During a regularly scheduled meeting, the board — which oversees election administration and ensures vote accuracy — said it is barred from certifying the results while the matter is under review by the Virginia Supreme Court.

“The State Board of Elections is currently under an injunction that prohibits certification of the results,” an official said during the meeting. “This matter is pending before the Virginia Supreme Court. Once we get a decision, we’ll act accordingly,” a board member said in a meeting.

The delay leaves the future of the referendum — and any potential redrawing of congressional districts — in limbo. Election officials typically must certify results within two weeks, a deadline that would fall around May 5. However, that deadline may not matter now that the court is weighing the case.

The dispute stems from legal challenges filed after the referendum passed. Opponents have raised concerns about the process of how the amendment was passed and when the redistricting process was carried out, prompting a judge in Tazewell County to block certification of the vote.

In response, Jay Jones asked the state’s highest court to intervene and allow certification to proceed. The court declined, leaving the injunction in place for now.

Until the court issues a ruling, the certification process remains stalled — raising questions about whether new district lines can be finalized ahead of Virginia’s November primaries.

A panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is requiring that the abortion pill be distributed only in person at clinics.

“Every abortion facilitated by FDA’s action cancels Louisiana’s ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that ‘every unborn child is human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person,’” the ruling states.

Judges have long deferred to the Food and Drug Administration's judgments on the safety and appropriate regulation of drugs.

FDA officials under President Donald Trump have repeatedly stated the agency is conducting a new review of mifepristone’s safety, at the direction of the president.

The judges noted in their ruling that FDA “could not say when that review might be complete and admitted it was still collecting data.”

In a court filing, Louisiana’s attorney general and a woman who says she was coerced into taking abortion pills requested that the FDA rules be rolled back to when the pills were allowed to be prescribed and dispensed only in person.

A Louisiana-based federal judge last month ruled that those allowances undermined the state’s abortion ban but stopped short of undoing the regulations immediately.

Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed enforcement of abortion bans, prescriptions by mail have become a major way that abortions are provided — including to states where bans are in place.

"This is going to affect patients’ access to abortion and miscarriage care in every state in the nation,” said Julia Kaye, an ACLU lawyer. “When telemedicine is restricted, rural communities, people with low incomes, people with disabilities, survivors of intimate partner violence and communities of color suffer the most.”

Mifepristone was approved in 2000 as a safe and effective way to end early pregnancies. It is typically used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol.

Because of rare cases of excessive bleeding, the FDA initially imposed strict limits on who could prescribe and distribute the pill — only specially certified physicians and only after an in-person appointment where the person would receive the pill.

Both those requirements were dropped during the COVID-19 years. At the time, FDA officials under President Joe Biden said that after more than 20 years of monitoring mifepristone use, and reviewing dozens of studies involving thousands of women, it was clear that women could safely use the pill without direct supervision.

Friday's ruling sets up a likely appeal to the Supreme Court.

The conservative-majority high court overturned abortion as a nationwide right in 2022 but unanimously preserved access to mifepristone two years later.

That 2024 decision sidestepped the core issues, however, by ruling that the anti-abortion doctors behind the case didn’t have legal standing to sue.

In Alabama, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey announced Friday that she is calling a special legislative session to begin Monday in hopes that the Supreme Court allows the state to change its U.S. House map ahead of the November midterm elections. In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee also announced a special session for the GOP-controlled Legislature to break up the state's one Democratic-held House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis.

Louisiana already has suspended its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts, though that is being challenged in court. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is pressuring other states such as Tennessee to also redistrict ahead of the midterm elections that will determine whether Republicans maintain control of the closely divided House.

Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage. Democrats in California responded by doing the same. Then other states joined the battle. Lawmakers, commissions or courts have adopted new House districts in eight states.

That total could grow following the Supreme Court’s decision that significantly weakened a provision in the federal Voting Rights Act.

Here’s a look at how some states are responding to the Supreme Court ruling:

Louisiana

Current House map: two Democrats, four Republicans

Early in-person voting was to begin Saturday for Louisiana’s primaries. But Republican Gov. Jeff Landry moved quickly Thursday to postpone the congressional primary while allowing elections for other offices to go forward.

