mediterranean coast.

After the warning, the Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre in an effort to prevent Israeli attacks there and to show that Hezbollah has no armed presence in the area.

Israel launched an invasion of southern Lebanon days after the latest war was sparked on March 2, when Iran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets toward northern Israel in solidarity with Iran. Israeli troops have pushed deeper into Lebanon over the past week, as Hezbollah continues to claim rocket and drone attacks.

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon and displaced 1.2 million people. According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 27 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.

Strike on village kills most of a family

Many residents of southern Lebanon remained in villages near the hostilities or returned to areas where strikes occurred after evacuation warnings.

The Al-Abdallah family returned to their home in Marwaniyeh, which they left because they thought the village was unsafe following earlier strikes. A day later, two rockets hit the home, bringing down the three-story building and killing six family members, said the brother of Hassan Al-Abdallah, who was killed.

Ahmed Al-Abdallah, 13, was thrown away from the building by the force of the blasts and was the only member of his family to survive. His uncle, Eissa Al-Abdallah, said the boy has two broken legs and shrapnel wounds all over his body.

“What good is talking now? They are gone, and nothing will bring them back,” the uncle told The Associated Press in a phone call Tuesday. “This land costs blood.”

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Boak and Lee reported from Washington.

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This version has been updated to correct that the Iran war began at the end of February, not March.

Trump said at a dinner at the White House that he plans to nominate Blanche formally on Thursday, according to a video of the event posted on social media by a White House aide.

“We are going to make him permanent attorney general,” Trump said at the Rose Garden event.

Blanche sought quickly to position himself as the favorite for the permanent job after Pam Bondi’s firing in April, accelerating investigations into Trump foes and announcing a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate the president’s allies for alleged political persecution. The proposed fund created a bipartisan firestorm that forced the Justice Department to scrap the idea earlier this week in an extraordinary about-face.

Blanche was brought into the Justice Department as deputy attorney general and was elevated after Bondi’s ousting over her failed efforts to prosecute Trump’s perceived political opponents. Blanche insisted he wasn’t auditioning for the permanent post but made clear through splashy moves since taking the reins his intent on proving his loyalty to Trump.

Blanche’s actions have outraged Democrats and other critics who accuse him of still acting like Trump’s personal lawyer to carry out the president’s campaign of retribution. The $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” also prompted backlash from Republicans in the Senate whose support Blanche will now need in order to be confirmed as attorney general.

While Blanche has maintained he feels no pressure from the president, the Justice Department under his watch has advanced its pursuits of longtime Trump foes. Blanche has strongly rejected accusations that the Trump administration has politicized the Justice Department and has said he is focused on correcting what he contends were past abuses by the Biden administration.

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted in April over a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said constituted a threat the president. Comey, who has slammed the case as politically motivated, has said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Justice Department pursues additional indictments against him.

Blanche separately appointed Joseph diGenova, an 81-year-old former Justice Department prosecutor from the Reagan administration, to oversee a Florida-based investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump.

He came under intense scrutiny last month over the proposed “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which the administration said was meant to compensate people who feel they’ve been unjustly investigated and prosecuted under past administrations. The fund sparked outrage over the possibility that violent offenders who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot could be considered for payments — which Blanche refused to publicly rule out.

Blanche told lawmakers on Tuesday the Justice Department would not move forward with the plan after the political blowback stalled legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

A former federal prosecutor in New York, Blanche came to public prominence for his lead role on Trump’s defense team, including during the Republican’s hush money trial in New York. That perch afforded him, he has said, a firsthand look at what he contends was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.

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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

The strike reinforced the risks to residents and travelers in Gulf countries that had considered themselves relative havens before the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Iran denied causing the damage.

Talks have dragged on for weeks as mediators seek a more enduring truce in the war, now in its fourth month. They are increasingly strained by Israel’s broadening war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

A regional official said Iran wanted a separate ceasefire in Lebanon enforced before returning to talks. President Donald Trump said negotiations continue to extend the Iran ceasefire, even as the U.S. launched strikes against military sites on an Iranian island.

“We’ve been hitting them pretty hard,” Trump said when asked by reporters on Wednesday if the ceasefire remains in place. “I’d say in that part of the world a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

The fighting in Lebanon has exposed a rift between Israel and the U.S., which is pushing its ally for restraint. In a measure of the friction, Trump acknowledged that he'd called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “crazy” during a phone call earlier this week. Nonetheless, both men say their rapport is solid.

Iran maintains its hold on the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial waterway for the world’s oil and natural gas and related products like fertilizer — and the U.S. continues its blockade of Iranian ports. Global fuel prices remain high, and the effects of the conflict are felt well beyond the region.

In Washington, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he, Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio huddled for three hours at the White House Monday as Trump worked on “that final piece” of getting commerce flowing. Rubio, meanwhile, faced grilling in Congress over the war and its economic fallout.

An Indian national is killed at Kuwait's main airport

A spokesperson for Kuwait's Defense Ministry, Brig. Gen. Saud Abdulaziz Al-Otaibi, said “a number of hostile drones” targeted a passenger building at Kuwait International Airport. It had opened only Monday after a monthslong closure because of the war, which began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it didn't fire at the airport, instead claiming without providing any evidence that the terminal was damaged by a U.S.-made interceptor that failed to hit Iranian missiles. U.S. Central Command called the claim false and said on X that Iranian drones made a “deliberate, calculated and unjustified attack” on the airport.

Surveillance footage later released by Kuwait's Directorate General of Civil Aviation showed the moment of impact from several angles. In the footage, what appears to be a triangle-shaped, delta-wing drone slams directly into the terminal. Iran long has used such drones in combat, particularly its Shahed drones, which are also used by Russia in its war on Ukraine.

Another photograph from the scene showed a Kuwaiti soldier carrying what appeared to be a small aircraft engine consistent with those used by Iranian drones.

India’s Embassy in Kuwait said the person killed was an Indian national. Authorities said 63 were wounded, including passengers and workers, and some suffered serious injuries.

Kuwait's Defense Ministry said it destroyed over a dozen missiles and a similar number of drones from Iran.

The airport partially reopened later, with Kuwait Airways flights resuming at a different terminal, according to civil aviation authorities. No other flights were operating.

The Foreign Ministry said Kuwait will “neither accept nor tolerate” the attacks and was kicking out two Iranian diplomats. Such expulsions are an established means of communicating international ire.

US and Iran say they are retaliating for earlier attacks

The U.S. military said two Iranian missiles fell apart en route to Kuwait and that it “downed multiple drones” targeting American forces in the country.

The military also said U.S. and Bahraini forces intercepted missiles aimed at the Gulf kingdom, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th fleet. Bahrain’s Defense Ministry said its military intercepted and destroyed three missiles and a number of drones fired by Iran.

The Revolutionary Guard acknowledged that it targeted the headquarters of the 5th Fleet and U.S. military facilities in another country.

Both the U.S. and Iran said they were retaliating for earlier attacks or attempted ones.

Netanyahu told the American business-news channel CNBC that Iran was “playing with fire,” but he said any decision about whether to scale up a military response would rest with Trump. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared on X that “any hostile act will be met with an immediate, decisive response.”

The U.S. military said it launched strikes on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran's Foreign Ministry said a telecommunications tower was struck. It called this attack, and others, "acts of aggression” that it said violated the ceasefire.

The war is increasingly tied to Israel’s fight in Lebanon

Israeli forces have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter-century, while Hezbollah has launched rocket and drone attacks. The declared ceasefire in Lebanon is officially in place, and no side has formally withdrawn or declared it over even as attacks continue.

Iran insists that any larger potential truce must quell the fighting in Lebanon. Netanyahu wants to keep the issues separate and is under domestic pressure to strike Hezbollah as he prepares for elections this fall.

In a podcast interview released Wednesday, Trump confirmed a report that he had called Netanyahu “crazy” Monday in a phone conversation peppered with an expletive. Trump told The New York Post’s “Pod Force One” that he was “a little bit perturbed” that Israel’s fight with Hezbollah was holding back talks with Iran.

Still, Trump said his relationship with Netanyahu was good, and “we’ve worked very well together.”

Netanyahu responded on CNBC that he and Trump sometimes have “tactical disagreements” but have “common goals” and “agree on the main things.”

“We always find a way to work out our differences,” the prime minister said.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece; Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi; Sam Mednick in Jerusalem, Jennifer Peltz in New York; and Lisa Mascaro, Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.

That was the case even though it wasn't a novel germ that the world had never seen before, like the virus that caused the coronavirus pandemic. It was a hantavirus, one of a family of viruses that have been known for decades and are thought to exist around the world.

Teams of researchers, including in Chile, Argentina and the United States, have long been trying to find and develop drugs and vaccines. But because the viruses are relatively rare and don't spread easily between people, there hasn't been enough sustained investment by governments, global health groups, or drug companies to pay for the extensive safety and efficacy testing needed to make them available.

Still, there have been some promising developments. Researchers on Wednesday published a hint that a drug used for an autoimmune disease may help hantavirus patients fight off the most deadly symptoms.

They and others hope the attention that the cruise ship outbreak brought to the virus — and concern that hantavirus infections could become more common as a changing climate is expected to increase contact between people and rodents — may bring new momentum to the hunt.

“I hope this situation will help us continue our research and strengthen the collaboration between healthcare workers, the community, and the necessary resources," said Dr. Fernando Tortosa of the National University of Río Negro in Patagonia, Argentina, the study's lead author.

Different species of hantavirus cause different symptoms

Hantaviruses usually spread when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings. But there are unique species of hantavirus found in different parts of the world that have their own characteristics and can cause different symptoms.

The Andes virus, the germ behind the cruise ship outbreak, is a particular focus of researchers because it is the only hantavirus thought to be able to spread between people in some cases. And while hantavirus infections are rare, they can be extremely deadly.

“That is why it is a public health problem,” said María Inés Barría, a virologist at the Universidad San Sebastián in Chile who studies hantaviruses.

Three of the 13 likely cases among cruise ship passengers ended in death. Separately, in Chile, the Ministry of Health has confirmed 15 deaths and 42 cases of hantavirus so far this year. Authorities in Argentina have reported 32 deaths and 102 cases since June 2025. In the U.S., 35% of the hantavirus cases since tracking began in 1993 have resulted in death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The search for treatments to fight the worst symptoms

In Argentina, researchers are testing whether a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis might help fight hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a severe infection caused by both the Andes virus and the Sin Nombre virus, a type of hantavirus found in North America.

The drug tocilizumab tamps down a molecule called IL-6 that triggers damaging inflammation in some autoimmune and other diseases. IL-6 also is a suspect in the inflammatory reaction to the infection, which can rapidly cause lungs to fill with fluid and fail.

Four of five patients in an Argentinian hospital survived after receiving tocilizumab in addition to traditional supportive care for hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, the research team reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The report is unusual, tracking the first people to receive tocilizumab in an ongoing “compassionate use” study — meaning doctors can use it in patients they deem eligible. Another five who were deemed eligible for tocilizumab but didn’t get it and instead received only standard care died. Two worsened too quickly and the hospital lacked supply for the others, the researchers reported.

The research team cautioned that the five patients who didn’t receive the drug were sicker and older than those who did. Still, they said tocilizumab warrants further investigation.

Efforts to stop hantavirus have also shown promise

Barría's team, which includes Chilean scientists, researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health's Rocky Mountain Laboratories and the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, is working on another approach — using cloned antibodies from hantavirus survivors to fend off infections. The team published research in 2018 showing the approach worked in animals, but they were not able to get funding to continue with human trials, in part because resources were diverted to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

“We are truly at the forefront, at a very important stage of moving to the next phase," Barría said.

Several other groups, including at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Vanderbilt Center for Antibody Therapeutics, are also working on antibody treatments.

Vaccines against so-called Old World hantaviruses have been developed and used, though the World Health Organization says there are no current licensed hantavirus vaccines. But there are new vaccines in the works, including ones aimed to fight the Andes virus. A team lead by Jay Hooper of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, is working on a vaccine that has successfully generated antibodies against the virus in early-stage human trials, according to a study the team published in 2020.

Hantavirus treatments and vaccines have many hurdles still to clear

Dr. Paul Bollyky, an infectious disease doctor and researcher at Stanford Medical Center in California, said attracting and sustaining the support needed to produce vaccines and treatments is extremely difficult for rare diseases like hantavirus.

For one, labs typically don't have what Bollyky calls the necessary machinery they need to test and validate vaccines and treatments for rare infections. Also, because hantavirus outbreaks are so sporadic and unpredictable, that virus is much harder to study compared with a common germ that regularly circulates, such as the flu.

“That also makes clinical trials in this space super difficult because of the number of people you would have to immunize to protect against one infection,” he said. “It's just impractical.”

And it means there might not be a large or steady market for a vaccine or treatment, because it would be hard to know who is going to be exposed, and when.

Still, it frustrates researchers and doctors who know there are potential treatments that, with enough sustained investment, could be helping people now.

“What happened was a tragedy, but it can happen not only with this but also other diseases,” Tortosa said, referring to the cruise ship outbreak.

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Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico. AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this story.

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

While Wednesday will be pretty seasonable with highs in the upper 70s and low 80s, as we progress later in the week and into the weekend, we’ll quickly end up in the 90s.

Normally, we’re used to heat like this with stupidly high humidity, which makes it extremely unpleasant to be outside. HOWEVER... the humidity really isn’t that high this week, so if you like the hot weather, this is your week.

As we get into Sunday, we’ll start seeing a few changes. Showers and storms arrive in the late afternoon and early evening hours and continue into Monday.

After the weekend, temperatures will cool a bit back into the 80s and potentially the 70s. For the short term, though, get ready for the warmth!

Authorities stormed the building in downtown Bakersfield overnight, ending a nearly 16-hour standoff during which the suspect tied up half the hostages, police said.

The hostages — employees of the Kern County Superintendent of Schools — were found unharmed inside the building that also houses a bank, Bakersfield Assistant Police Chief Jeremy Blakemore said.

“Throughout the night, their families questioned whether or not they would be seen again but we are very grateful for the outcome,” Blakemore said during a news conference Wednesday.

Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, 41, was shot and killed around 4:20 a.m., according to Sid Patel, special agent in charge in the FBI’s Sacramento office. Authorities said he was an Army veteran who was dishonorably discharged, had a history of trouble with law enforcement and was a registered sex offender.

Searles-Harris was armed with explosives and barricaded himself within the second floor of the building, where the county's superintendent of schools’ office is located, according to law enforcement. Authorities were testing the devices Wednesday, but Patel said they do not appear to be a concern.

One of the hostages was able to communicate with law enforcement using her phone until her battery died, Patel said. She was diabetic and didn’t have her medicine so officials knew she was at risk, he said.

“I’m sure there’ll be mental scars that they’re living with, and we’ll have our victim specialist to help them,” Patel said.

While authorities declined to discuss details about how they ended the standoff or the motive behind it, Blakemore said some of the demands Searles-Harris made involved asking for materials from an earlier case.

"He had concerns related to how his previous case had been handled and what the aftermath of that was, the sentencing and those kinds of things,” Blakemore said, without specifying details.

California Department of Justice and court records show Searles-Harris was on the state’s sex offender registry due to convictions in 2014 for sexual crimes related to a child under 14 years of age. Those records show he was released from prison in 2018.

Defense attorney Arturo Revelo said he represented Searles-Harris in that case and described him as a disturbed man who believed the government was out to get him.

He said police asked him to help Tuesday during the hostage situation, but he was never allowed to talk to Searles-Harris and instead had to make two videos saying he was there with the case’s documents and would assist him in anyway he could.

Revelo said he was told that Searles-Harris would let the hostages go in exchange for the documents but he did not see that happen while he was there.

FBI officials said Searles-Harris served about a year in the Army before being dishonorably discharged in 2007 for going AWOL.

Court records in Kern County, California, show Searles-Harris filed a petition to prevent domestic violence, and was involved in divorce proceedings that began in 2009 and note a young child, as well as a fight for guardianship years later in which he was listed as an objector.

During the news conference, Blakemore said he was aware of videos Searles-Harris had apparently posted criticizing the sheriff’s office and claiming he was innocent of his previous sex crimes convictions. He said the videos were being reviewed, but the department had no plans to investigate the claims of innocence.

It wasn't clear why Searles-Harris targeted the school district office.

“What unfolded was undoubtedly a terribly frightening and unsettling experience, and the composure our employees demonstrated throughout the 16-hour ordeal was extraordinary,” John Mendiburu, the county schools superintendent, said in a statement.

The standoff began early Tuesday afternoon, when officers responded to a call of a bomb threat at the Chase Bank building, a four-story office building with dark-tinted glass windows in Bakersfield, a city of about 380,000 residents about 100 miles (160 kms) northeast of Los Angeles.

The police department’s crisis negotiation team talked with Searles-Harris by phone, and he released two hostages Tuesday.

Authorities evacuated buildings nearby, including City Hall and the police headquarters that are just a block away.

More than 100 FBI personnel assisted, including two SWAT teams, bomb technicians and crisis negotiation teams, Patel said. A hostage rescue team was deployed from its headquarters on the East Coast, he said.

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Associated Press writers Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed.

After a run scored against the left-hander for the first time since late April, more than 40,000 fans at Citizens Bank Park stood and gave him an ovation that lasted more than a minute. Yes, those Phillies fans were cheering after a run was scored against the home team.

Sánchez held his stern demeanor for as long as he could, wanting to throw the next pitch. Finally, he cracked a smile. He raised his cap, wiped his forehead and Phillies fans and his teammates kept applauding Sánchez, celebrating a rare milestone in baseball history.

“It was a big moment, a huge moment for me,” Sánchez said through an interpreter. “I think that I just had to do something for the fans and react to the love that they brought it.”

Sánchez pushed his consecutive shutout innings streak to just short of 51 innings Wednesday night before allowing a two-out RBI single to San Diego’s Jackson Merrill in the seventh and earned the win after J.T. Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber homered in the seventh inning, leading the Phillies to a 3-2 victory over the Padres.

“It's something I never imagined in my life that I would do,” Sánchez said.

Sánchez's streak ranked as the third-best overall dating to the start of the Live Ball Era in 1920 behind the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Orel Hershiser, with a record 59 straight scoreless innings in 1988, and Don Drysdale with 58 in 1968. He struck out San Diego's Fernando Tatis Jr. and set the Padres down in order in the first to pass Carl Hubbell at 45 1/3 innings and become the career leader among left-handers.

Sánchez breezed through six scoreless innings before Ty France doubled with two out in the seventh. Lefty-swinging Merrill then punched a single to left that accounted for the only run allowed by Sánchez in more than a month.

“I know my vocabulary is probably not good enough for him right now,” Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said. “You could feel it every inning, they knew exactly what was going on."

Sánchez also passed Sal Maglie, Zack Greinke, and Bob Gibson on the shutout streak list since 1920. He surpassed Gibson's 47 consecutive shutout innings in the same 1968 season as Drysdale, dubbed the year of the pitcher.

Sánchez — throwing a changeup that averages 86.5 mph and holding hitters to a .153 average — hadn't been in any serious jeopardy of allowing a run since permitting two runs in the first inning of a 3-2 Phillies win over the Giants on April 30.

He worked seven shutout innings in his last start against the Padres to eclipse the Phillies' franchise record of 41 innings, set in 1911 by Grover Cleveland Alexander.

“You don’t get to see things like this very often,” Mattingly said. “It’s one of those things that’s not happened very often. It’s hard to categorize it. I don’t know if I’ve seen anything that’s really been better than this.”

Sánchez, who had had thrown at least seven shutout innings in five straight starts, struck out eight. He improved to 7-2 and lowered his ERA to an MLB-best 1.46.

Sánchez was named NL pitcher of the month for May earlier Wednesday. He went 4-0 and struck out 45 — with only three walks — over 39 innings in the month.

“It’s pretty cool what he’s doing,” Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper said. “Lot of punch-outs, as well, so that helps us on defense.”

Sánchez also set a Citizens Bank Park scoreless streak record at 34 2/3 innings, topping Cliff Lee (29 innings) and Roy Halladay (33) and he became the second pitcher this season to reach 100 strikeouts.

Sánchez was the NL Cy Young Award runner-up in 2025 when he went 13-5 with a 2.50 ERA and struck out 212 in 202 innings. He signed with the Tampa Bay Rays as an international free agent in 2013 and was traded to the Phillies six years later for infielder Curtis Mead in a little-noticed offseason transaction. He made his big-league debut in 2021.

“I remember they were talking about releasing him in 2020,” Harper said. “I’ve seen it from the jump, just kind of the way he approaches it. Just super special.”

Drysdale threw a major-league record six straight shutouts as part of his streak from May 14- June 8, 1968. Hershiser pitched six scoreless starts in September 1988 as part of his record-breaking streak. Hershiser, now a broadcaster for the Dodgers, said last week he was fine if Sánchez broke his record.