A federal lawsuit filed later Thursday, on behalf of a Democratic congressional candidate and voter, asked a court to block Landry’s order and allow the House primary to occur as originally scheduled. Two more lawsuits asserting that the congressional primary should go forward were filed Friday in state court on behalf of voters who already had cast absentee ballots and several civil rights organizations.

Among other things, the lawsuits contend that Landry lacked authority to suspend the primary and that thousands of absentee ballots already have been mailed to people, with a substantial number filled out and returned.

Separately, a three-judge federal court panel that heard the case that was appealed to the Supreme Court also issued an order Thursday suspending Louisiana’s congressional primary.

Republican state House and Senate leaders said they are prepared to pass new U.S. House districts — and set a new primary election date — before their legislative session ends in a month.

Alabama

Current House map: two Democrats, five Republicans

The state’s primaries are set for May 19. But Alabama officials on Thursday filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court seeking an expedited review of a pending appeal in a redistricting case that could affect the election.

A federal court in 2023 ordered the creation of a new near majority-Black district in Alabama, resulting in the election of a second Black representative to the U.S. House. Alabama is under a court order to use the new map until after the next census in 2030.

An appeal pending before the Supreme Court argues that the map is an illegal racial gerrymander, a claim similar to that made in Louisiana.

The state is seeking to lift an injunction blocking the use of a 2023 map drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature that did not include the new district. The state is making a similar request for two state Senate districts impacted by a separate redistricting case.

Ivey said the special legislative session will focus on a contingency plan to have special primary elections in case the Supreme Court acts quickly enough to allow Alabama’s previously drawn districts to be used this year.

Florida

Current House map: eight Democrats, 20 Republicans

Hours after the Supreme Court’s decision, Florida’s Republican-led Legislature approved new U.S. House districts that could help the GOP win up to four additional seats in November.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis called a special legislative session without knowing when the Supreme Court would issue its opinion in the Louisiana case. But DeSantis expressed confidence that the court would rule as it did. Among other things, the new map reshapes a southeastern Florida district that DeSantis said was created to help elect a Black representative in an attempt to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act.

A Florida constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2010 prohibits districts from being drawn to deny or diminish the ability of racial or language minorities to elect the representatives of their choice. DeSantis said he considers that amendment a violation of the U.S. Constitution. That question is expected to be decided by the courts.

Tennessee

Lee announced the special session in a statement late Friday afternoon, saying, “We owe it to Tennesseans to ensure our congressional districts accurately reflect the will of Tennessee voters.”

That came after a pressure campaign by Trump and other Republicans to reconfigure the state's 9th Congressional District. Republicans have always been checkmated by the Voting Rights Act in their desire to spread the district's Democratic voters around neighboring conservative districts and make it winnable, but the law may no longer be an impediment.

The candidate qualifying period ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6. Democrats noted that in 2022 the state supreme court checked additional redistricting because it was too close to an election. They argued that the court is their best hope this time around too.

“We cannot keep doing things like this and calling ourselves a democracy, Democratic State Sen. Ramesh Akbari said at a news conference outside the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, which includes the structure of the motel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968.

Mississippi

Current House map: one Democrat, three Republicans

Mississippi held its U.S. House primaries in March. But the Supreme Court’s decision could affect elections for other offices.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves announced previously that he would call a special legislative session to redraw voting districts for the state Supreme Court that would begin 21 days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Louisiana case. That would put the special session's start at around May 20.

A federal judge last year ordered Mississippi to redraw its Supreme Court voting districts after finding that they violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of Black voters. Mississippi lawmakers had been waiting on a decision in the Louisiana case before moving forward, but their legislative session ended in April.

Reeves said in his proclamation that the Supreme Court’s decision would provide guidance to lawmakers on whether “race-conscious redistricting” violates the U.S. Constitution.

Georgia

Current House map: five Democrats, nine Republicans

Early in-person voting began April 27 and continues for the next few weeks ahead of Georgia’s primary elections on May 19.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp said it’s too late for Georgia officials to try to change congressional districts for this year’s elections, because voting already is underway. But he said the rationale in the Supreme Court’s decision “requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle.”