“I’m pulling for anybody to have a life-changing moment,” said Hershiser, who still holds the record.

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

Sanmu Chen tried to tie a symbolic red thread to a street signpost in Causeway Bay, a busy shopping district close to a park that for decades hosted an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to commemorate those who died in the crackdown that ended student-led protests in Beijing in 1989. Police officers stopped Chen and searched his bag before letting him go.

Hong Kong was for decades the only place in China where a large-scale public commemoration of the crackdown was held. The massive annual vigils were banned in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and public acts to mark the Tiananmen Square killings have become increasingly sensitive in the city in recent years.

Chen said his thread was 6.4 meters (about 21 feet) long, an apparent reference to the June 4 crackdown date.

Chen told reporters after the encounter that his act was meant to express his condolences for those who died.

“When you are trying to say or do something and you are being monitored, that is a very abnormal situation,” he said.

Chen has been detained at least twice in recent years

In 2024, Chen was briefly detained on June 3 after appearing to write the Chinese characters of “eight nine six four” — a set of numbers referencing the date of the crackdown — with his hand in the air.

The year before, he was also detained on the same date in the same neighborhood, where he chanted “Hong Kongers, do not be afraid. Don’t forget, tomorrow is June 4.”

As night fell on Wednesday, another artist, Chan Mei-tung, stood outside a nearby department store holding up a question-mark-shaped balloon. Police officers also stopped her quickly and escorted her back to a subway station as journalists watched.

Police said officers had encountered a man and a woman lingering on the street at locations matching the artists, but did not name them. The officers approached each to learn more and the two people subsequently left on their own, police said.

The statement added that any police action is handled in accordance with the law and the force will make appropriate deployments based on threats to national security, public safety and public order.

Authorities banned vigils and arrested organizers

In 1989, under then-leader Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese military was sent to Tiananmen Square to end weeks of student-led protests on the night of June 3-4. Soldiers fired live rounds. Hundreds and possibly thousands of people were killed, including dozens of soldiers.

Annual vigils in Hong Kong's Victoria Park used to attract tens of thousands each year until the event was banned in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.

That same year, Beijing imposed a national security law in the city following massive anti-government protests in 2019. Since then, authorities have increasingly silenced dissent. Many leading activists have been arrested and some vocal media outlets shut down. Dozens of civil society groups have been disbanded, including the one that organized the vigils.

Three former vigil organizers were charged in 2021 with inciting subversion under the national security law. Two of them have gone on trial and are waiting a verdict, possibly in July. If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The third organizer entered a guilty plea, which can typically result in a sentence reduction.

The Hong Kong and Beijing governments say the security law is crucial for the city’s stability. Hong Kong authorities say the law stipulates that human rights shall be respected and protected in safeguarding national security.

A carnival is now held at the former vigil site

After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the former vigil site became the location of a yearly carnival organized by pro-China groups.

Over the past three years, some people who tried to commemorate the Tiananmen Square killings on the crackdown’s anniversary, have been detained there.

This year's carnival began on Wednesday. Later in the day near the site, Tang Ngok-kwan, who was also a vigil organizer in the past, bowed in commemoration. He told reporters he read the list of the victims in a low voice and criticized that the event name contains the word “carnival,” which carries a festive vibe.

The action by Tang and similar muted expressions in Hong Kong underlined the decline in civil liberties promised by Beijing when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

But even as public commemoration faded in Hong Kong, overseas communities keep the memories alive by hosting vigils and rallies in places like London and Canada.

Wu’er Kaixi, who was a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, told reporters in Tokyo that the democracy movement in China “is still there.”

“We are managing to survive, (it’s) not easy, but we are surviving, because just like 37 years ago, we were driven to the square, to the streets of Beijing by one thing — hope,” he said.

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Associated Press video journalists Alice Fung in Hong Kong and Mayuko Ono in Tokyo contributed to the report.

The school has fought lawsuits in federal court since 2018 brought by former student athletes against the university over its failure to stop abuse by Dr. Richard Strauss. Strauss worked at the school from 1978 to 1998 and also ran an off-campus clinic. He died in 2005.

During a meeting Wednesday, the school's Board of Trustees approved a preliminary agreement with all but one of the 280 survivors with claims still involved in pending litigation. Once finalized, the settlement could mark the end of a lengthy legal battle and close a painful chapter in the school's history.

“The survivors of the Strauss abuse are all Buckeyes, will always be a part of our family and our community, and I firmly believe that,” the school's president, Ravi Bellamkonda, said during the meeting. “We continue to be very grateful to them for their courage in coming forward, and reaching a final resolution is very important to us and is an important step forward.”

Years ago, an independent report had concluded that scores of Ohio State personnel knew of complaints about Strauss’ conduct as early as 1979 but failed for years to investigate or take meaningful action.

In a joint statement Wednesday, the university and plaintiffs thanked mediators and said they were working to finalize the details of the settlements.

Ohio State already had settled with 317 survivors for more than $61 million, the school had said. Many former student athletes signed sealed agreements that kept their names a secret. Some former NFL players were among the victims, according to a lawyer in one of the lawsuits.

“It’s a big drop-off, and the farther he goes, the deeper it gets,” Helems said.

People don’t think of the Roanoke River as deep.

You can almost always find a place to walk across in knee-deep water. But Helems says, people can be fooled.

“You’re not familiar with the area you’re at, or you’re not sure about being able to see the bottom or the river features; I’m sure it happens fast, it goes from shallow to deep really quick,” he pointed out.

We were in the area where yesterday’s drowning took place. There’s a makeshift beach with a small fire pit. Across the river hangs a well-worn rope swing. Clearly, it’s a place that draws lots of people. But how safe is it?

Firefighter Kalin Conn wore his water safety equipment to demonstrate how fast the bottom can drop away. Though you can’t tell because of his PFD (personal flotation device or life jacket) just a few feet from the rapids he was in over his head.

While the fire department demonstrated a throw rope to save a struggling swimmer, they say a long branch could help in a pinch.

Conn also demonstrated how to find an eddy on the side of the river, which can take you to shore more easily.

“An eddy is actually one of the safe areas if you get caught in fast-moving water you want to try to get to because that’s where the water is calm,” Helems said.

And if you get caught in the rapids, it’s safest to put your feet downstream to protect your body from rocks.

Helems says remember the basics too.

“There are some safety tips that you can do. One thing is don’t swim alone. Have a buddy if you’re going out so they can watch for you. And if you are going out, let somebody know where you’re go and about how long you’re gonna be out. And, if you aren’t a strong swimmer, wear a life jacket,” he said.

Helems said that while a life jacket is best, even an innertube or pool noodle is better than nothing.

The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 207 since the administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.

As with most of the military’s statements on strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted the alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs. A video posted on X showed a boat speeding through the water before bursting into flames.

President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”

Critics have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

The strikes have drawn intense scrutiny from some Democratic lawmakers and military legal scholars. The U.S. military’s first strike in early September drew particular concern from some lawmakers and those who study military law.

Two men on the boat initially survived the attack that killed nine others, and they were clinging to the wreckage when the vessel was struck again, killing them. The White House confirmed the follow-up strike, insisting it was done “in self-defense” to ensure the boat was destroyed and in accordance with the laws of armed conflict. But some legal scholars said a second strike killing survivors would have been illegal under any circumstance, armed conflict or not.

The Pentagon’s watchdog said in May that it plans to look into whether the U.S. military followed an established targeting framework when carrying out the strikes. However, the evaluation is focused specifically on what’s known as the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle and not on the legality of the strikes, the inspector general’s office said.

Owners last week made their first cap proposal since 1994, when a 7 1/2-month strike caused the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years. Manfred was a junior lawyer on the owners' bargaining team in those negotiations.

Players have vowed to fight a cap as long as it takes. Asked whether he is concerned the events of 1994-95 will be repeated, Manfred responded: “Of course I do.”

“We’re open to whatever ideas people have, but we need a realistic framework that addresses the fans' concerns about competitive balance and you just can’t ignore that financial penalties have not gotten it done for us,” he said Wednesday at a news conference during an owners’ meeting.

Baseball owners and players started the current luxury tax system for the 2003 season and in subsequent agreements have increased tax rates while adding surcharges.

“We have tried mightily over several rounds of bargaining to use a competitive balance tax to address competitive concerns and sometimes you got to admit you failed,” Manfred said.

More teams have been willing to exceed tax thresholds in recent years, with a record nine teams paying the penalty in both 2024 and 2025, when the Dodgers were hit with a $169.4 million bill. Total tax rose from $78.5 million in 2022 to $222.8 million the following year, $311.3 million in 2024 and $402.6 million last year.

“We never thought about the CBT as a revenue-generating device," Manfred said. “And when you see more and more tax getting paid, you realize that it is not the kind of speed bump that would help on the issue of competitive balance.”

Baseball's five-year collective bargaining agreement, agreed to in March 2022 after a 99-day lockout, expires on Dec. 1. Management is expected to impose a lockout, which would bring free-agent signings and trades to a halt.

Manfred wouldn’t publicly say whether management thought a stoppage would be worth the cost to obtain a cap.

“I’m not going to speculate about work stoppages,” he said. “I think that the proposal we’ve made is grounds for constructive dialogue and back and forth with the MLBPA about how we can address the number one concern of our fans and that is a lack of competitive balance in the game.”

MLB would limit spending in 2027 to $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 Dodgers had a $415.2 million payroll on opening day this year while the lowest payroll was Miami at $81.8 million.

“The players are smart people," Manfred said. "I think they understand that payroll is a significant advantage for certain clubs and that high-payroll clubs win more than low-payroll clubs.”

No small-market team has won the World Series since the 2015 Kansas City Royals.

“Teams that go through periods, particularly longer periods, of non-competitiveness not only have lower revenues, but they are slower to recover once they become competitive," Manfred said.

MLB proposed a 50-50 split with players of defined revenue and an escrow system in which portions of salaries would be withheld for payback to the league in the event the players' share in a year is above 50%.

“If their proposal would have been in place in 2026 with current amateur entry figures, players would have lost more than half a billion dollars,” union head Bruce Meyer said in a statement.

Manfred said MLB has not made a proposal yet on players signing initial professional contracts.

Players asked for expanded free agency and salary arbitration rights, increasing luxury tax thresholds and almost doubling the major league minimum and increasing revenue sharing.

Baseball has had nine work stoppages since 1972, the last the 99-day lockout that slightly delayed the 2022 season.

The NFL has had a cap since 1994, the NBA since 1984-85 and the NHL since 2005-06.

Expansion

MLB won’t consider the possible addition of two teams until there is a new CBA. Among those expressing interest have been groups from Charlotte, North Carolina; Montreal; Nashville, Tennessee; Portland, Oregon; Sacramento, California; and Salt Lake City.

“We’ve made clear to all of the cities that have expressed an interest to say a post-labor topic,” Manfred said.

Olympics

Manfred hopes the union will agree to a decision on whether major leaguers will go to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics earlier than reaching a labor deal.

”It is my impression that they’re thinking about on a separate track,” he said. “I hope that’s the case because we can’t wait until we have a collective bargaining agreement to make a commitment on that one.”

Union head Bruce Meyer says a work stoppage that cancels regular-season games could disrupt Olympic plans.

Local broadcast media

MLB's proposal would pool and evenly distribute local broadcast revenue, tied to agreement to a salary cap. MLB plans to negotiate new national broadcast contracts for the 2029 season.

“Certainly there are going to be more national games. It’s our number one priority in terms of reach going forward,” Manfred said. “How the inventory after those national games is monetized is going to depend on the market.”

With the decline of regional sports networks, MLB is producing and distributing local broadcasts of 14 teams this season. Local media revenue is “down significantly," according to Manfred.

“Certainly the form of revenue sharing in the proposal was influenced by developments in the media market and where we think we need to be in order to extract the maximum revenue from the media environment as it exists today,” Manfred said. “You need more control over rights.”

Padres sale

Owners have yet to approve the proposed sale of the San Diego Padres from the Seidler family to an investor group led by Kwanza Jones and José E. Feliciano. The deal was announced on May 2. The sale has an enterprise value of a baseball-record $3.9 billion, with some investors remaining in the ownership group.

“Not ready for a vote today,” Manfred said. “It will probably be at some point this summer.”

Rays ballpark

Manfred is pleased with the Rays’ efforts to gain government approvals for a new ballpark in Tampa, near the spring training stadium of the New York Yankees.

“They need to get to definitive documents. My understanding is they’re on a mid-July-ish timeline on that,” he said. “We’re hopeful they get over the next hurdle.”

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

Silver, without saying Trump's name, responded to a question about “unique people” coming to finals games in New York and how the league prepares for such events. The New York Post, citing anonymous sources, reported Wednesday that Garden officials have “performed security walkthroughs” in anticipation of a Trump visit.

Game 3 of the series is Monday in New York, Trump's hometown. The series opened Wednesday in San Antonio, and Game 2 is there on Friday.

“I think what’s really so special about sports in our society — and it’s a little bit of a cliché, but our increasingly divided society, and that goes to people who will be attending the first home game at Madison Square Garden — it truly brings people together," Silver said. “It creates a sense of connectivity among people. It creates a sense of belonging, and I feel that every day.”

The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Wednesday evening.

Trump is no stranger to major sporting events. He told reporters last week that Knicks owner James Dolan invited him to the NBA Finals and that he would have gone to Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals — but the Knicks needed only four games to win that series against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Trump called the Knicks' return to the finals for the first time since 1999 “great to see.”

Trump has routinely dropped in on prominent sporting events during his time in politics. He’s taken in the College Football Playoff championship and caught a prime-time NFL game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Jets just days before the 2024 election.

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

The crash occurred at the crossing of a state highway and the Iowa Interstate Railroad in a rural area about 70 miles (113 kilometers) east of Des Moines, according to Poweshiek County Sheriff Matt Maschmann.

One person in the semi-truck died and another was transported with “serious injuries,” Maschmann said in a statement.

Seventeen train cars and two power engines derailed after the crash and caused "significant damage" to the railroad, he said. Images of the scene showed a massive heap of railcars with billowing smoke.

No hazardous material was spilled, according to Iowa State Patrol spokesman Sgt. Alex Dinkla.

Whether it be fans surrounding the team's upscale hotel near downtown Kansas City, or their first training session opened to media Wednesday that drew hundreds of reporters to the facilities of Major League Soccer club Sporting Kansas City, there are few places that Lionel Messi and the rest of La Albiceleste are not the center of attention as the tournament draws near.

They begin their title defense against Algeria at Arrowhead Stadium on June 16.

Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni revealed his 26-man World Cup roster last week. It is headlined by Messi, who turns 39 in less than a month, and features 17 players that were on the team that triumphed four years ago against France in the final in Qatar.

Messi has been dealing with muscle fatigue and a mild strain in his left hamstring. The team has said his recovery time will depend on “his clinical and functional progress,” though it seems unlikely that he will participate in its upcoming friendlies.

He came to the practice field after the rest of the team on Wednesday and did some conditioning work off to the side.

Argentina did not make any players or coaches available to speak to reporters. The team will continue training in Kansas City until it departs for the first of two World Cup tune-up matches against Honduras on Saturday in College Station, Texas.

The team plays Iceland in Auburn, Alabama, three days later before resuming its training in Kansas City.

Most of the players arrived at the team's home base Sunday aboard a charter from Buenos Aires designed to pay homage to the nation's rich World Cup history. The flight number 1978 was a nod to the year it beat the Netherlands to win the title, and the A330 was trimmed with special livery that included the national team colors and Messi’s No. 10 on the tail.

Messi joined the team on a separate charter from Florida a few hours later.

The entire roster got a dose of Midwestern hospitality from hundreds of fans who waited outside the Origin Hotel to greet them, then they got a big taste of summer life in tornado alley when sirens sounded after midnight and a heavy storm rolled through.

High winds and lashing rain knocked over several tents and fences that had been put up for security.

“When they pick you as their training site for defending the World Cup, and this is where they are for the next — you know, hopefully through the end of the tournament — it's surreal,” said Jake Reid, the president and CEO of Sporting Kansas City, who watched the open training session with a series of dignitaries that included Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas.

“When they landed on Sunday," Reid said, "it started to get real for sure.”

Weather notwithstanding, the central location of Kansas City has made it a favorable destination for World Cup base camps.

England had hoped to use the home of Sporting KC for training, but Argentina was given preference as defending champion and scooped it up. The Three Lions stuck with their plans to make Kansas City their base, but when they arrive next week, they will be practicing at Sporting KC's old primary facility at the Swope Soccer Village.

The Netherlands, which also will arrive next week, will be training at the home of the Kansas City Current, one of the top teams in the National Women's Soccer League. Algeria is making its base at the University of Kansas, about 30 minutes west of the Kansas City metro area, where one of Africa's top teams will have the use of its new soccer facilities.

As for Argentina, the team has been practicing in the evening to avoid the heat and humidity of Midwestern summers. The weather has been mild so far, with temperatures in the low 80s, but the heat index typically pushes triple digits this time of year.

The six matches at Arrowhead Stadium — four in the group stage, two in the knockout — will be played at night for the same reason.

“I mean, we’ve had a helicopter flying ever since (Argentina) got here. That should tell you this is a big deal, right? ” Reid said. “I think for Kansas City to have Argentina here — and we’re not even talking about the other teams that are going to be here in the next couple of weeks — it's a massive deal." ___

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

The program delivered on a campaign promise of President Prabowo Subianto and aimed to fight malnutrition by feeding nearly 90 million children and pregnant women. But it has come under steep criticism due to high costs and cases of food poisoning among schoolchildren who consumed the meals.

Prabowo fired Dadan Hindayana on Tuesday and replaced him with the agency's deputy chief. Investigators searched the agency’s offices early Wednesday.

Before Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office made Wednesday’s arrest announcement, Hindaya could be seen being led out in handcuffs, wearing a detainee red vest and a black shirt, and escorted into a green prison van.

Prosecutors also arrested two other suspects, Sony Sonjaya, the Deputy Head of the Nutrition Provision Division and Lodewyk Pusung, the Deputy Head of the Organizational Development and Institutional Relations Division. Both were fired on Tuesday. Prosecutors only published their initials, but the Minister of the State Secretariat, Prasetyo Hadi, shared their names with reporters.

Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi, AGO’s Director of Investigation, told reporters that based on the “examination ... and two pieces of sufficient evidence,” the three were named as suspects “in the criminal investigation of corruption related to the management of the Free Nutritious Meal program at the National Nutrition Agency for the 2025–2026 period.”

The Free Nutritious Meal program is implemented through foundations operating in schools. Investigators allege these foundations were used to facilitate criminal activities and were linked to agency officials and employees. Despite failing to meet the eligibility requirements to become program partners, they were allegedly approved by manipulating the agency’s partner verification system, with the suspects' help, Nahdi said.

“These foundations receive incentives worth billions of rupiah every day,” he said, adding that investigators are still calculating the damage to state coffers.

Hadi said Tuesday the three suspects were dismissed for failing to adhere to "standard operating procedure ... implementing governance, including maintaining food quality."

Hadi stressed the government's continuing commitment to the free meals program. “Services to the public must not be disrupted in any way,” he told reporters.

The meals program is expected to cost $28 billion through 2029.

One of Prabowo's goals was to fight malnutrition and help farmers by purchasing their harvests, but critics had questioned whether the program was affordable and logistically possible in a vast archipelago of more than 282 million people.

Police were pelted with chairs, cans, rocks and flares on Tuesday by some of the hundreds of people who attended a protest in the English southern coastal city of Southampton, where Henry Nowak was killed in December. Two people were arrested and 11 officers and a police dog were injured, police said.

Nowak's death has triggered debates about policing and knife crime and has spurred claims by far-right activists and politicians that there is bias against white people in the justice system.

Nowak’s killer, Vickrum Digwa, who is Sikh, falsely claimed he was the victim of a racist assault by 18-year-old Nowak, who was white. When police officers arrived, they initially treated the wounded man as a suspect before noticing his injury and trying to resuscitate him.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Wednesday that the case had left “serious questions to answer, including how accusations of racism informed police thinking." But he called the street violence “disgraceful and completely unacceptable.”

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said Nowak's family had "made a powerful call to us all yesterday to not let Henry’s death be used to create further division, hatred or tension.

“There can be no justification for hijacking this tragedy to stir up violence and disorder. Those responsible can expect to face the full force of the law,” she said.

Digwa, 23, was convicted of murder and sentenced Monday to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years. The judge said he didn’t believe Nowak had said anything racist to his attacker.

After the sentencing, police released video showing officers dismissing Nowak when he told them he had been stabbed and repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct, which investigates allegations of police wrongdoing, is probing the actions of the officers from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary. The National Police Chiefs’ Council said it will review its anti-racism guidance in the wake of the killing.

After the sentencing hearing, the victim’s father, Mark Nowak, said the case was not about racism or religion, and that he wanted his son’s death to lead to safer streets and not to be used to create “further division, hatred or tension.”

But Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, said on Tuesday that it was an example of so-called two-tier policing — a popular far-right talking point that claims ethnic minorities are better treated than white people.

Farage urged people to respond to the incident with “pure cold rage,” and said, “white lives matter just as much as Black lives.” X owner Elon Musk and British far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, have also expressed outrage at the crime.

Starmer said Farage's “appeal for rage” was “unforgivable.”

“I don’t believe there’s two-tier policing in this country," he said Wednesday in the House of Commons. “I’m really shocked that he pretends to have respect for Henry’s family and then acts in this way.”

In the wake of the killing, some politicians have called for Sikhs to be banned from carrying ceremonial knives, known as kirpans. The judge said Digwa had a small kirpan but also had an 8-inch (21-centimeter) sheathed Sikh dagger that was used as the weapon to kill Nowak.

Hampshire Police chief constable Alexis Boon said he understood the “desire for answers and accountability.”

“But that must be done in the right way and not used as an excuse to threaten and intimidate my officers and bring violence to our streets, causing fear and harm to those living and working in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight,” he said.

That plan — a joint effort involving the NBA and FIBA, the sport's global governing body — has been in the works for years, but is nearing a launch at a particularly exciting time for the game in Europe with the burgeoning superstardom of San Antonio star Victor Wembanyama.

The unanimous Defensive Player of the Year this season has led the Spurs to the finals, and even 2:30 a.m. start times for games in his native France aren't totally deterring plans for watch parties and other gatherings to celebrate Wembanyama's first appearance in the NBA's championship series.

“We are very much on schedule," Silver said. "It is our hope and anticipation that that league will launch in the '27-28 season in Europe. We are on track. Final bids from franchises are due at the end of this month, at the end of the month in June. We’ve seen record interest and we’re very excited about the ongoing opportunity and working closely with FIBA, our federation.”

Wembanyama is going home to France next season, with the Spurs set to play two regular-season games against the New Orleans Pelicans, first in Paris on Jan. 14 and then in Manchester, England, on Jan. 17. Paris and Manchester are on the list of cities expected to be part of the planned league in Europe.

Wembanyama and the Spurs played a pair of games in Paris in January 2025, with tickets for those matchups against the Indiana Pacers getting snapped up quickly. The NBA's interest in expanding to Europe goes back long before Wembanyama's arrival in the league, but his rise to stardom has clearly sparked additional interest in the NBA over in that part of the world.

“Presumably, we will be in position in the fall to award franchises,” Silver said.

Among other topics Silver discussed in his annual pre-finals news conference Wednesday:

Domestic expansion

The NBA announced formal plans earlier this year to explore expansion in Seattle and Las Vegas, and Silver said that “discussions are ongoing.”

Multiple groups, Silver said, are interested in having teams in those cities. But there is no timetable for when expansion could happen, though Silver remains committed to deciding if it will by the end of 2026 — as he has said multiple times before.

"It's not a foregone conclusion that we will expand ... but what we've told all interested parties is our board will make a decision by the end of this calendar year," Silver said.

Clippers investigation

The independent investigation into whether a $28 million endorsement contract between Kawhi Leonard and a California-based sustainability services company allowed the Los Angeles Clippers to circumvent league salary cap rules is ongoing, Silver said.

But he sounds eager for a conclusion.

“My instruction to them is we can’t be investigating forever. At some point you have to wrap it up," Silver said. "But at the same time, the most important thing is that we get it right.

“My job is to follow the facts and what essentially happens here is that a factual report together with findings will be made by this independent firm. That’s presented to me. It’s then ultimately my role to determine what the appropriate discipline, if any, should be meted out based on their findings.”

Silver added that he thinks the league is “close to the point now where I think we need to wrap this up” for a number of reasons, namely the Clippers need to know what — if anything — will happen, as do the league's other 29 teams.

The Clippers have steadfastly denied wrongdoing since the story was first reported last year by journalist Pablo Torre.

Honoring Stern

The NBA still doesn't have a major award named for former Commissioner David Stern, who retired in 2014 and died in 2020.

The league has wanted to change that for years. It's an interesting dilemma — trying to find an award important enough to bear his name, Silver said of his former boss.

“I almost think there’s nothing that we can do in some ways that will ultimately feel that he’s getting his just due. ... We’re going to come up with the right way to honor him," Silver said.

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

Ye has drawn widespread controversy in recent years for a series of antisemitic remarks, leaving Dutch authorities under mounting pressure to cancel the gigs on June 6 and 8.

The Central Jewish Council filed the emergency lawsuit on Tuesday, arguing that Ye should be banned from the country for voicing admiration for Adolf Hilter and selling T-shirts featuring swastikas.

According to the Amsterdam District Court, there were no grounds to bar Ye from performing. “There are no indications that West’s presence in the coming days will lead to concrete public order dangers,” the court said in a statement.

The Central Jewish Council expressed disappointment with the ruling. “The feeling we are getting is that it is okay if you are antisemitic,” Chanan Hertzberger, the organization’s chair, told The Associated Press.

Lawmakers in the Netherlands supported a motion to bar Ye from entering the country but the country's immigration minister said there was no legal basis for such a move. Ye's remarks were “reprehensible” but there was “no reason to bar him," Bart van den Brink told journalists last week.

The 48-year-old was set to perform his first European dates in more than a decade. In April, he was barred from entering the U.K. over his remarks, setting off a series of cancellations. Shows in Italy and Poland have been scrapped.

More than 100,000 fans turned out in Istanbul on Saturday evening to watch Ye’s first performance in Turkey.

Concert organizers say 70,000 tickets have been sold for the two upcoming shows at the Gelredome in the eastern Dutch city of Arnhem.

Ye apologized in January through a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal, stating that his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”

Wilson's announcement came two days after news broke that he was finalizing a deal to become an analyst on CBS' Sunday NFL pregame show.

“As I enter this next chapter with CBS Sports and ‘The NFL Today,’ I’m so blessed to continue doing what I love most — being around the greatest game in the world,” he said in the video.

Wilson played 14 seasons after being taken by Seattle in the third round of the 2012 NFL draft out of N.C. State. He spent his first 10 seasons with the Seahawks, leading them to their first Super Bowl championship in the 2013 season. He was traded to Denver after the 2021 season and spent two rocky years with the Broncos before playing one season in Pittsburgh and another for the New York Giants.

Wilson threw for 46,966 yards, with 353 touchdown passes and 114 interceptions.

He joins Peyton Manning and Dan Marino as the only quarterbacks to throw at least 20 touchdown passes in each of their first three seasons and is one of seven quarterbacks to be selected to 10 Pro Bowls.

Wilson is the only player in NFL history with at least 30 touchdown passes and fewer than 15 interceptions in four straight seasons. He also had three seasons with at least 30 TD passes and 500 yards rushing, which is the most in NFL history.

In the video, which was about three minutes long, he thanked his teammates, friends and family and gave special thanks to former Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.

“Thanks for taking a chance on a young, 5-11 Black kid from Richmond, Virginia, that was told he was too small to ever make it in the NFL,” Wilson said.

Wilson is the shortest starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl.

Wilson will replace Matt Ryan, who joined the Atlanta Falcons as president of football after two seasons on “The NFL Today.” Wilson had considered returning for a 15th season, telling the New York Post last month that he was mulling an offer to join the New York Jets and back up Geno Smith.

His video featured highlights from his career and footage of him visiting patients at Seattle Children’s Hospital. It ended with him thanking his wife, Ciara, and the sport he dedicated his life to.

“I thank you, football. ... I am forever grateful,” he said.

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AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi contributed to this report.

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

“There’s continuing litigation, and I’m unable to comment on ongoing litigation,” Bessent told lawmakers at the Senate Finance Committee hearing.

It was a frustrating answer for Democratic lawmakers looking to get answers from Bessent at a hearing ostensibly focused on the Treasury Department’s budget and came a day after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche seemed to indicate that the portion of the settlement dealing with the IRS audit immunity would still be in effect for the Republican president.

After several failed attempts to get Bessent to answer, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said, “It’s been very clear you’re dodging this and you’re trying to use it as an excuse. It’s just outrageous on behalf of the American public.”

The White House referred the Associated Press to Secretary Bessent's comments in response to an inquiry about the status of the settlement. In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump did not confirm whether the compensation fund had been scrapped or was simply on hold. “I’d have to ask the lawyers, I don’t know," he told reporters. “As far as I’m concerned, it was a beautiful thing,” he said.

The administration decided to scrap plans for the compensation fund, which could have included payouts to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, after bipartisan outrage and a fierce political backlash that threatened to stall key elements of the White House agenda. Still, the status of the IRS immunity deal as part of the controversial settlement crafted to resolve Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS remained unclear, though Blanche said Tuesday that “nothing has changed” in that regard.

Last week, a federal judge in Florida overseeing Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS, who had initially dismissed the case, reopened the case and ordered the president’s attorneys to respond to allegations that Trump abandoned his claims to avoid the court’s scrutiny of the deal.

When she initially dismissed the case, Kathleen Williams, the judge handling the lawsuit, admonished the Justice Department for a lack of transparency and said no agency “submitted any settlement documents nor filed any documents ensuring that the settlement was appropriate where there was an outstanding question as to whether an actual case or controversy existed.”

Matt Platkin, a former New Jersey attorney general now at the law firm Platkin LLP, which is representing lawmakers and judges challenging the settlement agreement, called it “one of the greatest scams in American history.”

He told The Associated Press that Blanche’s testimony on Tuesday over plans to scrap the weaponization fund and grant Trump audit immunity “underscores the need for the court to continue its inquiry in Florida.”

Lawmakers on Wednesday tried to grill Bessent on the agreement without success.

“Secretary Bessent owes the committee an explanation of what the Treasury knows about the dirty settlement. That’s because his department was involved from beginning to end,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Wyden asked Bessent: “Does the IRS audit immunity given to Trump, his family, and his businesses still stand?”

Bessent declined to answer, citing the unresolved legal dispute.

If audits and examinations into the president's taxes were thrown out under the settlement, an untold figure could be wiped from his bill to the federal tax collector.

Previous reporting from the New York Times and ProPublica shows that a long-standing audit of a technique Trump reportedly used to avoid paying taxes years ago could have resulted in an estimated $100 million bill if the IRS had found wrongdoing.

Even some Republicans expressed concern on Wednesday over the plan to shield Trump from the IRS.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., speaking to reporters outside the chambers, said, “I don’t think any American should have a deal like that.”

Nina Olson, founder of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, which has sued the Trump administration over IRS disclosures to immigration enforcement, called the settlement “the lowest point for the IRS since the 1970s and President Nixon’s efforts to help his friends by trying to stop IRS audits of them and hurting his enemies by urging IRS audits on them.”

St. Paul City Attorney Irene Kao said in a statement that "current evidence is insufficient to meet that standard for criminal charges under Minnesota state statutes,” a determination heavily criticized by the lead pastor at Cities Church, where the protest occurred.

“This decision should not be interpreted as an endorsement of unlawful behavior or public disorder,” Kao said. “The right to peacefully protest is protected, as is the right to exercise one’s religious beliefs. Balancing these equally important rights is paramount to our decision today.”

The U.S. Justice Department brought federal civil rights charges against 39 people, including Lemon and another independent journalist, after a livestreamed video showed a group of people interrupting services at Cities Church on Jan. 18 by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good.” Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis amid a surge in federal immigration enforcement.

The protesters had learned that one of the church pastors was also an ICE official who had been overseeing the intensive operation in Minnesota.

“According to the St. Paul City Attorney’s logic, it is perfectly fine for agitators to invade a mosque, a cathedral, or a temple, intimidate the families and children inside, and shut down their religious gathering. Just call it a ‘protest,’” Cities Church lead pastor Jonathan Parnell said in a written statement.

Violence, destruction of property and threats to public safety remain serious concerns, Kao said, but none of that occurred during the demonstration.

Attorneys for the church said that just because the protesters did not break windows or destroy property doesn't mean they didn't break the law.

At least four states — Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Kansas — adopted laws this year making it a crime to disrupt worship services.

The ex-seminary student and father of two took out a loan against his home to pay for the $17,000 cost of filing the various forms to run for the seat. He received no other donations. He had no visible campaign and no staff.

Yet on Wednesday, the day after California's primary, Stansfield had done well enough with voters to be holding on to second place, potentially locking Democrats out of the November general election in a U.S. House race that the party had put at the center of its national redistricting strategy.

“I wanted to show Christianity and Judaism a God from the Bible who loves Muslims,” Stansfield said in a telephone interview before rushing to his son's sixth-grade graduation. “I wasn't necessarily going after it to win a race.”

It is too soon to know which two candidates will advance in the 6th Congressional District, but the early results are already serving as a cautionary tale about the assumptions both major parties make when they gerrymander political boundaries to expand their power. California Democrats won voter approval last year to redraw the state's congressional map as a way to counter Republican moves elsewhere before this year's midterm elections. Democrats had planned on gaining five seats in the state, and one was the 6th District, which stretches from Sacramento into Republican-leaning suburbs to the east.

Redistricting goal meets reality of campaign politics

Democrats assumed that one of the top two finishers would be a member of their party. But Stansfield's showing is evidence that the best-laid partisan mapmaking plans can go awry when they run into the unpredictable reality of campaign politics.

Kevin Kiley is the congressman whose conservative district was split in two and fused with a more Democratic area. Kiley, who left the Republican Party and filed to run as an independent and has nabbed the largest share of votes so far. That left Stansfield the only candidate on the ballot with an “R” next to his name, helping him land, for now, above the nine Democrats who split the majority of the votes recorded at this point.

Both Democratic and Republican strategists expect heavily Democratic-leaning mail ballots that comprise the tens of thousands and have yet to be counted to break for the party's candidates, making it likely one of them supplants Stansfield in the final tally.

“I would think there'd be an advantage to Democrats,” said Rob Stutzman, a GOP consultant in Sacramento.

The state allows mail ballots to count if they are postmarked by Election Day and received up to seven days afterward. Officials also must contact each mail voter whose signature does not match the one on file and offer that voter a chance of proving identity in other ways. Close races in the state often take weeks to resolve.

Stansfield intended to send a message to Republicans

Stansfield, who said he is married to a Muslim woman from the Middle East and was kicked out of seminary for arguing that Palestinians have a biblical right to the Holy Land, has made a quixotic run for Congress before. In 2018, he sought an Oregon congressional seat as a Democrat, a party he joined after the Iraq War.

He ended up losing badly in that primary, receiving about 4% of the vote in a district that included part of Portland, but a candidate survey he completed at the time offered more insight into his views. In a response to a question about his top priorities if elected, Stansfield said, among other things, that he was “against ignorance in all its forms.”

“If we are ever going to call ourselves a tolerant society we need to learn to embrace the diversity of our world with love,” he wrote.

In the questionnaire, he described himself as Jewish and said one of the public policies he was most passionate about was supplying water and medical equipment in Gaza.

Stansfield said he left the Democratic Party after the Israel-Hamas war broke out, during Democrat Joe Biden's presidency, and over what he described as the “genocide” in Gaza. After moving to California, he decided to run in the congressional district before last year's redrawing and when it was reliably conservative because he wanted his message to reach as many Republican voters as possible.

“I wanted to go to the Republican Party and say ‘Guys, I love you, but you’ve messed up,'” Stansfield said.

He had no idea he would end up in such a potentially pivotal role.

Democrats' concerns under new map had focused elsewhere

Democrats had fretted about being locked out of one of the five seats they expected to gain in their redistricting bid, but their concern was centered on a San Diego-area district where they had a similarly broad field of candidates. One of them, San Diego City Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert, surged ahead to secure a spot in the general election and will face Republican Jim Desmond, a San Diego County Supervisor, in November.

In another redrawn congressional district, Republican Rep. Ken Calvert secured a slot on the November ballot after a bruising campaign against fellow Republican Rep. Young Kim. The second slot in that race was still up for grabs on Wednesday.

Three veteran Democratic members of Congress who were challenged by younger upstarts from within their party seemed to have avoided upsets.

Reps. Brad Sherman and Mike Thompson emerged as the top voter-getters in their respective races and will move on to the general election. Rep. Doris Matsui was leading the tally Wednesday in her Sacramento district, although it remained uncertain which two candidates would move on to the general election.

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Associated Press writer Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report.

The space agency confirmed Wednesday that the mission had ended after more than a decade of observations.

“The team really did experience the loss of a loved one with the end of the mission here,” said NASA project manager Mike Moreau.

Launched in 2013 to study the red planet’s atmosphere from orbit, Maven mysteriously fell silent in early December after passing behind Mars. Data indicated the spacecraft went into a fast spin, which disrupted its orbit and drained the onboard batteries.

A review board convened by NASA earlier this year concluded that the spacecraft is useless and unable to be recovered. It's expected to remain in orbit for another 50 to 100 years before crashing into the planet, posing no issue to other spacecraft until then. An investigation continues into what caused the problem.

Besides studying Martian weather and observing a stray interstellar comet last year, Maven helped relay information from NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on the surface. NASA officials said four other spacecraft around Mars — two U.S. and two European satellites — will pick up the slack, with no rover science lost.

"The team is certainly broken up about this, but at the same time we are incredibly proud of the science we've accomplished over the last decade,” said Maven's lead scientist, Shannon Curry of the University of Colorado Boulder.

The spacecraft advanced scientists' understanding of the Martian atmosphere and evolution, Curry 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.

The Governor issued the following statement on Wednesday:

In accordance with the authority vested in me as Governor, I hereby order that the flags of the United States of America and the Commonwealth of Virginia be flown at half-staff on all state and local buildings and grounds in the Commonwealth of Virginia in memory and respect of Deputy Logan Utt of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, whose life of service, courage, and sacrifice exemplified the highest ideals of law enforcement and public service.

Deputy Utt faithfully served the citizens of Carroll County and the Commonwealth of Virginia with honor, integrity, professionalism, and an unwavering commitment to protecting others — a calling that began with his service as a volunteer firefighter with the Cana Volunteer Fire Department and continued through his service in the United States Air Force.

Following his military service, Deputy Utt joined the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, where his selfless spirit and unwavering dedication to the safety of the community earned him the respect and admiration of all who had the privilege of serving alongside him.

On May 29, 2026, while responding to a welfare check in Carroll County, Deputy Utt made the ultimate sacrifice in the performance of his duties — giving his life while serving and protecting others.

Deputy Utt’s actions illuminate the extraordinary courage and devotion to duty that define the law enforcement profession and demonstrated his willingness to place himself in harm’s way for the protection of his community. His sacrifice serves as a solemn reminder of the risks faced daily by law enforcement public servants who stand watch over our communities.

My heart is with his wife and small children, who should know a grateful Commonwealth thanks him for his service and sacrifice.

I hereby order that the flags shall be lowered at sunrise on Friday, June 5, 2026, and remain at half-staff until sunset.

Ordered on this, the 3rd Day of June, 2026.

Gov. Spanberger

He added: “We do think this is sort of a new approach.”

More than a half-century and 58 seasons later, that same term — “new approach” — is being deployed by CBS News leader Bari Weiss to explain her sweeping changes at the most renowned news program in TV history: firing the top producer and two correspondents, among others, and installing a new chief with no TV broadcast experience. Now, one of the show’s most famous faces, Scott Pelley, is gone too — fired after a tense confrontation with bosses.

“We realize, of course, that new approaches are not always instantly accepted,” Reasoner said on that night in 1968. And Weiss’ “new approach” has been greeted with biting criticism from some corners. Moreover, the turmoil has become a top news story in itself, with competing narratives flying — none of them flattering to CBS News.

The essential question percolating on Wednesday: Where does “60 Minutes” go from here? Can it stop being the story, get back to work and retain its reputation for probing journalism and its legendary success atop the news food chain? Or is its famous ticking timer, as some fear, literally running out?

Is it crumbling, or evolving?

To one prominent analyst of TV news, it seemed Wednesday that something had already evaporated — if only, perhaps, a long-held perception that “60 Minutes,” which manages to be both old-school and pugnacious, was something essentially untouchable.

“My first response is, it started in 1968 — not a bad run,” said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture. “Because it really does look like this is systematically deconstructing what (the show) was."

But, he quickly added: “I don’t think we’re writing the obituary of ‘60 Minutes.' I think there’s just too much value and voltage built into that brand.”

He felt, though, that there were concerning signs. The show is suddenly down four correspondents. Three have been dismissed, including Pelley, and Anderson Cooper is leaving of his own accord. There have also been unsettling accusations launched by Pelley. “New management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” the correspondent and former evening news anchor contended in a statement Tuesday. “I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified.”