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Associated Press writers Jeff Amy, Jack Brook, Travis Loller, Nicholas Riccardi and Kim Chandler contributed to this report.

Even as negotiations continue, Trump is claiming that the war has been “terminated” because of the ceasefire. The president also called the War Powers Resolution, which states Congress must declare war or authorize the use of force within 60 days, “unconstitutional.”

The resolution’s May 1 deadline is now set to pass without action, as lawmakers left town for a week on Thursday after the Senate rejected a Democratic attempt to halt the war for a sixth time.

Trump also said Friday that he will increase the tariffs charged on cars and trucks from the European Union next week to 25% after claiming without evidence that the E.U. was “not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal.” The U.S. and E.U. reached a trade deal last July that sets a 15% tariff on most goods.

Here's the latest:

Court restricts abortion access across the US by blocking the mailing of mifepristone

A panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is requiring that the pill — one of the most common means of abortion in the U.S. — be distributed only in-person at clinics.

Judges have long deferred to the Food and Drug Administration’s judgments on the safety and appropriate regulation of drugs. FDA officials under Trump have repeatedly stated the agency is conducting a new review of mifepristone’s safety, at the direction of the president.

Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed enforcement of abortion bans, prescriptions by mail has become a major way that abortions are provided — including in states where bans are in place.

“This is going to affect patients’ access to abortion and miscarriage care in every state in the nation,” said Julia Kaye, an ACLU lawyer.

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Trump opens event with older Americans in Florida by referencing shooting at Washington dinner he attended

Trump is visiting The Villages in central Florida, a community for older Americans, to talk about how his policies are helping them.

He said he loves Florida and was “thrilled” to be among the “great American patriots” of The Villages.

“Now, you know I shouldn’t be here,” Trump said, referencing what law enforcement authorities have said was an attempt on his life during a gala dinner in Washington last weekend.

Trump said he should be “indoors at a secure facility” and asked, “What’s more secure than The Villages?”

EPA says oil and gas producers can continue routine flaring at new oil wells

A Biden-era rule had set a May 7 deadline to halt routine flaring of planet-warming methane at new wells. However, the Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it won’t make that change in response to concerns from energy companies.

Republican Rep. Julie Fedorchak of North Dakota hailed the new guidelines, which she said will allow continued production of up to 40,000 barrels of oil a day in her state.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat far more efficiently than carbon dioxide over the short term and is a major driver of climate change. Energy companies routinely flare, or burn, excess methane produced by oil wells because it’s less valuable than the oil.

Chinese envoy says ‘world is big enough’ for both US and China ahead of Trump’s visit to Beijing

Asked if the ongoing war between Iran and the U.S. will overshadow the upcoming Trump-Xi summit, China’s U.N. ambassador Fu Cong said the relationship between the two world powers “goes beyond” the issue of reopening the critical waterway.

“I think it is in the interest of both countries and both people — and I may say, to the entire world, of the people of the entire world — that China and U.S. maintain a steady and sound and sustainable relationship,” he told reporters at the U.N. headquarters in New York.

Fu added that there’s room for both on the world stage and that “it doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game between the two countries.”

Trump contends hostilities with Iran have ‘terminated’

The White House asserted to Congress in a letter Friday that hostilities with Iran have “terminated” despite the continued presence of U.S. armed forces in the region.

The message from Trump effectively skirts a May 1 legal deadline for gaining approval from members of Congress to continue the war with Iran. That deadline was already set to pass without action from Republican lawmakers, who are deferring to the president.

The letter brings into stark relief the bold but legally questionable assertion of presidential power at the heart of Trump’s war, which he began without congressional approval two months ago.

He also made it clear in the letter that the war may be far from over.

“Despite the success of United States operations against the Iranian regime and continued efforts to secure a lasting peace, the threat posed by Iran to the United States and our Armed Forces remains significant,” the Republican president said.

US military reaches deals with 7 tech companies to use their AI on classified systems

Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Nvidia, OpenAI, Reflection and SpaceX will provide resources to help “augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments,” the Defense Department said.