CBS News denied the charge. “There is no political interference at CBS News, not from ownership, not from Bari Weiss," said a statement from a spokesperson Wednesday night. "The only ‘interference’ is the normal back and forth between editor and correspondent that happens in every newsroom.”

To Jeff Fager, former executive producer of “60 Minutes” and author of a book on the show, a major deficit will be the loss of Pelley himself.

“I can’t imagine running ‘60 Minutes’ without Scott,” said Fager, author of “Fifty Years of 60 Minutes: The Inside Story of Television’s Most Influential News Broadcast.”

“His is the most remarkable body of work in the history of the broadcast,” Fager said. “It’s hobbled without him.”

Internal blemishes are suddenly on display

A dizzying week of public airing of dirty laundry continued Wednesday with remarks from Weiss to staff about Pelley’s firing — and Pelley's response to those remarks. In a transcript seen by The Associated Press, Weiss began a morning editorial call by saying she was “only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect."

“That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways," Weiss said on the call. "We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose."

In short order, Pelley countered with his own lengthy description of their meeting. “Bari Weiss knows what she said is not true,” he said in a statement posted by New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin. “In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort to ‘find a way back.’”

Turmoil had been evident at “60 Minutes” for more than a year, after President Donald Trump sued the show over its editing of a 2024 interview with then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. It became part of a broader upheaval at CBS News after Weiss was named to the new role of editor-in-chief by parent company Paramount late last year following David Ellison's arrival as the network's corporate leader.

Ellison's company, Skydance, merged with CBS parent company Paramount, which later settled the Trump lawsuit for $16 million, angering some at “60 Minutes" — and indirectly leading to the departure last month of popular CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert, who had called the settlement “a big fat bribe.”

Discord at the show burst into public view last Thursday, when Weiss and CBS News President Tom Cibrowski announced their changes aimed at “building a show that thrives in the 21st century.”

They installed Nick Bilton, a former technology columnist and documentarian, as executive producer, replacing Tanya Simon, a 30-year veteran of the show who’d been in the top job about a year. Also let go were correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi, whose segment about Trump administration deportees in a Salvadoran prison had been abruptly pulled by Weiss before running a month later, and Cecilia Vega.

Four days later, a Monday morning staff meeting exploded into acrimony when Pelley confronted Bilton, saying he had little relevant experience for the job. When Bilton told the meeting that “Bari loves this institution,” Pelley countered, according to accounts of recordings: “She’s murdering ‘60 Minutes.’ She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and she’s doing exactly that.”

That led to Weiss, Bilton and others calling Pelley in for the Tuesday meeting, after which he was fired. Weiss and Bilton did not answer interview requests Wednesday.

Reaction, though, pinballed across the media industry. “This is David Ellison's ‘60 Minutes’ now,” CNN media critic Brian Stelter wrote in his newsletter Wednesday.

Despite statements, the show's direction is uncertain

So what does the future look like for the show? In her staff call Wednesday, Weiss praised some of Pelley’s work on recent “unforgettable stories” and promised Bilton would be delivering that kind of work “in season 59 with the amazing team that’s still there and hopefully from some new people that are going to be joining us.”

There was no word on those additions. A much larger question was whether the disarray at “60 Minutes” would prove, over time, to be more political in nature — Pelley and others have accused the new leaders of trying to gain favor with the Trump administration — or more of a generational debate. Weiss and Bilton have presented the changes as necessary to evolve with the times.

Fager, among others, worries about that narrative. The show, he said, has done a good job adapting.

“It hasn’t been running in place — that's such a misunderstanding of the broadcast,” he said. “We adapted on a regular basis. Every time there’s been a new leader, there has been significant evolution."

He acknowledged that some change and evolution is always necessary. But watching the past week's "new approach" unfold, he remains concerned about the show’s overall future.

”I worry about it,” he said. “I’ve always thought it’s fragile, and I don’t take it for granted.”

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Jocelyn Noveck covers the intersection of media and entertainment for The Associated Press.

The event started at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday morning with law enforcement and Special Olympics athletes carrying the torch from Roanoke-Salem Plaza on Melrose Avenue Northwest and ending at Famous Anthony’s on Challenger Avenue.

The sheriff’s office and police department say it’s more than a run, it’s a special connection they share with Special Olympics athletes.

Their goal is to raise over $2,500. If you would like to donate or need more information, click here.

The resolution from the House does not immediately stop the war. It now goes to the Senate, where four Republican senators last month joined Democrats in advancing a similar measure to curtail the U.S. campaign against Iran. The Senate has yet to take a final vote.

Trump, in an interview released Wednesday, confirmed an earlier report that he criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “crazy," and said he's “a little bit perturbed” that Israel’s fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon is holding back peace talks with Iran.

The Trump administration is sticking with a deal to permanently drop tax claims against Trump, an extraordinary flex of executive power that could help shield the president from further examination of his finances and legal conduct, even as it scraps a $1.8 billion fund to compensate the Republican president's allies amid a fierce political backlash.

Trump's endorsements helped end the political careers of two senators and a congressman deemed insufficiently loyal, but he couldn't lift Rep. Randy Feenstra to victory in Iowa’s Republican primary, setting up a Democratic opportunity to pick up a governorship. See other AP coverage of Tuesday's primary results here.

The Latest:

Israel, Lebanon agree to renew fragile ceasefire and create Lebanese security zones

Israel and Lebanon agreed to renew their fragile ceasefire and create a number of “pilot” security zones inside Lebanon from which Hezbollah militants would be banned.

In a joint statement released after a fourth round of U.S.-mediated talks at the State Department, the two sides said the ceasefire “is contingent on a complete cessation of Hezbollah fire and the evacuation of all Hezbollah operatives” from areas south of the Litani River. It was not immediately clear how the security zones would be established but the agreement calls for the Lebanese army to take full control of those areas.

“These steps will enable progress towards a comprehensive peace and security agreement,” the statement said. “All countries reaffirmed that the future of the relationship between Israel and Lebanon must be decided by the two sovereign governments. They rejected any attempt, by any state or non-state actor, to hold Lebanon’s future hostage.”

The latter is a reference to Iran, which supports Hezbollah and has insisted that Israeli attacks on Lebanon be halted as part of a tentative agreement with the U.S. to end the conflict with Iran. Hezbollah is not part of the Israel-Lebanon talks.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visits Venezuela

The president’s top military adviser, Gen. Dan Caine, visited the capital of Venezuela on Wednesday, his office said in a press release.

“Gen. Caine participated in bilateral discussions with senior interim government leaders and U.S. Embassy leadership and staff, and visited the Embassy’s Marine Security Augmentation Unit,” the statement said. It also noted that this was Caine’s first official visit to the country.

The visit comes less than two weeks after the head of U.S. military operations in Latin America, Marine Gen. Francis Donovan, also visited Caracas as part of a rapid response exercise involving Marines and military aircraft.

Venezuela’s acting President, Delcy Rodríguez, is currently on an official state trip in India.

House approves war powers resolution to halt military action against Iran

The House approved a war powers resolution that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran, defying the president as a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to end the three-month-long war that has reordered politics at home and abroad.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had tried to prevent an outcome that would show the mounting opposition to the war, abruptly shutting down floor action two weeks ago when the war powers resolution was on the verge of approval. But displeasure has only grown as the conflict drags on and as Trump struggles to negotiate a quick resolution.

The roll call Wednesday was 215-208, and cheers erupted in the House chamber.

“This reckless and costly war of choice needs to end today,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said earlier in the week.

Rubio wraps up marathon two-day Capitol Hill hearings

The secretary of state faced a litany of questions over nearly a dozen hours of hearings combined about the Trump administration’s tentacles around the war and bipartisan concern over the status of the Iran war and negotiations.

It was the first time Rubio had to face lawmakers since the U.S. first issued strikes on Iran and he spent large portions of his testimony defending the rationale and execution of the military operation.

Rubio faces bipartisan criticism for waivers on Russian oil sanctions

Democrats and Republicans, on both sides of Capitol Hill, peppered Rubio about the Trump administration’s decision to extend its pause on sanctions on Russian oil shipments to ease shortages from the Iran war.

“President Trump was right to impose those sanctions last fall, but the waivers provide Moscow with badly needed revenue, and, I think, make little difference to American consumers in the price of gas,” GOP Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas said during a hearing.

Rubio defended the decision, saying these are short-term waivers and “will not be permanent.”

In April, the Treasury Department extended the so-called general license for Russian oil that had been loaded by March 11. The extensions have underscored how the fallout from the Iran war has boosted Moscow’s ability to profit from its energy exports, which had been restrained since the invasion of Ukraine.

Trump suggests he could ‘be the greatest’ communist – if he were actually a communist

The president directed a reporter to read Trump’s own past words on communism back to him, then scoffed at efforts in New York and other large, blue cities to expand social services.

“I’d be the greatest in the world. Nobody would be as good as me. I’d give away everything. I could be the greatest,” Trump said, commenting on what he’d be like if he were to undertake similar social giveaways.

“I would sell them: You’re going to get free rent. You’re going to get free houses. You’re going to get free food. You’re going to get free everything,” he said. “But, eventually, that ends and it leads to death, destruction and squalor 100% of the time.”

Trump also said of New York’s democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, “I would be better than him” at expanding free services, but “I had to sell free enterprise.”

“Free enterprise is tougher to sell,” Trump said.

Trump on fate of anti-weaponization fund: ‘I don’t know’

In his first public comments since his Justice Department said a controversial $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund would not go forward, the president equivocated.

“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” Trump said when asked directly whether the settlement fund was dead or merely on hold. “I don’t know.”

He spent much of his response to reporters defending the fund, which he called a “beautiful thing.”

His comments came just after Senate Republicans voted to advance an immigration funding bill, which they did only after testimony from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the fund was dead.

Trump downplays that the US and Iranian strikes are testing fragile ceasefire

“We’ve been hitting them pretty hard,” Trump said when asked by reporters on Wednesday if the ceasefire remains in place amid back-and-forth attacks by the two sides. He added, “It’s a different part of the world. You know, I’d say in that part of the world, a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

Trump also insisted that ongoing negotiations to extend the temporary ceasefire and open new nuclear talks with Tehran continue to progress.

He suggested that it’s possible an agreement could be reached “over the weekend.” Trump, however, has been predicting for weeks that the two sides are on the cusp of reaching a deal.

Trump signs executive order on federal workforce reform

The president on Wednesday signed an order that was described as an attempt to make it easier to fire or discipline federal workers.

Introducing the order at an Oval Office event, White House staff secretary Will Scharf said existing personnel rules make it difficult to discipline or promote workers in policymaking roles. He said the goal is to make the federal workforce more accountable.

James Sherk of the Domestic Policy Council added that it has been “almost impossible” to fire federal employees even in cases of serious misconduct.

“What this does is basically treat those employees like private sector workers that are being hired on the basis of merit and competence,” Sherk said. “But if they’re messing up, then they can be removed quickly.”

Trump signs executive order related to the U.S.-Mexico border

After hastily bringing reporters to the Oval Office, the president signed an executive action that will empower customs officials to more carefully track what importers bring across the U.S.-Mexico border.

His order is meant to improve the tracking of goods imported into the U.S. for tariff purposes. Federal authorities said it would also allow them to improve holding importing firms accountable, who have long used shell companies to avoid taxes.

Rubio: Adding countries to Abraham Accords would be “difficult to do at this moment” in Iran war

Asked why it’s important to increase normalization between Israel and Arab countries, Rubio laid out the benefits that it would provide both sides, but provided a sober outlook on the unlikelihood, given the ongoing hostilities in the region.

“We do want to expand the Abraham Accords obviously, but it’s difficult to do at this moment,” Rubio told senators Wednesday afternoon. “But we’re laying the groundwork for it. It’ll be a top priority of this administration.”

His testimony strayed from Trump’s recent comments, including last week, when the president said that signing on to the Abraham Accords “should be mandatory” as part of a U.S.-Iran deal being negotiated right now.

The accords were a series of diplomatic and commercial agreements forged with U.S. influence between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in 2020, during Trump’s first term.

Trump talks to press about reflecting pool

Shortly before 4 p.m. Wednesday, reporters were suddenly summoned to the Oval Office.

The reason was ostensibly to watch the president sign executive orders. But Trump kicked off the event by talking up the reflecting pool outside the Lincoln Memorial, which he announced earlier would get its final coat of protection today.

“It’ll last for 50 to 100 years before you have to do anything, very strong, powerful substance that we used,” Trump told reporters. At one point, he held up a poster that said: “Our Pool is Bigger than Skyscrapers.”

After that opener, Trump moved to the topic at hand: a customs-related executive order.

Republicans have won the partisan redistricting battle

Since Trump urged Republicans to redraw U.S. House districts last year, officials in eight states have enacted new districts that could help Republicans win up to 16 additional seats in the November elections.

Democrats suffered setbacks in their counterattacks. But they could gain up to six additional seats from new districts in two states.

The aggressive mid-decade redistricting carries high stakes, because Democrats need to gain just a few seats in the midterms to win control of the House. It remains to be seen whether the redistricting will help Republicans hold on to their slim majority.

US reduces the forces it would provide to NATO in a crisis

The U.S. military is reducing the number of forces it would contribute to NATO during an emergency, a change that’s been expected from the Trump administration as it pushes European allies to shoulder more of the continent’s defense burden.

U.S. European Command on Wednesday publicly announced changes to the NATO Force Model, a contingency plan for European defense in the event of serious security concerns, such as increased Russian aggression. The announcement lacks specifics, but said allies could step up with planes and ships as the U.S. reserves more of its own forces to thwart potential threats in other parts of the world.

U.S. and British officials said the change was already announced in classified meetings to NATO allies in recent weeks.

Demonstrator kicked out as Rubio kicks off 4th and final Capitol Hill hearing

As the secretary of state entered his fourth and last congressional hearing, a young demonstrator who said she was 18 years old yelled that the foreign policy actions of the Trump administration were being taken “against the will of the American people” before being removed from the Senate hearing room.

She yelled, “Free Palestine,” as the door was closing.

It was the first interruption of the day but part of a series of protests against Rubio and the administration in the past two days, specifically against U.S. support for Israel and the impacts of that on war-torn Gaza.

3 UN experts accuse US of `unlawful coercion’ against Cuba’s sovereignty

The independent U.N. human rights investigators urged the Trump administration in a statement Wednesday to immediately halt all threats against Cuba’s sovereignty and revoke sanctions “adopted contrary to international law.”

The experts said efforts to change Cuba’s “constitutional order” through threats and coercion “echo colonial-era practices.”

They said Trump’s declaration of a “Donroe Doctrine” in March, asserting U.S. predominance in the Western hemisphere, has raised “significant alarm.” And they said his statements about the “honor of taking Cuba” reflect “a deeply concerning strategy of coercion” against the country.

The experts on democracy, the negative impact of sanctions and counterterrorism, also pointed to the longstanding U.S. embargo and recent fuel blockade of Cuba.

They called the recent U.S. indictment of former Cuban president Raúl Castro “a misuse of domestic judicial proceedings” and “an instrument of coercive foreign policy,” and the announced deployment of the USS Nimitz to the southern Caribbean another element of “unlawful coercion.”

Rubio wraps up nearly 4-hour congressional hearing

The secretary of state has finished nearly four hours of testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he received praise from Republicans and sparred with Democrats over the Iran war, President Donald Trump’s relationship with NATO and U.S. aid to Africa.

The hearing before lawmakers on Capitol Hill was the third of four in two days for the former Republican senator from Florida. The purpose of each hearing has been to discuss the State Department’s budget. But they’ve often veered into discussions about the Trump administration’s dealings with countries around the world.

Rubio insists to lawmakers that any US-Iran deal will be ‘better’ than Obama agreement

Republicans and Democrats have raised concerns about the reported details of a deal between Tehran and Washington. And on Wednesday, Rep. Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky, questioned whether the deal was similar to the one former President Barack Obama made in 2015.

Rubio went on to outline the various issues being discussed and how they differ from the previous nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from in 2018.

“Ultimately, any deal we do will be a good deal, or there won’t be a deal, and it’ll be better than JCPOA,” Rubio said, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

That agreement, which included Germany, France and Britain, had lifted most U.S. and international economic sanctions against Iran for restrictions on its nuclear program, making it impossible to produce a bomb and establishing rigorous inspections.

Rubio says Trump still wants to be part of NATO, but alliance needs significant reform

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration has no intention of abandoning NATO but won’t back down on demanding significant reforms.

Rubio told lawmakers Wednesday that the president plans to attend the annual NATO leaders’ summit in Turkey next month, at which he will make the U.S. case for changes and again call for allies to increase their defense spending. The summit is to be held in Ankara on July 7-8.

“The president himself will be attending the next NATO, a meeting of heads of state where all of these points will be made clear. We’re still in NATO, but NATO needs significant changes, and the president has made that clear,” Rubio said.

Trump has been particularly irked by some NATO countries, mainly Spain, denying the use of airbases for the war against Iran.

Senate GOP officially strips $1 billion in White House security funding from immigration spending bill

After weeks of discussions, the Senate has officially dropped a $1 billion proposal for White House security and Trump’s ballroom project.

The Senate is set to begin voting on legislation to fund immigration enforcement agencies on Wednesday afternoon, and the bill’s final text, released just hours before the vote, does not include the security funding.

Republicans had already indicated they would drop the security proposal after backlash from within their own caucus and criticism from Democrats.

Rubio says Greenland is part of Denmark ‘for now’

Rubio made the “for now” statement when Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware asked Rubio about Trump’s calls for the U.S. to own the semiautonomous territory of Denmark to better defend the U.S.

Rubio said talks about the use of Greenland for collective defense are “in a good place,” though he declined to publicly discuss the details.

McBride had asked Rubio if he shares Trump’s belief that the U.S. needs to own land within NATO to defend it.

“The president’s view is that it’s a lot easier to defend it when you have control and complete control of it,” Rubio said. “We are obviously having conversations with both Denmark and Greenland. They are ongoing on a monthly basis now. I think we’ll have pretty good news.”

Abelardo de la Espriella thanks Trump for endorsement, predicts stronger US-Colombia ties

Colombian lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella, who pulled ahead in the first round of Colombia’s presidential race, on Wednesday thanked Trump for endorsing his campaign, saying he predicts stronger bilateral ties if the conservative defeats progressive Iván Cepeda in the presidential runoff.

Writing on the Truth Social platform the previous day, Trump offered his “complete and total endorsement” for de la Espriella, calling him an “intelligent, strong, and tough leader” who will take on a “radical leftist Marxist” in the June 21 runoff election.

“With my head held high and my heart throbbing with patriotic gratitude, I receive your words and your steadfast support,” de la Espriella, known as “El Tigre” or “The Tiger,” wrote on the social platform X. “Thank you, Mr. President!”

The utility’s proposed Daleville Area Transmission Improvements Project includes upgrades to existing transmission lines and substations aimed at meeting growing electricity demand from projects such as the incoming Google data center campus while also improving reliability for existing customers.

According to Appalachian Power, the project would upgrade about seven miles of existing 138-kilovolt transmission line with larger-capacity wire and rebuild approximately 10 miles of transmission line by replacing both wire and structures. Most of the work would occur within or near existing rights-of-way.

The company also plans to upgrade the Cloverdale, Trinity, Mount Union and Botetourt substations, construct a new substation and build about one-tenth of a mile of new transmission line.

George Porter, a spokesperson for Appalachian Power, said the upgraded transmission line would serve as the primary source of power for the new customer while strengthening service for the surrounding area.

“It has benefits for not only the new customer coming in, but for existing customers around the territory as well,” Porter said.

Porter said the utility had already identified the area as a candidate for infrastructure improvements before the new customer announced plans to locate in the county.

“A lot of our infrastructure has been out in the territory for 50, 60, 70-plus years,” Porter said. “Anytime you have equipment that old, you’re going to run into some issues.”

He added that Appalachian Power routinely evaluates its system for upgrades and said the project allows the company to modernize aging infrastructure while accommodating future growth.

The open house is scheduled from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Read Mountain Middle School in Cloverdale. There will be no formal presentation, allowing residents to stop by at any time to review maps and speak directly with project representatives.

Porter acknowledged that nearby residents and landowners can expect construction impacts during the project but said the company hopes the open house will help establish communication with the community early in the process.

“Anytime we have a project, we understand construction. We know it’s going to be inconvenient for a lot of our property owners,” Porter said.

He also said the company wants residents to raise concerns as the project moves forward.

“We can’t fix what we don’t know,” Porter said.

Landowners within the project area are expected to receive information packets with additional details about the proposal.

Appalachian Power plans to file an application with the Virginia State Corporation Commission this summer. If approved, construction is expected to begin in fall 2027 and continue through late 2029.

Porter said the company bringing the new electric demand to the area has agreed to pay for the infrastructure needed to serve its project.

“The company that’s coming in has agreed to pay for all associated infrastructure,” Porter said.

The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., said Wednesday it will sell 555.6 million shares at $135 a piece in an initial public offering. The estimated proceeds would easily top the $26 billion raised by oil giant Saudi Aramco in 2019. The offering would also give SpaceX a market value of $1.77 trillion. Only six companies in the S&P 500 are currently worth more, with Nvidia tops at $5.2 trillion.

Besides the size of the offering and the expected proceeds, SpaceX’s amended prospectus updates details about how much control of the company Musk will have. As SpaceX’s CEO, chief technical officer and chairman, Musk’s voting power will come primarily through his ownership of 5.22 billion Class B shares, which give the holder 10 votes for every share held. According to the filing, Musk would have 82.4% of the voting power in the company.

Forbes currently values Musk's net worth at $826 billion and his stake in SpaceX at $542 billion. The estimated value of his SpaceX holdings was based on an overall value for the company of $1.25 trillion. Based on those numbers, a $1.77 trillion valuation for SpaceX would boost Musk’s net worth by $223 billion, making him a trillionaire. However, much of Musk's worth is in stock that he has yet to cash in.

Even as it makes a bid for a blockbuster market debut, SpaceX is currently losing billions of dollars a year. The filing shows that the company lost $2.6 billion from operations last year on $18.7 billion in revenue, and the losses kept piling up at the start of this year, too.

Fantastical plans

Time will tell how SpaceX fares on the market. Musk’s plans for the company are as fantastical as the money he hopes raise in the sale.

Colorful, even frightening in parts, the IPO document strikes a contrast with the typically dry, technical prose in IPO documents, detailing plans to use proceeds from the sale to help put men on the moon again and perhaps even Mars. In one section, it talks of a need to build “a permanent human colony” on the red planet with “at least one million inhabitants” as existential threats loom that could consign man to “the same fate as the dinosaurs.”

Musk has almost equally ambitious plans for his other publicly traded company, Tesla. His goal is to transform the maker of electric vehicles into a producer of robotaxis and humanoid robots. Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities wrote in a research note that he expects Tesla and SpaceX to merge next year.

AI plays a key role

Key to the success of both companies — and any merged entity — is artificial intelligence. In its IPO filing, SpaceX says it sees potential revenue from AI of up to $26.5 trillion. But that depends on another lofty Musk ambition — putting data centers in space, which is not technologically possible at the moment.

Transforming his space company into a primarily AI-focused company will be a challenge for Musk, who started xAI in 2023 with 11 other co-founders who have all since left. Some were recruited away by rivals.

Its main AI product, the chatbot Grok, is “less impressive than anything that we see from any other major player in the space, whether that’s OpenAI, or Anthropic, or (Google’s) Gemini,” said IDC analyst Arnal Dayaratna.

Dayaratna said that doesn’t mean SpaceX doesn’t have potential as a major AI player, thanks in part to its computing partnership with Anthropic and Musk’s recent deal that gave SpaceX the rights to buy AI coding tool Cursor for $60 billion later this year. Folding in Cursor’s capabilities would give SpaceX access to the coveted business customers now using Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

SpaceX plans to use the net proceeds from the IPO to fund the expansion of infrastructure for its AI and rocket businesses, and to beef up the constellation of satellites that power Starlink Mobile, among other investments.

The company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol “SPCX” and could begin trading as soon as the end of next week.

And SpaceX isn’t the only colossal market debut investors are now bracing for. Earlier this week, Anthropic submitted a confidential filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to officially start its own IPO clock.

OpenAI has not yet reported filing the initial SEC paperwork, but an IPO from the ChatGPT maker is widely expected.

“This listing represents the first major test for public markets after years of muted IPO activity with SpaceX paving the way for AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI to follow soon after,” Ives wrote.

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Associated Press Technology Writer Matt O’Brien contributed.

Santos placed the bets on another prediction marketplace, Kalshi, after publicly announcing his intention to be at the Feb. 24 speech, according to a person familiar with the investigation. He later blamed a delayed flight for missing the event.

The suspicious trades were detected by Kalshi and referred to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, a federal regulator that has opened a probe into Santos for possible insider trading, according to a second person familiar with the investigation.

Both spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Santos was released from federal prison last October after Trump granted him clemency in a fraud case.

By the time of the State of the Union address, four months later, he was already working in an influencer capacity for Polymarket, using his substantial online platform to promote the controversial brand.

In response to an inquiry from the AP, a Polymarket spokesperson said the company was in the process of terminating the contract as a result of this week’s revelations.

Santos did not respond to phone calls and text messages from the AP. He wrote on social media Wednesday that the allegation was “preposterous,” adding that his legal team was in touch with the Justice Department.

On his podcast, “Doing Time with George Santos,” the former congressman has suggested that prediction markets are “easily manipulable,” and rife with abuse.

“There’s definitely some space for speculation. There will be investigations. There will be scrutiny,” he said in March. “I just want to make sure that people understand: It is not straightforward. It is not a crime to do prediction market. I don’t think people should be taking this seriously.”

The financial regulator overseeing prediction markets, meanwhile, has pledged to take the issue of insider trading “extremely seriously.”

“There is a myth in the mainstream media and social media that insider trading law doesn’t apply in the prediction markets. That is wrong,” David Miller, the director of enforcement at CFTC, said during a recent talk at New York Law School. “Insider trading in the prediction markets — where there is misappropriated information — is precisely the kind of serious violation that we are going after vigorously.”

That pledge comes as the Trump administration has thrown its support behind the prediction market operators and is actively suing states that have tried to regulate them. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., has invested in Polymarket through his venture capital firm and is a strategic advisor for Kalshi. And the CFTC has faced allegations of maintaining a friendly posture toward the industry it is meant to regulate.

Still, some bets have not escaped federal scrutiny.

Last week, prosecutors charged a Google engineer who allegedly used the company’s 2025 “Year in Search” data, before it was published, to enter Polymarket wagers about the most searched people of last year.

A spokesperson for Polymarket said the company had worked closely with the CFTC, along with federal prosecutors, ahead of the insider trading charges.

Experts said Santos’s own alleged actions didn’t appear to meet the same threshold for insider trading, since they would not have been based on stolen information. But the bets — coupled with his public statements — may run afoul of other financial laws.

“What he’s accused of sounds a lot more like market manipulation than insider trading,” said Todd Phillips, the director at Klaros Group and a former Georgia State University professor who has written extensively about prediction market regulation.

The federal regulator could also bring a civil action against Santos, potentially resulting in a steep fine and a ban from trading, he noted. But the rapid rise of online betting platforms has meant there are few similar cases to draw from.

“We didn’t have examples of people trading on contracts involving themselves. That is new, and it allows people to change their behavior in order to profit,” Phillips said. “Until pretty recently, the question of George Santos being at the State of the Union was not something that had ever been traded before.”

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Associated Press reporter Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report

Wingstop on Electric Road opened two weeks ago, and already people are lining up. The new restaurant says the first days have been a crash course in getting things right.

“We have been very fortunate to have a lot of feedback from the community — some good, some bad,” said Kelvin Edwards. “But it’s helped us measure where we need to go from here and how we’re going to make those steps happen.”

For many businesses, those first few weeks are spent finding their footing, training employees and adjusting to customer demand.

“It’s a large community,” Edwards said. “We’ve had some challenges, but we’ve had an absolute ball serving this community. We were fortunate enough to see almost a quarter of a million dollars in our first two weeks, thanks to the constituents here in the Roanoke Valley.”

Across town, Sakura Asian Fusion opened two months ago. General Manager Brandon said building a following took time and a few smart moves.

“We have social media accounts, and some people come in and make videos to post on social media,” Brandon said. “We appreciate those people as well.”

Word of mouth and social media posts helped get customers in the seats. But owners said keeping them coming back takes consistency, flexibility and patience from the community.

“Take your time, plan it out and be methodical,” Edwards said. “But you’re never truly going to get the experience of a grand opening or starting a new business until you just do it. A lot of times, it’s trial by fire. Stay positive.”

The city says it offers help ranging from training workshops to business counseling to give new restaurants a better chance at success. For more information, click here.

“Mr. Elias Irizarry is a qualified, patriotic young professional, and we are proud to have him as a political appointee," acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez said in a social media post this week.

Irizarry, whose appointment was first reported by The Washington Post, was convicted in 2023 of a misdemeanor trespassing charge after a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol. He showed contrition when he was sentenced to two weeks behind bars in 2023, court documents show.

Internal Pentagon records described to The Associated Press show that Irizarry has been assigned to the office of the undersecretary of defense for policy, which is tasked with providing national security advice and support on military strategy and planning to the defense secretary.

It was not clear from Valdez's statement how long Irizarry had been in the post, and the Pentagon declined to provide more information.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on social media: “This administration thinks a convicted Jan. 6 rioter should be doing that kind of work?????”

Irizarry was a 19-year-old freshman at the Citadel military college in South Carolina and a Civilian Air Patrol cadet when he joined the attack on the Capitol, court documents show. He climbed through a broken window, entered a conference room, carried a metal pole through the Capitol and took photos before leaving the building, the records say.

“Because of his training, Irizarry was undoubtedly aware of the safety threat posed by a mass of angry rioters to the Congressional members and staff inside the building,” prosecutors said in a court filing.

Irizarry pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor trespassing charge in October 2022. In March 2023, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan sentenced Irizarry to 14 days behind bars.

Before learning his sentence, Irizarry told the judge that he brought “great shame upon myself, my family and even my country,” according to a transcript.

“The idea of Americans being willing to fight other Americans and tear down the very institutions that millions of other Americans sacrificed and built and protect is horrible. It is something I have to live with being a part of,” he said.

Irizarry is not the only convicted participant of the Jan. 6 riot to find a job within the Trump administration.

Jared Wise, a former FBI agent charged with joining the crowd, was hired at the Justice Department last year to serve as an adviser to the department’s pardon attorney.

Wise was on trial in Washington when Trump returned to the White House in January and immediately pardoned, commuted prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of cases for all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in the attack. The case against Wise was dismissed before the jury reached a verdict.

He announced on social media in April that he had resigned from the department, saying: “I returned to Washington to fully expose the abuses by the FBI and DOJ against J6 defendants, but it became clear that this will only happen from outside of government. So I left and will do so.”

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Associated Press writers Michael Kunzelman and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had tried to prevent an outcome that would show the mounting opposition to the war, abruptly shutting down floor action two weeks ago when the resolution was on the verge of approval. But displeasure has only grown as the conflict drags on and as Trump struggles to negotiate a plan for peace.

“Enough is enough,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who led the effort.

“It is time for the president to do the right thing," he said. “The people are tired of suffering because of his war of choice — suffering at the gas pump, suffering at the supermarkets.”

The roll call Wednesday was 215-208, but next steps are uncertain. Trump would likely reject any measure from Congress to limit his commander-in-chief authority. Still, the tally, with four Republicans joining Democrats, was a rebuke of the president's war strategy, and cheers erupted in the House chamber.

Opposition to war grows

It’s the fourth time the House has tried to curb the U.S. war against Iran. The Senate advanced its own war powers resolution last month when a handful of GOP senators broke ranks with the Republican president in a rare show of political pushback from his party.

Each time Democrats have pushed forward the war powers resolution, the vote tallies have inched higher as political unease with the U.S. war swells. Trump had campaigned for the White House on a promise to end U.S. entanglements abroad and focus more on domestic issues, but the war has shifted attention back to the Middle East.

Johnson insisted Trump is “laser focused” on the domestic front, particularly ahead of the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

The speaker said he spent three hours at the White House with the president this week and Trump is calling on allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and resume the flow of commerce.

Since the U.S. joined Israel in launching the Feb. 28 strikes on Iran, Americans have seen gas prices spike at the pumps, adding to inflationary pressure on consumer spending.

Iran has been able to interrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital channel for a large segment of the world’s oil, natural gas and related products such as fertilizer.

“We’re working on that final piece,” said Johnson, R-La. “The entire world has an interest in the Strait of Hormuz being reopen for commerce. That what he’s working on.”

While a ceasefire in the conflict was declared in April, it remains uneasy and uncertain. Talks for a more durable end to the fighting have dragged, increasingly complicated by Israel’s broadening war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Meanwhile, military strikes between the U.S and Iran continue to flare.

Congress exerts its war powers authority

The war powers resolution from the House would not immediately stop the war, but it would provide a symbolic — if not legal — step against further military action.

The resolution next goes to the Senate, where four Republican senators last month joined Democrats in advancing a similar measure to curtail the U.S. campaign against Iran. The Senate has yet to take a final vote to approve or reject its own war powers resolution.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Wednesday at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that the Iranians would think that the administration's “hands are going to be tied” if Congress approved a war powers resolution. He said they would think ”we won’t be able to do anything to them, so why make a deal?”

It's not the only action Congress is taking in the national security arena as Democrats, in the minority, work to peel off Republican support for measures beyond the war against Iran.

The House also voted Wednesday on another Democratic-led effort, a procedural step toward a measure that would authorize U.S. support for Ukraine's military operations as it battles Russia and would help reconstruct the war-torn country. That vote is expected later this week. The House also expected to consider a war powers resolution to block U.S. action in Lebanon.

While Congress has the authority under the Constitution to declare war, the president also has power as the commander in chief to engage in military action, creating a legal dispute over which branch of government has ultimate say in matters of war and peace. If Senate joins the House to approve the resolution, it could set the stage for a fresh legal test of war powers.

Under the war powers act, the White House has a 60-day window to seek approval from Congress for military action. The administration, however, has indicated that because a ceasefire has been declared in the current conflict in Iran, the hostilities have ceased.

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Associated Press writer Ben Finley contributed to this report.

The Senate voted 53-46 on Wednesday to begin debate on the roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. The legislation was delayed for weeks as Republican senators navigated the various obstacles to passage created by President Donald Trump and the White House, but they are now moving quickly to pass it after paring it back to its original form.

“Right now, the goal is to get the base bill across the finish line,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

Still, Republicans will need to find enough votes to beat back multiple amendments that Democrats — and some Republicans — say they will offer to permanently ban Trump’s $1.776 billion settlement fund.

After fierce Republican pushback, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told House lawmakers at a hearing on Tuesday that “we are not moving forward with the fund, period.” But shortly after the Senate voted to move forward with the bill on Wednesday, Trump repeatedly defended the settlement in response to reporters’ questions at the White House.

When asked directly whether the fund is dead or just on hold, Trump responded: “I’d have to ask the lawyers, I don’t know.”

“I love it,” Trump said of the settlement. “I think it's so important.”

Republicans are using a process called budget reconciliation that enables them to pass the legislation without any Democratic votes, but they must first wade through a long series of amendment votes that could pose problems for the bill. That process is expected to start on Thursday.

Democratic amendments will test GOP unity

Republicans said they felt reassured by Blanche's promises to scrap the fund, which was part of a settlement resolving Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. GOP senators had revolted and left town two weeks ago after the Justice Department announced the payouts, which could potentially go to participants in the violent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and other Trump allies.

Democrats say they want it written into the law.

“It is only a matter of time before Blanche and Trump go back on their word,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., predicted Wednesday morning.

After Trump's comments, Schumer posted on X that “this is EXACTLY why" Democrats would be forcing votes to ban it.

Some Republicans also planned to try and put Blanche's promise in writing. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has said he will offer an amendment to block any attempt at resurrecting the fund.

“We’ve got a sufficient number of Republicans who have been very clear they’ve got concerns there,” said Tillis.

Thune said earlier on Wednesday that Blanche’s comments were “extremely helpful” and that he thought most GOP senators were satisfied. He said he was working with Tillis and others who have discussed amendments as he tries to ensure he has enough votes for a simple majority in the 53-47 Senate.

“Keep in mind, we’ve got to keep them all together, make sure we’ve got 50 votes for it,” Thune said.

Money dropped for Trump's ballroom

The legislation was also delayed by the opposition to $1 billion in security funding for the White House, including for Trump’s new ballroom, that was added to the original bill.

Democrats and some Republicans questioned using taxpayer money for the massive project in a time of economic hardship for many voters. Democrats had planned amendments to strip that language, as well.

As various side issues temporarily derailed the legislation, Republicans have said their top priority is passing the ICE and Border Patrol funding that Democrats have blocked for months in protest of the administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown.

But success requires GOP unity in the Senate and the House before it can reach Trump.

Republican House leaders said Wednesday they would like to pass the bill before the end of the week, if the Senate can finish it. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said that House leaders were having internal conversations about it.

“We just need to make sure everybody’s there,” Scalise said.

It was unclear how Trump’s comments on the settlement would affect Republicans’ votes on the immigration spending bill. In addition to defending the settlement, he also praised the Jan. 6 defendants who could get payouts, saying they had been subjected to “abuse.”

Friction between White House, Senate threatens other priorities

Even as Republican senators have strongly defended Trump's agenda, a growing number of them have become frustrated with the president as he ignores what they see as their political needs.

The Justice Department announced the settlement fund just as the Senate had planned to move forward on the immigration spending bill, giving Democrats an opportunity to offer amendments that could divide Republicans in an election year. That came just as Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas both lost reelection bids after Trump endorsed their primary opponents.

Trump also tapped real estate scion Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to serve as acting director of national intelligence on Tuesday, angering both Republicans and Democrats who said Pulte has no clear national security credentials. The appointment has complicated bipartisan negotiations on revising the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which expires at the end of next week.

At the same time, an increasing number of Republicans are voting against Trump's war in Iran. The House voted on Wednesday to halt U.S. military action there, following a Senate vote in May to advance its own war powers resolution.

Thune said he wasn't yet sure whether Republicans would be united on the immigration bill.

“We’ll find out," he told reporters.

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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Kamharie “Zhiy” Steelman, a standout running back and 1st and 10 honoree, has transferred to Roanoke Catholic after two incredible seasons at William Fleming High School.

Steelman emerged as one of the top offensive threats in the region during the 2025 season, rushing for 1,863 yards and 22 touchdowns while helping lead the Colonels to the region semifinals. He also contributed 207 receiving yards and another touchdown.

His standout campaign earned him Blue Ridge District Offensive Player of the Year honors, along with All-Region and All-State recognition.

Steelman’s biggest performance came in Week 8, when he was named the WSLS 1st and 10 Player of the Week following a dominant outing against William Byrd. In a 55-7 victory, he carried the ball 21 times for 319 yards and four touchdowns.

“It started off during practice,” Steelman said while recently receiving his 1st and 10 trophy. “We go hard in practice and the results showed in the game. The first play of the game, I broke, I think it was like a 10-yard gain. I knew I was gonna have a good game after that.”

Steelman also made an impact on defense, recording 21.5 tackles, including 10 solo stops. He added one tackle for loss, one sack and a pass breakup.

Former William Fleming coach Nick Leftwich credited Steelman’s work ethic for his rapid development.

“Zhiy has always been a worker,” Leftwich said. “In the offseason, he’s a multi-sport athlete, which we love. But when he’s not doing other things for William Fleming, he’s in that weight room and putting in the work that he needs to put in. He works on his craft almost every day. We’re very proud of him and we look forward to what he’s going to become and continue to get better.”

In addition to his success on the football field, Steelman was also a standout basketball player for the Colonels.

Now, Steelman will take his talents to Roanoke Catholic, bringing with him one of the most impressive sophomore résumés in the state and high expectations for the next chapter of his high school career.

The Celtics enter a new era under first year coach Brett Jones.

The drought across Central and Southwest Virginia has been intensifying as summer approaches. While this year got a brief reprieve in mid to late February—thanks to melting snow and ice—the region quickly slipped back into dry conditions starting in late March. The latest data shows that by May, parts of the area had reached what’s considered an “extreme drought” or level four drought, and unfortunately, there’s been little improvement since.

The latest drought tracker is expected to be updated tomorrow, but with continued dry weather predicted, significant changes aren’t likely in the near term.

Extended stretch of sunny, warm weather—rain delayed until late weekend

If you’ve stepped outside recently, you’ve probably noticed wall-to-wall sunshine and crystal-clear skies. That’s high pressure at work, firmly in charge of the region’s weather since midweek. Skies are expected to remain mostly clear tonight and throughout Thursday and Friday, making for picture-perfect outdoor conditions.

Cloud cover may begin to increase by Saturday, especially from the west, but the chance for any rain holds off until late Sunday. Even then, the showers and storms will be hit-or-miss in nature so widespread relief from the drought is not currently in the cards. The chance for needed rain may continue into Monday but after that we’ll dry out on Tuesday.

Expected heat surge: several days with above-average temperatures

Get ready for a real summer surge: Friday and Saturday are each expected to top out in the lower 90s, and even Sunday is forecast near 90. After the weekend, look for a trend back down to 80 to 85 by early next week. Any cool down, however, looks to be short-lived.