The use of AI can help the U.S. military reduce the time it takes to identify and strike targets on the battlefield, while aiding in the organization of weapons maintenance and supply lines, according to a report in March from the Brennan Center for Justice.

Friday’s announcement comes after concerns raised by a company not on the list, Anthropic, whose battle with the Pentagon to put up AI guardrails has spilled into court.

The tech company said it wanted assurances in its contract that the military would not use its technology in fully autonomous weapons and the surveillance of Americans. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the company must allow for any uses the Pentagon deemed lawful.

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Trump says after CENTCOM briefing that he has two options for Iran

Discussing a Thursday briefing with Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, Trump said the U.S. has just two options in Iran.

“I mean, do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever? Or do we want to try and make a deal? I mean, those are the options,” Trump said.

Asked if he wanted to pursue the former, Trump said: “I’d prefer not. On a human basis, I’d prefer not, but that’s the option.”

Trump said he believes Iran’s leadership has made some progress toward unifying around a resolution.

“They’ve made strides, but I’m not sure if they ever get there,” he said. “There’s tremendous discord, they’re having a tremendous problem getting along with each other in Iran.”

Trump dismisses war powers law as ‘unconstitutional’

Friday marked the 60th day since the White House notified Congress of its military operations in Iran, meaning Trump would have to withdraw forces or seek formal approval from Capitol Hill.

But the president said his predecessors have similarly not sought congressional approval for military action abroad, and he wasn’t going to be any different.

“Every other president considered it totally unconstitutional, and we agree with that,” Trump said at the White House as he departed for Florida on Friday.

He also agreed with an argument advanced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week that ceasefire days should not count as hostilities and thus not toward the 60 day limit.

A senior administration official says the U.S.’s military actions in Iran have effectively “terminated” since the April 7 ceasefire.

Meet Dr. Nicole Saphier, Trump’s third pick for US surgeon general

Trump dropped his pick for surgeon general Dr. Casey Means this week after it became clear she didn’t have enough Senate votes.

His new pick Dr. Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News Channel contributor, has promoted much of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda, including cutting ultraprocessed foods from diets and encouraging exercise.

But she has been a more vocal advocate for vaccination than Kennedy. She’s also criticized the administration’s handling of some issues as “embarrassing.”

“The more vaccine confusion we create, the more preventable disease we will see,” she said in September, urging the administration to get itself in order on the issue.

Trump sounds open to putting former 2024 GOP rival Ron DeSantis in his Cabinet

When asked Friday if he’d consider a Cabinet role for the Florida governor, who is term-limited and will be out of office in 2027, Trump responded by saying, “Well, I like him a lot.”

Trump’s team in 2024 was considering DeSantis as his defense secretary when then-nominee Pete Hegseth’s path to Senate confirmation seemed shaky.

Trump says he’s still looking at a taxpayer-funded takeover of Spirit Airlines

“We’re looking at it. If we could do it, we’ll do it. But only if it’s a good deal,” Trump told reporters on Friday as he prepared to leave the White House for a trip to Florida.

He didn’t offer any details about what proposal he was considering but said he’d like to save jobs at the airline. Trump said his administration gave Spirit “a final proposal” and would make an announcement Friday or Saturday.

“We’re looking at Spirit and if we can help them, we will. But we have to come first,” he said.

Trump says he’s ‘not satisfied’ with Iran’s latest proposal in negotiations to end the war

“They want to make a deal, I’m not satisfied with it, so we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters Friday at the White House.

Asked about what he sees as the proposal’s shortcomings, Trump said, “They’re asking for things I can’t agree to.”

The president said negotiations have continued by phone after he called off his envoys’ trip to Pakistan last week. He expressed frustration with Iran’s leadership, which he described as fractured.

“It’s a very disjointed leadership,” he said. “They all want to make a deal, but they’re all messed up.”

Some background on the 2025 trade deal between the US and EU

The 2025 deal was first cast into doubt after the U.S. Supreme Court this year ruled the Republican president lacked the legal authority to declare an economic emergency and charge tariffs on EU goods.