Love sharing your sunshine and/or storm photos? Pin it with WSLS at https://www.wsls.com/pinit/

“Just want to quit tennis right now,” Sabalenka said after wasting a lead of a set and two breaks in a 3-6, 7-5, 6-0 loss to Diana Shnaider in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. “We’ll see in few days. Hopefully I’ll get back on track mentally.”

Sabalenka's wait for a first French Open title continues despite the four-time major winner leading 4-1 in the second set and being two points from victory while serving for the match at 5-4. What followed was a complete collapse as she lost 12 of the last 13 games against a player appearing in her first Grand Slam quarterfinal, looking increasingly frustrated and forlorn in the windy conditions.

Just like her loss to Coco Gauff in last year's final, when she also won the first set before becoming undone with a slew of unforced errors, this one will take some time to get over.

“You know those rooms where you just go in and you smash everything,” Sabalenka said. “Probably I will spend a whole day tomorrow over there destroying stuff. Maybe it will help, maybe not.”

Shnaider next faces Maja Chwalinska, who extended her remarkable Roland Garros run by beating No. 22-seeded Anna Kalinskaya 7-6 (3), 6-3.

Italian men's finalist

In the men’s quarterfinals, 10th-seeded Flavio Cobolli beat No. 4 Felix Auger-Aliassime 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 and will face fellow Italian Matteo Arnaldi for a spot in the final.

Arnaldi advanced when Matteo Berrettini, yet another Italian, retired due to a left hip injury with Arnaldi leading 7-5, 5-2.

Berrettini had his hip treated during a medical timeout earlier in the second set.

The strong Italian showing comes despite top-ranked Jannik Sinner getting stunned in the second round.

Second-seeded Alexander Zverev and No. 26 Jakub Mensik will meet in the other semifinal.

Sabalenka's missed opportunities

Sabalenka stood still and screamed loudly after losing a point to fall 0-30 down in the sixth game of the decider and, although she saved two match points at 0-40 down, she lost when she sent a shot into the net.

“I just think it’s combination of everything,” Sabalenka lamented. “You overthink, then you make easy mistakes, then you miss opportunities.”

Her struggles were reminiscent of the match against Gauff, when she remonstrated loudly, shouting to herself and glaring at her team box.

“I just have to sit back and openly think about what’s going on in my head in those tough moments,” Sabalenka said, recalling that match. “Because I’m quite an experienced player. I have been through so many things, and I overcome so many things.”

Sabalenka had already looked agitated when serving for the first set but still looked in control as she served for the match in the second, holding a 30-15 lead.

“Of course I saw some moments of her frustration,” Shnaider said. “I know Aryna, that she’s a very emotional person."

Shnaider, who was already on her best run at a major, broke Sabelenka before taking complete control.

“Well, honestly I am speechless. Super happy,” Shnaider said. “I feel like I was trying to focus point by point. Not thinking about the score. She is the world No. 1, so I just trying to do my best. I just had to fight for every point.”

Sabalenka looked increasingly frustrated as the third set wore on, and when she missed a volley at the net in the fourth game of the decider she crouched and rested her head on her racket.

Another upset

It was another big upset in a tournament where defending champion Gauff (third round) and four-time winner Iga Swiatek (fourth round) already tumbled out.

Sinner, last year's runner-up, served for the match in a second-round defeat, and 24-time major winner Novak Djokovic wasted a two-set lead in a third-round loss.

That opened things up for lesser-known players. According to Opta, this is the first major without a former champion in either the men’s and women’s semifinals since the French Open in 1977.

From qualifier to contender

The unseeded Chwalinska came through three qualifying rounds to become only the second Polish woman to reach the semifinals at Roland Garros, along with Swiatek.

Chwalinska said British player Emma Raducanu’s run to the 2021 U.S. Open title as an 18-year-old qualifier had inspired her.

“It was such an impressive run, you know,” Chwalinska recalled. “Also, she was so young.”

When Kalinskaya’s big forehand from the back of the court went out, the 24-year-old Chwalinska had her biggest win, having never been beyond the second round at any major before this tournament.

Chwalinska’s total prize money heading into Roland Garros was $864,030 and reaching the last four here earns her 750,000 euros (about $872,000).

Windy conditions

The roof was open on Court Philippe-Chatrier and there was a lot of wind.

“I don’t know why would they keep the roof open when it was crazy windy,” Sabalenka said. “It was very dirty tennis. I don’t know how people could actually just sit there and watch me play.”

Kalinskaya also struggled.

“I feel like I was fighting against the wind,” she said. “It was cold today, so the ball was going slower. I couldn’t use my speed, my power.”

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This story has been corrected to show that Jannik Sinner was the French Open runner-up in 2025, not champion.

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

The Knicks are auctioning two celebrity row seats for Game 3 at Madison Square Garden, when the NBA Finals return to New York for the first time since 1999.

Ticket prices are skyrocketing with the league's biggest market finally back in the series, with tickets inside the Garden so hard to acquire that Knicks fans have instead bought up seats in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Cleveland as their team romped through the Eastern Conference playoffs.

The seats for the game Monday night are located in section VIP 10; row AA; seats 25 and 26, which the Knicks say is right off center court. It's impossible to know what they would usually cost, because the team doesn't sell them. Instead, they are given to the celebrity fans such as Tracy Morgan and Timothée Chalamet who are courtside fixtures.

The auction begins Thursday at noon at knicks.com/celebrityrowauction and proceeds benefit the Garden of Dreams Foundation, the organization that works with MSG's companies to assist children at need in the tristate area. It runs through Sunday at 5 p.m.

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

Mullin's comments came during a heated congressional hearing when he was asked about when the department would change the training requirement for new recruits from 42 days to 72 days, in a reference to media reports about truncated training for ICE recruits.

“July 1st. We bring it back up. We had to rewrite the curriculum. All training starting July 1st will be back up to the regular standards,” Mullin said. The secretary did not address criticism of the training schedule or comment on why it was being changed now.

ICE officials revamped the training as part of efforts to swiftly hire and train an additional 10,000 deportation officers with an infusion of billions of dollars last summer from Congress. At the time, the agency had about 6,500 deportation officers.

That lead to allegations that the department was cutting corners in an effort to get more officers in the field, which Homeland Security and ICE repeatedly denied.

In February, a former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer, Ryan Schwank, who was responsible for training new deportation officers warned that the agency’s training program for new recruits was “deficient, defective and broken.”

During a forum hosted by Democrats, Schwank accused the department of dismantling the training program for new deportation officers, making it shorter and lying about what they were doing.

“DHS told the public the new cadets receive all the training they need to perform their duties, that no critical material or standards have been cut,” he said. “This is a lie. ICE made the program shorter, and they removed so many essential parts that what remains is a dangerous husk.”

ICE and Homeland Security officials have rejected accusations new recruits weren't getting proper training. In response to Schwank’s testimony, Homeland Security said officers were receiving firearms training, were taught “de-escalation tactics” and were instructed on the Constitution. They also said no training hours were cut.

During a tour of the ICE training facility in Georgia with reporters in August, acting ICE director Todd Lyons said the agency made changes designed to streamline the process but denied watering it down.

Agency officials said they boosted training at the federal training center to six days a week, added training before and after recruits arrived at the facility, and got rid of a Spanish language requirement.

Now, 11 years after the first Ni Una Menos protest created a collective consciousness about what would come to be known as femicide — the killing of women and girls because of their gender — the nation is convulsing with anger once again.

This time, it's over the killing of 14-year-old Agostina Vega, in the central city of Cordoba. She arrived at a family friend's home the night of May 23, expecting to pick up a gift for her mother. Instead, she was sexually assaulted and hanged, initial autopsy results indicate, her body dismembered with a kitchen knife.

Her remains were found in a drainage ditch Saturday, a week after her disappearance, as vigils in her home province erupted into clashes with police.

The outrage has reverberated across the country, and on Wednesday, thousands of protesters gathered for the annual Ni Una Menos demonstration in downtown Buenos Aires. Many held posters printed with the faces and names of women who've been killed or who disappeared in recent years, including Agostina. Her case brought renewed energy and purpose to the protest, amplifying demands for government action and intensifying criticism of President Javier Milei.

The libertarian ally of U.S. President Donald Trump has called the feminist movement “a ridiculous and unnatural fight," promoted scrapping femicide from the penal code, and defunded programs supporting victims of gender violence as part of his cultural war and cost-cutting campaign.

This year, lawyers at the Center for Legal and Social Studies, a leading Argentine human rights group, have counted 63 legally registered femicides. But they and other advocates say it can be an uphill battle against the government to get that classification. Some have compiled a list of more than 100 names of women killed this year, arguing that many aren’t properly labeled.

Reports of femicide in Argentina fell 12%, to 200 cases last year compared with 2024, according to statistics published by the Supreme Court. Victims' lawyers say the change doesn’t reflect a drop in gender-based violence, but instead a failure to properly classify crimes.

“To stop calling femicides by their name, to deny the existence of gender violence — it's an attempt to rewind the past 20 years,” said Natalia Gherardi, director of the Latin American Team for Justice and Gender, a Buenos Aires-based rights group. "I hope this reaction generated by Agostina’s case, what we show in the streets, will be enough to counter the desire to move backward.”

Questions plague the handling of 14-year-old Agostina's case

After Agostina's death, protesters directed anger at local law enforcement, setting tires alight in the streets of Cordoba. Her family filed a missing person’s report the morning after her disappearance, but over 80 hours passed before phones across the province buzzed with a child abduction alert, according to family lawyer Gustavo Vaca.

The day after her death, a taxi driver reported that he'd driven Agostina to the house of the family friend, 33-year-old Claudio Barrelier, which security camera footage confirmed.

Agostina’s family has complained that security forces were consumed by concerns of fan violence during a major soccer game in the city of Cordoba that day. Three days later, police raided the house of Barrelier, an ex-boyfriend of Agostina's mother.

Barrelier is in custody as the main suspect in the case and denies killing Agostina. Investigators say his criminal history shows he had been arrested for abducting a young woman a year ago but was released on bail of $3,500 after 20 days.

When peppered with accusations of foot-dragging, lead prosecutor Raúl Garzón said last week that authorities “are not engaging in any self-criticism.”

Calls grew to characterize Agostina’s killing as a femicide. Security Minister Alejandra Monteoliva has refused to do so.

“A homicide, whatever its nature, is not solely defined by what happens during one hour, two hours, or three hours, where the act itself occurs,” Monteoliva told reporters Monday in her only public comments on the case.

Advocates insist using the term femicide — which carries harsher penalties than other forms of homicide, with a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment in Argentina — is crucial for effective prosecution and victim protection.

“If we don't name the specific form of violence, if we don't recognize it, then we can't understand the problem in all its dimensions, and we can't create policies to prevent and combat it," said Lucila Galkin, director of the gender and diversity program for the Argentina chapter of Amnesty International.

Milei has waged his culture war against policies on gender

Milei has waged a cultural war against gender-based policies — what he sees as a dangerous consequence of socialism.

After Milei railed against the crime of femicide as “legally making a woman’s life worth more than a man’s” at the Davos summit last year, his justice minister announced plans to strip the category from the legal code.

Nothing came of that, but his government now is working to stiffen penalties for women who falsely report cases of gender-based violence. It is awaiting congressional debate.

In the last two and a half years, Milei has dissolved Argentina’s women’s ministry, shut down its anti-discrimination institute, gutted support programs for victims of gender violence, banned the use of gender-inclusive language in official documents, and defunded training in gender issues for public school students and state employees.

Among the affected programs is Acompañar, which assisted 350,000 women with aid equivalent to six months’ minimum wage before it was defunded. A 24-hour hotline to help victims lost two-thirds of its budget and half its staff last year. A government-sponsored program providing free legal assistance to people experiencing domestic violence or sexual abuse has also been dismantled.

With the latest case, an annual protest has gained urgency

On Wednesday, protesters gathered at Plaza Congreso, opposite the seat of the National Congress, as they have every year since Chiara Páez's death in 2015.

Laura Lenaza, 41, said she hadn’t attended a street protest in almost a decade. But the shock of recent cases moved her to bring her 17-year-old daughter, Milena.

“I’m fighting for myself, for my 11-year-old sister, and for all the women I know," the young woman said, squeezing her mother’s hand.

María Cacharo, 54, said she came with her 18-year-old daughter in honor of her sister, killed by her husband several years ago.

“Whenever resources are reduced, somehow we’re the ones who have to bear the cost,” she said of the impact of Milei’s cost-cutting on women, adding that the way police handled Agostina's case makes her sick.

Carrying “Justice for Agostina” signs, her family led a march in Cordoba on Wednesday to push for accountability in her killing under the banner of the movement that once made Argentina a regional beacon for social and legal action on gender equality.

“I think this femicide, which caused so much pain, so much shock, also mobilized us, reminded us that this is a problem concerning all of society,” Galkin said of Agostina's case.

“We are being forced to have conversations about issues we thought we had agreed on, a topic that we thought had been settled."

Meliá will cease operations at 15 of the 34 hotels it manages on the island, according to state website Cubadebate, dealing a blow to Cuba’s vital tourism sector, which has plummeted since its 2018 peak.

The report on Wednesday stated that Meliá’s decision was based on “a sense of corporate responsibility and external factors that have significantly affected the operation, legality and security of these establishments.”

The decision was announced May 26, just weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order expanding sanctions against the island. Most of the sanctions targeted Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., a business conglomerate operated by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, with the U.S. asserting it was a threat to its national security.

Meliá did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The executive order freezes the assets of foreign companies, seizes their accounts in the United States and prohibits travel by their shareholders, investors and employees— virtually eliminating their activity in the U.S. financial system.

GAESA, a Cuban conglomerate created in the 1990s, owns a wide range of businesses, from car rentals and retail stores to transportation companies. It is Meliá’s partner in hotel management through one of its subsidiaries, Gaviota.

Meliá deals new blow to Cuba's crumbling tourism sector

Meliá is one of Cuba’s most important partners in its vital tourism sector. Until its partial withdrawal, it operated some 14,000 rooms.

Spanish and Canadian firms are the biggest investors in Cuba’s hotel sector, noted Lee Schlenker, a research associate at the Quincy Institute’s Global South program, a Washington think tank.

“With the lack of international tourism, the fuel shortages, and just the broader decline since COVID…I’m sure that these companies will be rethinking their operations in Cuba with major implications for the people of Cuba, not just GAESA,” he said. “There are thousands of Cubans who work in these hotels.”

Several of the hotels that Meliá abandoned in idyllic destinations like the resorts of Varadero, Cayo Santa María and Jardines del Rey “were already closed and inactive due to energy problems and the drop in demand in Cuba,” according to Cubadebate.

Cuba’s government has blamed the U.S. energy blockade for prolonged blackouts, water shortages, supply problems, deficiencies in the healthcare system and disruptions in all aspects of daily life.

Those who work in Cuba’s crumbling tourism sector lamented Meliá’s announcement.

“It’s going to affect us, our families, and everyone involved in tourism. Our pay and income depend on this,” said Erich López, a driver of a green 1950s Dodge who has been driving for two decades to support his family.

For Carlos Luis Carbonel, a 62-year-old parking attendant who works in front of the giant Meliá Cohiba hotel in Havana, the situation “is going to be a blow.”

“This is terrible for everyone: for tour guides, for parking attendants, for hotel workers, for everyone," he said.

Other major hotel chains including Canadian-owned Royalton and Spain’s Iberostar have limited or suspended operations in Cuba in the past week.

Tourism in Cuba, which reached a peak of 4.3 million visitors in 2019, saw a significant drop in the number of tourists arriving in the first quarter of this year, 48% lower than in the same period in 2025.

Only 298,000 tourists arrived in Cuba in January, February and March, compared to 573,300 international visitors during the same period last year, according to government data.

Cuba struggles to breathe

On Wednesday, the enormous and iconic sign of the Royalton Paseo del Prado hotel at the entrance of Old Havana was removed, as confirmed by The Associated Press during a visit. Meanwhile, the 500-room Iberostar Selection — also known as Tower K — the most modern and luxurious of the hotels slated to open in 2025, standing over 150 meters (490 feet) tall, has remained closed for days.

Airlines including World2Fly, Air France and Iberia have canceled flights to and from Cuba.

Also on Wednesday, Cuba’s Central Bank announced that Visa and MasterCard operations on the island would be suspended following the termination of relationships between foreign entities and FINCIMEX S.A., a Cuba-based agency affiliated with GAESA.

Last month, Canadian miner Sherritt International Corp. signed a non-binding agreement with Gillon Capital LLC, a family office linked to a former Trump adviser, to sell its stake in a mining business in Cuba.

In late January, Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba, as his administration pressures for a change in its political system and government. The move has deepened a crisis caused by seven decades of U.S. sanctions.

While U.S. and Cuban officials held talks earlier this year, tensions have risen. In late May, former President Raúl Castro was charged in a U.S. indictment for his alleged role in the downing of two civilian aircraft operated by Miami-based exiles in 1996 in Cuban waters.

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On the standard cover, Williams is depicted in a position similar to his pivotal, scrambling, fourth-and-8 jump pass to Rome Odunze in a stirring comeback victory over Green Bay in a wild-card playoff game on Jan. 10.

With his arm cocked to throw and his feet spread, Williams appears to soar above a silhouette of the Chicago skyline that is set against a blue backdrop.

The deluxe edition features a tight shot of Williams with arms crossed over his white game jersey, a dark, night-like background and snow falling around him.

Being featured on the game's cover is “like my childhood dream was coming true,” Williams said in a statement. “I grew up playing Madden and imagining what it would be like to be part of the game."

Williams and the 2025 Bears became synonymous with late-game theatrics last season, staging more than a handful of comeback victories to go with some dramatic rallies that came up just short — including their season-ending playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams.

“He had a spectacular season and the cover was dope, his kind of little (Michael Jordan) tribute,” Odunze said after the Bears practiced on Wednesday. “I know the Chicagoans are happy to see that one. It was kind of a throwback. It was pretty cool.”

Bears defensive back Tyrique Stevenson also liked the cover.

“It’s tough. I told him he has to sign mine,” Stevenson said. "Definitely proud of him for that. I’m honored to be on a team with someone who is on the Madden cover.”

In 17 regular-season games, Williams passed for a franchise-record 3,942 yards with 27 touchdowns and seven interceptions in his second season since being drafted first overall out of Southern California.

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

It’s not yet clear what could have prevented last week's crash because the National Transportation Safety Board investigation is just beginning. Still, it highlights the inherent dangers whenever a bus or semitruck crashes into other vehicles — even if riding a bus is much safer statistically than driving a car.

While collision-avoidance technology and emergency braking systems are standard on many new cars, commercial buses still lack them — even in the face of longtime NTSB recommendations and proposed regulations to require them.

Observers say the circumstances of the crash that happened early Friday also raise questions about driver fatigue. Court records, meanwhile, show that the E&P Travel Inc. bus driver, who now faces manslaughter charges, was previously ticketed for excessive speeding, along with other drivers for the same company.

While those tickets might not have been enough to automatically revoke the man's commercial driver's license, industry experts say even one similar violation would normally get a driver fired.

“The fact that there was one conviction and another citation and this driver is still on the road goes against industry norms and best practices in a pretty significant way,” said Fred Ferguson, who leads the American Bus Association trade group.

That NTSB crash investigators also have no power to enforce their recommendations factors into why so many have gone unfulfilled for years, as the industry and regulators often focus on the potential costs involved.

“Everybody walks a walk in talking safety at the industry level, at the congressional level. And then at the end of the day, it’s the same old excuses,” said Jim Hall, who was chairman of the NTSB during the 1990s. “And if it costs money, there’s going to be a strong resistance.”

A history of speeding

Federal rules say that a driver who is convicted twice within three years for driving more than 15 mph over the limit should be disqualified for 60 days.

The bus driver in last week's crash, Jing Sheng Dong, of New York City, was previously convicted of driving 73 mph (117 kph) in a 55 mph (89 kph) zone in Virginia in 2024, and received a second ticket in March in Annapolis, Maryland, that accused him of driving a motorcoach 72 mph (116 kph) in a 50 mph (80 kph) zone. The 48-year-old is now facing five charges of involuntary manslaughter and one count of reckless driving.

But Ned Einstein, an expert witness in some 700 transportation lawsuits, said he doubts the criminal charges filed after the crash will be effective at making roads safer because Dong didn’t create the conditions that likely contributed to it.

“They never hit the heart of the problem and never go after the person who’s responsible, and the person that’s responsible for these things is the person that runs the company,” Einstein said, explaining that drivers have to take the shifts they are given while company owners set the schedules and run the businesses.

Friday’s crash also happened around 2:30 a.m. ET — roughly five hours into a trip from New York to North Carolina. That makes former state trooper Jeremy Disbrow, who helps train law enforcement with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, wonder whether fatigue may have been a factor.

Bus drivers are prohibited under federal law from driving more than 10 hours or working more than 15 hours without taking at least eight hours off to rest. Electronic logs have helped better enforce those rules than paper logbooks, although there have been instances where the former have been tampered with.

Records show that another E&P Travel driver was involved in a similar crash in North Carolina in 2024 that injured nine people after the bus failed to slow down for a traffic control vehicle that was performing a moving lane closure. The bus hit that vehicle, and a third vehicle rear-ended the bus. The bus driver, Pei Jie Lu, later pleaded guilty to failure to reduce speed. That crash occurred three months after Lu was ticketed in Maryland for negligent driving and changing lanes unsafely, according to court records. He pleaded guilty in that case in September 2024.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said federal investigators are looking into Dong’s background as well as the company that hired him and the school that trained him. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is also trying to confirm that New York followed the rules when it awarded Dong a commercial driver’s license. Duffy has worked to strengthen and enforce standards for CDL holders, but that effort has focused on truck drivers.

A long list of unfulfilled recommendations

Even when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration agrees that something is a good idea, like automatic braking, it often takes years to finalize a rule requiring it. Commercial buses, for example, have only been required to have seat belts since 2016.

Numerous NTSB recommendations for buses and other commercial vehicles have never been adopted, including stricter standards to reduce driver fatigue and ensure drivers get enough rest between trips. A rule to require collision-avoidance technology in commercial buses and trucks was proposed in 2023, but it remains pending.

Ultimately, it falls to regulators, Congress and the industry to adopt them. Unlike regulators who must conduct a cost-benefit analysis, the NTSB isn't required to consider how practical its recommendations are. It simply urges safety improvements to prevent future tragedies.

The Transportation Department didn’t immediately respond this week to questions about why so many recommendations go unfulfilled.

Many bus companies do invest in safety

The American Bus Association trade group works to promote safety measures and Ferguson said driver-monitoring technology, such as inward-facing video cameras and advanced telematics systems similar to those used by major auto insurers, has become common. Some of those systems can even send alerts about driver behavior to a bus company.

Ferguson also said some companies have installed collision-avoidance technology on their buses because “the difference between catastrophic accidents and not having catastrophic accidents is you keeping your company.”

But cost is a factor — a new motorcoach previously cost roughly $650,000, and the industry is now dealing with the impact of 10% tariffs. Ferguson said newer buses have the most safety features, but increasing costs will slow upgrades.

“Operating safely not only is morally and ethically what they believe in, but it’s good business,” said Ferguson, whose group represents about 40% of the 1,800 companies that operate about 50,000 motorcoaches across the United States and Canada.

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Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writer Allen G. Breed contributed from Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Since taking office on March 11, ultraconservative Kast has pledged to cut roughly $6 billion in public spending over 18 months in an effort to improve the country’s fiscal accounts. As part of this ambitious austerity plan, his government is forcing a nearly 3% budget cut across all ministries.

The measures have drawn criticism not only from opposition parties but also from some sectors within the governing coalition.

The march was organized by the Confederation of Chilean Students and supported by other organizations, including the Teachers’ Union, secondary school student associations, and feminist groups.

Although the march began peacefully, tensions escalated as clashes broke out between protesters and police. Officers used water cannons and tear gas to disperse crowds, while some demonstrators threw rocks and other objects. Several streets were blocked and multiple subway stations were closed.

“The government sought to provoke this, to create this situation to justify repression,” Mario Aguilar, president of the Chilean Teachers’ Union, said.

Demonstrators also rallied against the government’s National Reconstruction bill, a sweeping package of measures aimed at reducing state spending, encouraging investment and boosting Chile's economy.

The project, known as the “mega-reform” bill, was approved by the Chamber of Deputies late May and is now set to be debated in the Senate.

“They want to silence us, but we are not going to stop,” said Magdalena Correa, a 21-year-old student. “They’re taking away our resources and rights, and we have to fight back.”

Police and government officials have not yet commented on the clashes. However, Associated Press journalists observed at least a dozen arrests and several injuries during the unrest.

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The S&P 500 fell 0.7% from its all-time high for its first drop in 10 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 620 points, or 1.2%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 0.9%.

Weighing on the market was a climb of 1.9% for the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, which brought it back to $97.81. It rose after both the United States and Iran said they launched retaliations for earlier attacks or attempted ones.

Palo Alto Networks helped drag the market lower, and it fell 5.6% even though it reported profit for the latest quarter that topped analysts’ expectations. Investors may have been looking for even more after its stock came into the day with a surge of 61.3% for the year so far, more than quintuple the S&P 500’s already big 11.2% rise.

Stocks also felt pressure from higher yields in the bond market, which climbed with the price of oil. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.49% from 4.46% late Tuesday and from just 3.97% before the war began.

High yields worldwide are threatening to slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments. They have already forced the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its most expensive level in nine months, and they could curtail companies’ borrowing to build the artificial-intelligence data centers that have supported the U.S. economy’s growth recently.

More expensive loans can hurt smaller companies in particular because many need to borrow to grow. The Russell 2000 index of the smallest U.S. stocks fell 1.3%, more than the rest of the market.

Reports released Wednesday on the U.S. economy came in mixed. One from the Institute for Supply Management said growth accelerated more last month for U.S. construction, agricultural and other services businesses than economists expected.

That’s an encouraging signal, but the survey also showed businesses are feeling the pinch of higher prices caused by tariffs and more expensive oil. “This is the definition of inflationary pressure starting to affect us,” one company in the accommodation and food services industry said in the survey.

Still, stocks remain near their records, even with all the pressure on the global economy created by higher inflation.

Oil prices remain below their peaks from earlier in the war with Iran, and hope seems to be remaining on Wall Street that the United States and Iran will ultimately agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers. That would improve the global flow of crude and hopefully lower its price.

Such hopes, along with strong profit reports from U.S. companies, helped launch the S&P 500 on its nine-day winning streak that ended Wednesday, one day shy of its longest in three decades.

Medtronic climbed 5.7% after reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also increased its dividend payout going to investors.

GameStop rose 6% after the video-game retailer said its revenue in the latest quarter grew 14% from a year earlier. It also announced a program to send up to $2 billion to its investors by buying back its own stock.

Macy’s added 0.6% after swinging between gains and losses through the day. The retailer reported profit for the latest quarter that blew past analysts’ forecasts, while saying an overhaul of its merchandise and better customer service is resonating with customers.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 56.10 points to 7,553.68. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 620.72 to 50,687.07, and the Nasdaq composite sank 239.93 to 26,853.98.

In stock markets abroad, European indexes fell following a mixed finish in Asia.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.6%, but Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 2.5% to another record.

Excitement around the boom created by AI technology has been a huge engine for stock markets worldwide. On Wall Street, Marvell Technology rose another 3.7% following its best day on record, a surge of 32.5%, after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang suggested at a conference in Taiwan that Marvell could be “the next trillion-dollar company.”

The last company to enter the expanding club of behemoths was Micron Technology, which is likewise riding the AI wave.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

Johnny Hunt, owner of Route 5 Ranch, said the prolonged dry stretch has tested everything he knows about farming. “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Hunt said. “This drought has really put a lot of things into perspective for us here in Southern Virginia.”

Hunt said farming leaves little room for error. He carefully selects seed genetics for different soil types across his fields and spends months preparing equipment — all to hit a precise planting window. The drought has made that window harder to reach. “We’re shooting for this window right here,” Hunt said. “So, it’s really been difficult for us to get everything in the ground in that window.”

Feeding his cattle has added another layer of stress. Because local hay supplies are caught in the same drought, Hunt said he may have to bring feed in from out of state. “Everywhere local here is in the same drought,” he said. “This doesn’t just stop right here with us farmers — it affects everybody down the line.”

The dry conditions are visible in the soil itself, which has turned crumbly and flaky. But a sudden downpour would not necessarily be the relief farmers need.

WSLS Meteorologist Edward Shaw, who has been tracking the drought since it began, said too much rain too fast can cause its own damage. “If you have heavy rainfall in a quick amount of time, it can very easily lead to flash flooding,” Shaw said. “It can still damage crops, and so you want it prolonged over a period of time.”

Shaw said the forecast is showing some encouraging signs. “We’re starting to get into a little bit more of a pattern where we have moisture flowing from the South along with some heat,” he said, “so that hopefully will provide for some showers and thunderstorms that provide beneficial rainfall to the area.”

For now, Hunt said there is little farmers can do but wait. “There’s nothing really that we can do,” he said. “At the end of the day, we put all of our faith in the good Lord to make it rain for us.”

The NBA announced Tuesday that Blair was among 12 referees selected to work the 2026 NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs, marking the first Finals assignment of his 18-year NBA officiating career. Blair is the only first-time selection among this year’s Finals officiating crew.

“Being selected to work the NBA Finals is the highest honor for an NBA official,” NBA President of League Operations Byron Spruell said in a statement announcing the selections. The league said officials were chosen based on their performance evaluations, including play-calling accuracy and postseason grades.

Blair, 55, told The Associated Press the selection was an emotional moment after years of narrowly missing a Finals assignment.

“Very emotional moment for me, because I’ve been right there on the doorstep for so many years,” Blair said. “This is my 18th year and one thing I had to realize going through this journey is that everybody has their own journey.”

A graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Blair was a standout basketball player before beginning his officiating career. He later starred at the University of Richmond, earning Colonial Athletic Association Player of the Year honors and helping the Spiders become the first No. 15 seed to defeat a No. 2 seed in NCAA Tournament history with their upset of Syracuse in 1991.

Blair was selected by the Houston Rockets in the second round of the 1992 NBA Draft and played professionally overseas before turning to officiating. He joined the NBA staff in 2008 after working in the NBA G League and several collegiate conferences, including the ACC and Atlantic 10.

Blair has officiated more than 1,000 NBA regular-season games and has worked numerous playoff contests. He previously served as an alternate official for the NBA Finals in 2021 and 2022 before earning his first on-court Finals assignment this season.

Game 1 of the NBA Finals is scheduled for Wednesday night in San Antonio.

So, what can you do to help keep them away?

“Mosquitoes are light flyers,so any amount of turbulent air- if that’s a ceiling fan, if that’s a desk fan- goes a long way because theys imply can’t fly through it and hover close enough to get down to skin level.If you’re at the desk or sleeping, et cetera, circulating air goes a long way,” said Christopher Bazzoli, MD, emergency medicine physician at Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Bazzoli said bug repellents are also very effective at keeping mosquitoes away.He recommends buying a brand with 20% DEET.

He said anything with a concentration higher than that is unnecessary.

If you don’t like the texture of DEET, you could get bug repellent with picaridin in it instead or IR3535.

And again, 20% concentration is enough.

Dr. Bazzoli said other things you can do include wearing protective clothing, using mosquito netting and dumping any standing water in your yard.

“Mosquitoes need standing water, still water to reproduce. So, trying to minimize any standing water, making sure that you don’t have tires that are collecting pools of water on the inside linings, or buckets lying out, or watering cans left out. Make sure that if you have a garden feature, the pump is running,” he said.

Dr. Bazzoli said mosquitoes are also attracted to sweet and sugary scents, so that’s something else to be mindful of. If you do get a bite, try not to scratch it because it can cause infection.

Instead, wash the area with soap and water and then apply ice or an anti-itch cream.

Amanda was located about 1,505 miles (2,420 kilometers) west-southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula of Mexico, according to the Miami-based weather center. With the center of the storm at sea, the cyclone posed no immediate threat to land.

Amanda had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph), meteorologists said. The storm was forecast to strengthen over the next couple of days and then weaken over the weekend.

The Pacific hurricane season started May 15. The Atlantic hurricane season began Monday, and no cyclones have formed in that basin yet this year.

LaBeouf must attend an alcohol treatment program under the sentence handed down by an Orleans Parish judge, according to Sarah Chervinsky, an attorney for the actor.

LeBeouf, most widely known for his starring roles in 2007’s “Transformers” and in 2008’s “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull,” had been released on bail following his arrest near the city's historic French Quarter. Video of the Feb. 17 encounter shows a shirtless LaBeouf outside a bar shoving one person to the ground and hitting another person in the face, “causing his nose to possibly dislocate,” according to a New Orleans police report. Police said LaBeouf repeatedly used homophobic slurs, including while he was arrested.

LeBeouf pleaded guilty to three counts of simple battery. Orleans Parish Judge Juana Marine-Lombard handed the actor a six month suspended sentence and two years of probation. LaBeouf also must stay away from the victims and the bar.

Chervinsky said LaBeouf wanted “to take accountability for his part in what happened" and called it a “minor Mardi Gras bar tussle.” Chervinsky said there was “no evidence it was about bias or prejudice.”

Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams said in a statement that his office consulted with the victims to ensure their support before offering LaBeouf the plea deal.

Jeffrey Damnit, a local entertainer whom police identified as Jeffrey Klein, said he was one of the people attacked by LaBeouf. He has said LaBeouf had pushed him from behind at the bar earlier in the night, shouting homophobic slurs and threatening his life.

Damnit's attorney said his client hopes LaBeouf's behavior improves after the actor undergoes substance abuse treatment.

"In New Orleans we are all equal, we should all feel safe, and we don’t treat people different based upon relative fame,” attorney Michael Kennedy said.

After LaBeouf was charged in February, a judge ordered him to return to drug and alcohol rehabilitation.

Days later, LaBeouf denied having a “drinking problem” in an interview with journalist and YouTuber Andrew Callaghan. LaBeouf said he doubted rehab would help him. He told Callaghan that the issues leading led to his aggressive behavior during Mardi Gras were more rooted in “anger and ego” than alcohol.

LaBeouf also said that “big gay people are scary to me.”

“When I’m standing by myself and three gay dudes are next to me touching my leg, I get scared,” he told Callaghan. “I’m sorry. If that’s homophobic, then I’m that.”

LaBeouf, who converted to Catholicism a few years ago, has had several run-ins with the law during his career, including a 2017 New York City arrest on suspicion of assault that happened during a livestream.

While on location in Georgia filming “The Peanut Butter Falcon” later that year, he was arrested for public drunkenness and accused of disorderly conduct and obstruction and sentenced to probation.

In 2020, he was charged with misdemeanor battery and petty theft in Los Angeles.

That year, the English singer and actor FKA Twigs, whose legal name is Tahliah Barnett, also filed a lawsuit alleging LaBeouf was physically and emotionally abusive to her during their relationship, which they settled in July.

The actor first gained acclaim as a child for his role on the Disney Channel series “Even Stevens.”

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

The decision came during the board’s first meeting under new leadership Monday and Tuesday. In April 2026, the board had introduced a resolution questioning whether living-learning communities — known as LLCs — had a financial impact on the university. During the most recent meeting, Provost Julie Ross presented her findings before the board reached its conclusion.

Virginia Tech spokesperson Mark Owczarski said the data made a clear case for keeping the programs.

“Provost Ross did share with the board members that many if not most universities offer such residential programs, and the data shows that that sense of belonging, that sense of support that those kinds of communities provide, help and attribute to our student success,” Owczarski said.

What are living-learning communities?

Virginia Tech operates dozens of LLCs, which group students together in residence halls based on shared interests, academic pursuits, hobbies, or backgrounds. One example is Mozaiko, a community for students with international backgrounds or an interest in international affairs.

Brett Shadle, director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies, said the communities do more than create a comfortable living space — they drive deeper engagement across campus.

“Dorms have always been an important place for students to learn about others, to learn about different ways of life, different perspectives,” Shadle said. “But when you get people with similar backgrounds or similar interests, it really kind of supercharges those exchanges.”

Shadle pushed back on the idea that LLCs isolate students from the broader campus community.

“I think too often when outsiders look at these LLCs, they see it as for just one community and it’s inward looking and it reinforces almost an isolation,” he said. “But I think it’s really the opposite. Those LLCs provide that foundation, that starting point for them to do so much more and contribute in all kinds of ways across campus.”

New dorms approved, older buildings to be renovated

Along with preserving the LLCs, the board approved construction of two new residence halls and renovation of four older dormitories. The new buildings will house an additional 1,200 students. However, the renovated dorms are expected to lose some capacity as part of the updates, putting the net student housing gain at under 1,000 once all work is completed.

Owczarski said the construction will give the university the flexibility it needs to upgrade aging facilities.

“We can take other residence halls offline and refurbish them and renovate them and update health, safety, air-conditioning facilities — all the things that will help students find academic success,” he said.

Virginia Tech has seen a wave of leadership changes in recent months, with new figures taking over as president, athletic director, rector, and vice rector. The Board of Visitors meeting this week was the first under that new leadership structure.

The RHEC issued the following statement that reads in full:

The Roanoke Higher Education Center (RHEC) today announced the retirement of Executive Director Kay Dunkley, Ed.D., who will conclude her tenure on January 1, 2027 after 10 years of dedicated service. As Agency Head of this dynamic learning hub — where 11 member institutions and five partner institutions collaborate under one roof to provide education and training to meet the Roanoke Valley’s workforce needs —  Dunkley has played a vital role in expanding opportunities for students and the community. As she prepares for retirement, she looks forward to continuing her commitment to service through new professional ventures.

The Center celebrated its 25th anniversary during Dunkley’s tenure, and since its founding, more than 17,000 individuals have earned degrees, achieved industry credentials, and pursued new careers and opportunities for upward mobility. Under her leadership, an average of 800-900 individuals completed programs each year. RHEC membership from colleges, universities, and workforce agencies has remained steady during her tenure, and last year, Appalachian College of Pharmacy joined the Center to offer classes leading to a Doctor of Pharmacy Degree, addressing the shortage of pharmacists and pharmacy education in the Roanoke Valley.

“The RHEC is truly fortunate to have Kay Dunkley as its leader,” said Angela Penn, President and CEO, Total Action for Progress, and Chair of the Roanoke Higher Education Authority board of trustees. “Her dedication, vision, and steady leadership have made a lasting impact.”

“I was serving as Chair of the Authority when we hired Kay as the second Executive Director of the Roanoke Higher Education Center,” said John Edwards, former State Senator and Chair of the Roanoke Higher Education Authority board of trustees. “Throughout her tenure, Kay has provided strong leadership while working collaboratively with legislators, board members, community leaders, colleges, and workforce agencies. She has increased the Center’s visibility across the region and represented the Authority with professionalism, dedication, and integrity. Her contributions have had a lasting impact on the organization and the community we serve. She will be greatly missed.”

“Serving as Executive Director of the Roanoke Higher Education Center has been one of the greatest honors of my professional career,” said Dunkley. “I am deeply grateful to our board members, staff, educational partners, students, and community leaders for their collaboration and support in advancing our mission.”

During her time as Executive Director, the Center expanded its campus footprint by acquiring property from the City of Roanoke to construct the Central Walkway honoring the rich legacy of the Gainsboro community. RHEC’s campus is located within this historic neighborhood, formerly an important African American business and entertainment district. Under her leadership, the Authority purchased land from Norfolk Southern Railway to create additional student parking areas.

Dunkley activated the RHEC Foundation by recruiting new board members, hiring a Coordinator of Philanthropy, seeking contributions, setting fundraising priorities, and producing videos to highlight the programming at the RHEC. Further, Dunkley has served as an effective lobbyist while working closely with members of the General Assembly to secure new state funding to expand services, complete necessary capital projects to maintain a safe and energy-efficient facility, and serve the needs of the member institutions. She also oversaw the development of a Regional Workforce Review in Summer 2025, outlining the training gaps required to match the region’s current and future job growth. The 2026 Review will be released in June.

As RHEC prepares for this leadership transition, the board of trustees will launch a search for the organization’s next executive director.

About Kay Dunkley, Ed.D.Kay Dunkley serves as the Executive Director of the Roanoke Higher Education Authority, and she holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Radford University and a doctorate from Virginia Tech. She has served in various senior leadership positions at Virginia Tech, the Virginia Community College System, and in two public school divisions.

Dunkley serves on the board for the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce and is an active participant on the Chamber’s Foundation.

Her passion is connecting the resources of an academic environment to meet the workforce training needs of the region. She is the proud mother of a daughter, Jill, and granddaughter, Meagan, and two great-grandchildren.

Roanoke Higher Education Center

Boosting The Never Forget Fund's latest appeal, announced Wednesday, is Mike Bloomberg. The former New York City mayor, who has rallied hundreds of millions of dollars toward the 9/11 Memorial and Museum as its chair, pledged to match the next $25 million in donations through his Bloomberg Philanthropies. Organizers already secured the first $25 million through unspecified initial gifts.

Officials count about 97 million memorial visitors and nearly 28 million museum attendees since they opened in 2014 at the site where hijacked jetliners destroyed the World Trade Center's twin towers in lower Manhattan. But recent years have seen a budget crisis following pandemic closures and interest from the Trump administration in taking control of the site.