The initial agreement had been a tariff ceiling of 15% on goods from the EU, but the Supreme Court ruling reduced that to 10% as the Trump administration launched a new set of import taxes based on other laws. The Trump administration is in the middle of investigations on trade imbalances and national security risks to impose a new tariff regime, which could ultimately put the agreement with the EU in risk of violation.

The EU had said it expected the bilateral deal would save European automakers about 500 million to 600 million euros ($585 million to $700 million) a month.

The value of EU-U.S. trade in goods and services amounted to 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion) in 2024, or an average of 4.6 billion euros a day, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat.

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Trump says he’ll place 25% tariff on autos from EU, accusing bloc of not complying with trade deal

It’s a move that could jolt the world economy at a fragile moment.

Trump said in a post that the EU “is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal,” though he did not flesh out his objections in the post.

Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had agreed to the trade deal last July. It set a 15% tariff on most goods.

Bessent wants Americans to avoid easy-money traps and invest in financial literacy

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent winces at the allure of easy money — whether it’s lottery tickets, buy now, pay later loans or the promise of a crypto windfall — warning that the get-rich-quick mindset often leads Americans farther from financial stability, not closer to it.

“There are a lot of young people, mostly young men, going to blue-collar construction jobs, playing the lottery. It drives me crazy,” Bessent said in an interview.

“The best thing you can do is not play the lottery,” he said — rather, people should invest and “then watch it grow.”

Bessent spoke about the basics of building a workable budget and saving for the future at the tail end of Financial Literacy Month, an initiative the billionaire hedge fund manager has made a priority since joining Trump’s administration, driven by a childhood marred by poverty.

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King Charles III wins praise for deft handling of Trump on his US state visit

President Trump sang the praises of King Charles III after the monarch’s state visit this week. He even lifted some tariffs on Scotch whisky as a favor to the British monarch.

The king delivered a diplomatic master-class on the trip, mixing praise for his host with subtle criticism. It’s unclear, though, whether it will make a major difference to a trans-Atlantic relationship troubled by divisions over issues including the Iran war.

“In the short term probably yes, in the long term probably no,” said Kristofer Allerfeldt, a University of Exeter professor specializing in American history. But he said Charles had “definitely clawed back some of the prestige of the monarchy” in his homeland with his assured performance.

“He’s done us proud,” Allerfeldt said.

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Joe Biden endorses a former Atlanta mayor and White House adviser for Georgia governor

The former Democratic president is wading into the midterms, making his first political endorsement of the 2026 cycle by backing Keisha Lance Bottoms for the state’s top job.

Bottoms served as Biden’s senior adviser for public engagement after her tenure as Atlanta mayor.

In a one-minute video promoting her candidacy, Biden praised her track record as mayor and said “those same qualities that made her a great mayor made her invaluable to our administration — smart, focused, gets things done.”

“She handled it all with steady and thoughtful leadership,” Biden said in the video. “That’s the definition of battle-tested.”

After major enforcement operations, the Trump administration recalibrates its immigration crackdown

When Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was questioned by senators during his confirmation hearing about his vision for implementing President Trump’s mass deportation agenda, he said his goal was to keep his department off the front pages of the news.

To some degree, he has. Gone are the social media video clips of now-retired Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino clashing with protesters. Mullin’s predecessor, Kristi Noem, made her first trip as secretary to New York City to make arrests with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In contrast, Mullin went to North Carolina to review hurricane recovery efforts.

The Republican administration appears to be recalibrating its approach to a centerpiece policy that helped bring Trump back to the White House, moving in many ways away from aggressive, public-facing tactics toward a quieter approach to enforcement. Despite that shift, the administration insists it’s not backing down from its lofty deportation goals.

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Republicans say they will defer to Trump on Iran war despite arrival of 60-day deadline

Many Republicans who have been uneasy with Trump’s war in Iran emphasized that there would be a May 1 deadline for Congress to intervene. But the date is now set to pass with no action from GOP lawmakers who continue to defer to the White House.

Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Congress must declare war or authorize the use of force within 60 days — a deadline that falls on Friday — or within 90 days if the president asks for an extension. But Congress made no attempt at enforcing that requirement, leaving town for a week on Thursday after the Senate rejected a Democratic attempt to halt the war for a sixth time.