Beth Hillman, the organization's president and CEO, says they need a permanent funding source to reach the roughly 100 million Americans born after the attacks. The goal is to frame the aftermath as one that inspired selfless acts of service and provide basic facts through new on-site exhibits and classroom materials.

“The ongoing importance of remembering 9/11 is to remind people that they can come together even in the face of incredible loss,” Hillman told the Associated Press.

The legacy of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people remains hotly contested. Younger generations have only ever known the existence of airport screenings, immigration enforcement officers and other security measures pursued afterwards by the U.S. government. Many engage with the events through popular memes of the photograph showing then-President George W. Bush learning about the developments. Conspiracy theories abound about what government officials knew in their leadup.

Also debated is the notion of unity advanced by the memorial and museum. The Sept. 11 attacks fueled 20 years of war abroad that grew increasingly unpopular as the death toll rose. Young American Muslims growing up under their shadow have faced hostility, mistrust and suspicion.

As the 25th anniversary approaches this September, Hillman sees a “compelling story of service, of hope, of resilience, of coming together” for the people who didn't live through that period. Those stories will be told in an exhibit called “In Their Honor." Celebrity chef Bobby Flay, she noted, was among the many chefs who prepared meals for first responders in the months following the attacks. Theater workers brought their lights to power the blacked-out area around ground zero. Victims' family members started social services organizations such as 9/11 Day to inspire volunteering in memory of their lost relatives. Hillman also wants to inform more people of the first responders who developed chronic illnesses and still face hurdles to care.

The funds raised by the 9/11 Memorial and Museum will ensure free museum access continues for students, first responders and veterans, according to Hillman, who said “we don't want the price to be a barrier to them.” Standard adult admission currently costs $36. The nonprofit's website notes that it “relies primarily on ticket sales to help fund its operational costs.”

The organization plans to reach more educators with the funds. As teachers enter the workforce without lived experiences of Sept. 11, Hillman said they want to help prepare lesson plans. The nonprofit runs summer teachers' institutes, offers professional development programs and remakes a 30-minute film each year with firsthand stories.

Hillman acknowledged a greater “degree of distraction and confusion” today than in the past when it comes to efforts to memorialize recent historical events. She sees a need to give “simple representations of what happened." The March/April issue of the National Council for the Social Studies' magazine, which was guest edited by 9/11 Memorial and Museum staff, features a timeline of the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

"9/11 is heavy and compelling and full of inspiring stories,” Hillman said. "But also, just a trusted set of what happened on that day, of materials that can convey the basics of it — that’s the beginning of people learning and starting to understand, too.”

Alex Edgar, a Gen Z civic leader who is working with a group called Made By Us to amplify youth voices ahead of the United States' 250th birthday, sees value in emphasizing the power of service. His peers, he said, have “never really seen a country that has worked” or one that “really lived up to the promise of America.” He finds that narratives about overcoming division to accomplish shared goals serve as an antidote to the political polarization frequently experienced by young people.

But he emphasized that those narratives must permeate classroom walls and museum doors.

“They invite young people to consider what’s preventing us from using any of the issues of our time as a rallying cry for folks to come together across backgrounds to build the type of country, the communities, that we want to live in,” he said.

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

The narrow upset Tuesday revealed cracks in Trump's coalition in the red state that helped the president mount his comeback, encouraging Democrats who are hopeful they can flip control of the governor's office this year. It also marked a potential breakthrough moment for the Make America Healthy Again movement, which has clashed with the Trump administration over its embrace of pesticides and backed Lahn's message in favor of regenerative farming and against large agricultural corporations.

“I will take on the big ag cartels. I will break up their monopolies, and I will get Iowa farmers a fair deal," Lahn said in his victory speech late Tuesday.

Members of the MAHA movement, a diverse coalition of supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with priorities ranging from ending vaccine mandates to promoting healthy soil and organic food, cheered the win as a sign their political message was resonating with voters.

“This election is a signal that pro-pesticide does not mean pro-farmer,” said Tony Lyons, president of Kennedy-aligned MAHA PAC, which endorsed Lahn. “Zach Lahn made transitioning away from toxic chemicals the cornerstone of his campaign and won this election decisively with strong farmer support.”

Lahn carved out a MAHA fandom

Lahn, a farmer and former conservative political director, was relatively unknown in Iowa before launching his campaign in November. He championed traditional policies that appealed to Iowa's conservative voters, such as further restricting abortion and keeping liberal ideology out of schools.

But Lahn, who owns an investment company and lives on an eastern Iowa farm that had been in his family for a century, also carved out a niche with the MAHA movement, vocally rebuking agricultural monopolies and acknowledging health questions involving farming products.

MAHA activists loudly backed Lahn as they grew increasingly impatient with the Trump administration and its Environmental Protection Agency for actions they view as antithetical to making America healthier.

Earlier this year, they revolted after Trump issued an executive order aimed at boosting production of a controversial herbicide ingredient known as glyphosate. They also protested at the Supreme Court in April against glyphosate producer Monsanto's Trump-backed effort to protect itself from lawsuits.

Lahn has opposed liability shields for pesticide companies.

“Iowa has the fastest growing cancer rate in the world,” Lahn said in Tuesday's speech. “We all know something is terribly wrong. But too many politicians from Washington, D.C., to Des Moines have had their heads stuck in the sand while big ag and big pharma printed money. This will not go on when I’m governor.”

Those positions helped Lahn gain endorsements from MAHA PAC and the late Charlie Kirk's conservative political organization, Turning Point Action. Figures from both celebrated Lahn's victory as their own.

“MAHA has done its job proving it’s politically radioactive to stand with chemicals over children,” Turning Point USA podcaster Alex Clark said on social media. “Iowa knows pesticides are causing cancer which is exploding in their state. Tonight they opted for change.”

Kelly Ryerson, a Florida-based activist whose social media account Glyphosate Girl focuses on nontoxic food systems, said she wants candidates in other states to take note. Ryerson had previously criticized Trump's endorsement of Feenstra, describing the congressman as “straight from the poison swamp.”

“Decreasing pesticides and improving food quality are common ground issues that drive votes,” she said.

A setback for Trump after repeated victories

Trump had stayed quiet on Iowa's gubernatorial race until last week, when he praised Feenstra as “MAGA all the way” and said he would “fight tirelessly” for Iowa on the economy and border security.

The power of the president's endorsement was proven earlier in the primary season, taking down two senators — John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

The Republican National Committee denied the Iowa results signaled a weakening of Trump’s influence with voters.

“President Trump’s endorsement is the most valuable force in politics and worth its weight in gold,” spokesman Zach Kraft said in a statement. “The record speaks for itself.”

Some political observers viewed Massie's loss as a stumble for the MAHA movement. The Republican congressman had helped lead a bipartisan effort to remove liability protections for chemical companies from the recent farm bill, in line with activists' concerns.

Trump campaign veteran and Iowa political operative Alex Latcham said Tuesday's result does not detract from the grassroots goodwill Trump has built in Iowa. After all, Latcham said, it was Trump who recognized and embraced the MAHA issues that middle America cares about, which led him to appoint Kennedy as health secretary.

Latcham emphasized that all five Iowa primary candidates ran pro-Trump campaigns. Ultimately, Latcham said, Iowans want to see candidates up close to make their own assessments. Lahn and others criticized Feenstra for avoiding debates and spending limited time on the campaign trail.

“At the end of the day the president still remains the undisputed leader of the party,” said Latcham, who currently serves as executive director of Senate Republicans' main super PAC. “I wouldn’t necessarily read into this as being a diminishment of the president’s political standing.”

But Feenstra's loss, marking a win for MAHA and a miss for the president, creates an opening Democrats may try to seize.

State Auditor Rob Sand, the lone Democrat currently holding statewide office, is the party’s nominee for governor. Unopposed in the primary, Sand has been able to hone his moderate message, remind voters of his rural upbringing and amass an $18 million campaign fund.

Lahn, looking ahead to November in his victory speech, pivoted from talking about cancer rates and family farms to the cultural issues that have riled up the GOP base in recent cycles, saying Sand would “veto any culture war bill.”

“Rob Sand is not a moderate," Lahn said. "He’s a liberal career politician pretending to be someone he’s not.”

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Swenson reported from New York.

Workers carefully hoisted the big guns one-by-one from the back of a truck and wheeled them inside their new home at the Savannah History Museum, which will put them on display just in time for the Fourth of July celebration of America's 250th birthday.

“They look brand new,” said Andrea Farmer, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers archaeologist who was part of the team that researched and preserved the cannons. "They could pretty much be fired if someone wanted to.”

The artifacts were discovered in 2021 when a dredge scooping sediment from the riverbed as part of an Army Corps project to deepen Savannah's shipping channel pulled up a cannon in its metal jaws. The crew soon dug up two more.

In the course of just over a year, a total of 19 cannons were hoisted from the location just downstream from Savannah, which is where Georgia was founded in 1733 as the last of Britain's 13 American colonies.

After being pulled from the river, most of the cannons left Georgia for several years to undergo cleaning and preservation work at a Texas lab.

One of the Revolution's bloodiest battles was fought in Savannah

Archaeologists initially assumed the cannons likely dated to the Civil War. But further research indicated they’re likely almost a century older and sank during the buildup to the American Revolution’s bloody siege of Savannah.

Savannah was under British occupation in the fall of 1779, when colonists planned an attack to retake the city with help from French allies.

When French ships carrying troops were spotted off the Georgia coast, British forces scuttled at least six ships in the Savannah River downstream from the city to block the French vessels.

The land battle that followed was one of the bloodiest of the war. British forces killed nearly 300 colonial fighters and their allies, and wounded hundreds more.

The Savannah History Museum sits right next to the battlefield. Its staff on Wednesday hoisted the cannons, weighing up to 1500 pounds (680 kilograms) apiece, onto custom display mounts that staffers likened to giant wine racks.

The cannons will be part of a new exhibit on Savannah's role in the American Revolution, which is scheduled to open Fourth of July weekend, said Samantha Moss, the museum's curator.

"Our great team has been prepping for months -- building mounts and planning how we can safely display these very large, very special artifacts,” she said.

Cleaning the crusty cannons took years

Each of the iron cannons emerged from the river covered by a thick crust of mud and minerals.

Two were left in that raw state and put on display at the museum. The other 17 were sent to Texas A&M University, which has a lab that specializes in preserving underwater artifacts. Its staff spent years painstakingly cleaning the big guns and coating them in paint and wax to prevent rusting and corrosion.

“A lot of them have scour marks on the side from anchors or dredging, so there’s some scarring on the cannons," said Chris Dostal, a professor of nautical archaeology who leads Texas A&M's Conservation Research Lab. "But most of them look pretty exceptional.”

Most of the cannons arrived with wooden plugs still sealing their bores, which remained packed with cannonballs and gunpowder charges.

Dostal said radiocarbon dating of the wooden stoppers placed them roughly in the late 1700s. His team shared the cannons' measurements and other details with experts in London, who concluded three of them were very likely forged by the British military.

The rest appeared to be of French design but bore no telltale markings. Dostal said he suspects those guns may have been cast in America around the time of the war.

Other artifacts found with the cannons included pieces of anchors and a portion of a ship's bronze bell. Like the cannons, none of them bore engravings indicating which ship they came from.

That means many details of the cannons' origins remain a mystery.

“You don't have all of the information,” Farmer said. “You're trying to piece it together as best as you can.”

Democrats chose a nominee for a House race in New Jersey that could decide control of the chamber. But much of the focus was on California, home to Hollywood but not a governor's race packing much star power.

Here are takeaways from primary elections Tuesday in California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.

Iowa Democrats rally behind former Paralympian in marquee Senate race

Democrats stunned by how Trump has remade American politics have spent the past decade debating which type of candidate is best positioned to energize voters and win elections, not moral victories.

Iowa marked the latest stop in this sometimes agonizing conversation.

The party’s establishment supported Josh Turek, a state representative who presented a compelling personal biography that included competing for the United States in four Paralympics. State Sen. Zach Wahls offered himself as a more disruptive figure, refusing to back Chuck Schumer of New York as the Senate Democratic leader if he were elected.

Democratic voters united behind Turek, who will face Republican Ashley Hinson in November.

At this point, many of the party’s most fractious races are behind them. But Turek's win could be closely watched in Michigan, where one of the last major Democratic primaries will unfold on Aug. 4. Rep. Haley Stevens is emerging as the establishment candidate there vying against state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and progressive Abdul El-Sayed.

Both races are important for Democrats increasingly bullish about regaining the Senate majority. To get there, they must retain the open seat in Michigan while looking for pickup opportunities in places such as Iowa.

The results in the fall could have longer-term implications as Democrats look to rebuild their standing in the Midwest, which swung to the Republican president in 2024.

Trump's endorsement streak faces setback in Iowa

In just the past month, the power of Trump’s endorsement helped end the political careers of two senators — John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

But Trump was unable to lift Rep. Randy Feenstra to victory in Iowa’s Republican primary for governor. Even though Trump jumped in with his backing last week, Feenstra narrowly lost to Zach Lahn.

The outcome was a rare setback for Trump, who basks in his ability to sway the vote among Republicans with his endorsement. It now sets up what Democrats see as one of their best opportunities to pick up a governorship this year.

Democrats nominated Rob Sand, who ran unopposed in the primary. He has the rural roots that have become rare among Democrats and is a proven winner in a Republican-leaning state, having been elected twice as auditor.

Lahn was not well known in Iowa politics when he launched his campaign in November, but he built support among conservatives. He championed policies including a total ban on abortion and keeping liberal ideology out of public school classrooms.

Lahn also developed a following with the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, which has clashed with the Trump administration over its embrace of pesticides.

The California drama drags on

The Los Angeles mayor's race was jolted by the candidacy of Spencer Pratt, who starred on the reality television show “The Hills.” The Republican has been trying to capitalize on dissatisfaction with Democrat Karen Bass, who is seeking a second term.

Bass secured enough votes to make the November runoff, but it was unclear who her opponent will be. Also running is Nithya Raman, a progressive members of the City Council.

The race for California governor has been especially chaotic.

With Democrat Gavin Newsom barred from seeking a third term, about 60 names were on the ballot to succeed him. Some of the state’s most prominent politicians, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla, did not run. One who did, former Rep. Eric Swalwell, withdrew after being accused of sexual assault, which he denied.

Under the state’s primary system, all candidates appear on a single ballot and the top two finishers advance to the November general election, regardless of party.

In the final days of the campaign, much of the attention focused on Democrats Xavier Becerra, a former congressman and state attorney general who was health secretary under Democratic President Joe Biden, and Tom Steyer, a billionaire known for his climate activism. Republican Steve Hilton campaigned with Trump’s endorsement.

The three were leading in early returns after polls closed.

If Becerra were to advance to one of the two slots on the fall ballot, he presents a natural choice for voters more comfortable with a traditional candidate. Steyer and Hilton have both presented themselves as advocating significant changes.

California has been governed by establishment-oriented Democrats for two decades. The primary results will indicate the level of change being sought in a state confronting serious challenges ranging from affordability to crime and will signal whether the $200 million Steyer put into the race from his own money turned out to be a good investment.

Independents emerge in Senate races in Republican strongholds

If Democrats hope to compete in Senate contests in Republican strongholds this fall, they may have to abandon their party’s nominees and rally around independents.

That’s one of the takeaways after voters on Tuesday finalized general election matchups in Montana and South Dakota, where little-known Democrats earned their party’s nominations. In both states, however, higher-profile independent candidates also qualified for the general election ballot.

It’s much the same in Idaho and Nebraska, which held Senate primaries last month. Democratic leaders in Nebraska are openly endorsing independent Dan Osborne over their party’s nominee, who has promised to drop out to make it easier for Osborne to win.

In Montana, independent Seth Bodnar, a former University of Montana president, looks like the strongest opponent to Republican Kurt Alme — on paper, at least. Bodnar raised more money than all of the five Democratic primary candidates combined. He has even significantly outraised Trump-backed Alme.

In South Dakota, Sen. Mike Rounds cruised to the Republican nomination on Tuesday. He will face Democrat Julian Beaudion, a former highway patrol trooper and small business owner. But it’s a former Democrat now running as an independent, military veteran Brian Bengs, who some Democrats believe may be the tougher challenger.

The Democrats shift toward independents reflects the party’s toxic brand in Republican strongholds.

Absent congressman gets a Democratic challenger

Democrats nominated Rebecca Bennett to take on Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, which stretches from the New York City suburbs to the Pennsylvania border.

The seat is critical for Republicans as they defend a narrow majority in Congress. The race was always going to be one of the most competitive on a map that has been increasingly gerrymandered to protect both parties. But it’s under particularly close scrutiny because of Kean’s extended and unexplained medical absence.

He's missed more than 100 votes since casting his last one on March 5.

Bennett, a former Navy pilot, was among the Democrats in the primary who made the absence and the lack of clarity surrounding it an issue, arguing Kean wasn’t around to protect money for a new rail tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York City. That line of criticism will likely only grow heading into the general election.

Trump reiterated his endorsement of Kean on Monday. The congressman released a statement Tuesday saying he is “focused on my recovery" and would return to “in person work within a matter of weeks.”

New Mexico could make history in governor's race

The stage is set for Deb Haaland to make history this fall after Biden's interior secretary secured the Democratic nomination for governor in New Mexico.

Haaland was the first Native American to serve in the Cabinet. This fall, she could become the first Native American woman in U.S. history to be elected governor.

She defeated Albuquerque-based District Attorney Sam Bregman, the father of Chicago Cubs All-Star Alex Bregman, in a Democratic primary campaign that emphasized her ancestral roots in addition to lowering costs and her governing experience.

Haaland will face Republican Greggory Hull in the general election.

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Peoples and Lodhi reported from New York. Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa contributed to this report.

Congo's military said an attack late on Tuesday by an Islamic State affiliate — a group known as the Allied Democratic Forces — killed 16 people in the Beni territory in North Kivu province.

The militants struck in response for a joint operation of Congolese and Ugandan armies, which have been battling the group that operates in the border regions of the two countries. Last month, the group attacked Congolese villages near the Ugandan border, killing at least 40 people and burning and looting homes.

The violence has hampered efforts to combat the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo type of Ebola, which was announced in mid-May in eastern Congo's provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu.

Since then, Congolese authorities have confirmed 60 deaths in the outbreak out of 344 cases. The number of suspected cases has gone down from 906 to 116. Neighboring Uganda has 15 confirmed cases, including one death, its health ministry said Tuesday.

WHO chief offers some hope for the outbreak

The agency's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that testing is improving in the struggle against Ebola, with scaled-up laboratory and diagnostic capacity though contact tracing in Congo “is not yet where it needs to be.”

"The outbreak had a big head start, and we’re still behind,” he said. But “we are catching up.”

Tedros spoke a day after returning to Geneva from Congo, where he visited the epicenter of the outbreak. "What I saw gave me hope, although challenges remain.”

He also said that blanket travel restrictions imposed by some countries “are disrupting supply chains and hindering the response,” and asked for them to be lifted. He stressed that WHO recommends exit screening at airports, ports and border crossings.

He avoided a reporter's question about a U.S. quarantine center in Kenya where American Ebola patients would be quarantined, which has drawn protests.

“I think based on their risk assessment … they (the United States) can do whatever they think is right for them,” the WHO chief said.

The outbreak struck in an extremely vulnerable region

Experts have said the virus spread for weeks in one of the world's most vulnerable regions before lab testing confirmed it. Resources, including protective gear, have been rushed to the outbreak for a type of Ebola with no approved medicine or vaccine.

At least five people have recovered from the virus, rare signs of hope.

“The true extent of the outbreak remains difficult to assess. Extremely limited testing capacity and difficulties accessing certain areas necessitate interpreting these figures with caution,” Doctors Without Borders, said Monday about the case numbers.

Getting a potential vaccine to the region could take months.

“It’s difficult to have an effective vaccine that adheres to the scientific protocol available quickly," Dr. Aruna Abedi, a Congolese epidemiologist who has managed previous outbreaks in the country, told The Associated Press.

While laboratory and diagnostic resources improve for the outbreak, Tedros said the tracing of people who had contact with infected people in Congo is still behind.

"Only about 45% of contacts have been followed up, and to get ahead of the outbreak we need to get that number up to above 90%,” he said. “Insecurity, displacement and mobile populations make contact tracing especially difficult.”

Congo has long struggled with a multitude of security crises and insecurity has over the years created a huge and vulnerable displaced population. Eastern Congo, where the latest Ebola outbreak is taking place, has several active armed groups, including the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group that seized key cities Goma and Bukavu over a year ago, and the IS affiliate.

Wary residents have attacked health centers in the outbreak, at times demanding the bodies of loved ones. Health workers also have been battling mistaken beliefs among some residents that Ebola isn't real, which has kept some from seeking care.

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Moulson reported from Berlin. Associated Press writer Jean Yves Kamale in Kinshasa, Congo, contributed to this report.