The Trump administration has shown no interest in seeking congressional approval at all. It is arguing that the deadlines set by the law don’t apply because the war in Iran effectively ended when a ceasefire began in early April.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday he doesn’t plan on a vote to authorize force in Iran or otherwise weigh in.

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Trump gives go-ahead to major new Canada-US oil pipeline

President Donald Trump granted a key approval Thursday for a major new oil pipeline from Canada into the U.S. that’s been dubbed “Keystone Light” over its similarities to a contentious project blocked by the Biden administration.

The three-foot-wide (1 meter) Bridger Pipeline Expansion would carry up to 550,000 barrels (87,400 cubic meters) of oil a day from Canada through Montana and Wyoming, where it would link with another pipeline.

The pipeline needs additional state and federal environmental approvals before construction, which company officials expect to start next year. Environmentalists hope to stop the project over worries that the pipeline could break and spill.

At peak volume, the 650-mile (1,050-kilometer) pipeline would move two-thirds as much oil as the better-known Keystone XL pipeline that got partially built before President Joe Biden, citing climate change, canceled its permit on the day he took office in 2021.

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Prosecutors release video of armed man storming correspondents’ dinner

Federal prosecutors released a video Thursday showing the moment authorities say a man armed with guns and knives tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner and attempt to kill Trump.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, posted the video on social media amid questions over whose bullet struck a Secret Service officer as Cole Tomas Allen ran through security with a long gun toward the hotel ballroom packed with journalists, administration officials and others.

Prosecutors had previously claimed the agent was shot in the bullet-resistant vest during the melee, but had not confirmed it was Allen who shot the agent. Pirro, however, said Thursday that there is no evidence that the officer was hit by friendly fire.

Allen was injured but was not shot during the Saturday night attack at the Washington Hilton, which disrupted one of the highest-profile annual events in the nation’s capital.

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Trump administration says its war in Iran has been ‘terminated’ before 60-day deadline

The Trump administration is arguing that the war in Iran has already ended because of the ceasefire that began in early April, an interpretation that would allow the White House to avoid the need to seek congressional approval.

The statement furthers an argument laid out by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during testimony in the Senate earlier Thursday, when he said the ceasefire effectively paused the war. Under that rationale, the administration has not yet met the requirement mandated by a 1973 law to seek formal approval from Congress for military action that extends beyond 60 days.

A senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s position, said for purposes of that law, “the hostilities that began on Saturday, Feb. 28 have terminated.” The official said the U.S. military and Iran have not exchanged fire since the two-week ceasefire that began April 7.

While the ceasefire has since been extended, Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. Navy is maintaining a blockade to prevent Iran’s oil tankers from getting out to sea.

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Trump emphasized that a deal to rescue the financially strapped airline remained under review. The president did not provide details but said an announcement could come later Friday or Saturday.

“We’re looking at it. If we could do it, we’ll do it. But only if it’s a good deal,” he said, speaking to reporters before departing the White House for Florida.

The possibility of a bailout first emerged publicly last week, when Trump floated the idea of the U.S. government offering Spirit a financial lifeline to help keep the airline from going bust and out of business. Separately, a lawyer for the airline told a U.S. Bankruptcy Court that Spirit was in advanced talks with the government over financing that could allow it to exit Chapter 11 protection.

The president suggested the government would be able to resell the airline known for its bright yellow planes and “no frills” service for a profit once oil prices driven up by the Iran war come down.

Lawmakers from both parties and some members of the Trump administration have criticized the idea of using taxpayer funds to keep the ultra-low cost airline afloat. Speculation around Spirit's future and the likelihood of a deal emerging has mounted with every day that passes without a resolution as the airline's operating expenses and debts mount.

A spokesperson for Spirit, which has its headquarters in Dania Beach, Florida, declined to comment on ongoing discussions Friday and said “Spirit is operating as usual.”

The Trump administration has delivered what the president described as a “final proposal” to the airline. He framed the possible federal intervention as an effort to preserve jobs but stressed that any financial arrangement worked out would have to benefit the government.

“If we can help them, we will," Trump said. “But we have to come first.”

Supporters of a rescue — including labor unions representing Spirit's pilots and flight attendants — say that a collapse would cost jobs, reduce competition and push fares higher.

The airline has struggled financially since the COVID-19 pandemic, weighed down by rising operating costs and growing debt. By the time it filed for Chapter 11 protection in November 2024, Spirit had lost more than $2.5 billion since the start of 2020.

The budget carrier sought bankruptcy protection again in August 2025, when it reported having $8.1 billion in debts and $8.6 billion in assets, according to court filings.

Shortly before, its parent company revealed in a quarterly report that it had “substantial doubt” about Spirit’s ability to stay in business over the next year, citing “adverse market conditions” — including weak leisure domestic travel demand and ongoing “uncertainties in its business operations.”

The company, Spirit Aviation Holdings Inc., gave a more optimistic assessment earlier this year, saying in February that it had reached a preliminary deal with creditors and expected to exit Chapter 11 in late spring or early summer. The reorganization would result in “a new Spirit” — a smaller, leaner carrier still focused on low fares but offering premium economy options and a version of first-class seating with more legroom for customers willing to pay more.

Instead, the war that started days later when the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran intensified the airline's cash flow problems. With rising jet fuel costs tied to the war generating unexpected costs across the industry, Spirit's creditors last month expressed doubts about whether it could continue operating, raising the possibility of the airline being forced to sell off assets and shut down.

If Spirit were to cease operations, budget-conscious and leisure travelers would likely feel it the most — especially where the airline has a big footprint, such as Las Vegas and the Florida cities of Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

The carrier flew about 1.7 million domestic passengers in February, roughly half a million fewer than it did during the same month a year earlier, Cirium said. Spirit has also sharply reduced its capacity. According to Cirium data, there are about half the number of seats available this month on Spirit flights than in May 2024: 1,646,878 compared to 3,399,378.

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Yamat reported from Las Vegas.

Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Nvidia, OpenAI, Reflection and SpaceX will provide their resources to help “augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments,” the Defense Department said.

Notably absent from the list is AI company Anthropic, after its public dispute and legal fight with the Trump administration over the ethics and safety of AI usage in war.

The Defense Department has been rapidly accelerating its use of AI in recent years. The technology can help the military reduce the time it takes to identify and strike targets on the battlefield, while aiding in the organization of weapons maintenance and supply lines, according to a report in March from the Brennan Center for Justice.

But AI has already raised concerns that its use could invade Americans' privacy or allow machines to choose targets on the battlefield. One of the companies contracting with the Pentagon said its agreement required human oversight in certain situations.

Concerns about military use of AI arose during Israel’s war against militants in Gaza and Lebanon, with U.S. tech giants quietly empowering Israel to track targets. But the number of civilians killed also soared, fueling fears that these tools contributed to the deaths of innocent people.

Questions about military use of AI still being worked out

The Pentagon's latest contracts come at a time of anxiety about the potential for over-reliance on the technology on the battlefield, said Helen Toner, interim executive director at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

“A lot of modern warfare is based on people sitting in command centers behind monitors, making complicated decisions about confusing, fast-moving situations,” said Toner, a former board member of OpenAI. “AI systems can be helpful in terms of summarizing information or looking at surveillance feeds and trying to identify potential targets.”

But questions about the appropriate levels of human involvement, risk and training are still being worked out, she said.

“How do you roll out these tools rapidly for them to be effective and provide strategic advantage?” Toner asked, “While also recognizing that you need to train the operators and make sure they know how to use them and don’t over trust them?”

Such concerns were raised by Anthropic. The tech company said it wanted assurances in its contract that the military would not use its technology in fully autonomous weapons and the surveillance of Americans. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the company must allow for any uses the Pentagon deemed lawful.

Anthropic sued after President Donald Trump, a Republican, tried to stop all federal agencies from using the company’s chatbot Claude and Hegseth sought to label the company a supply chain risk, a designation meant to protect against sabotage of national security systems by foreign adversaries.

OpenAI had announced a deal with the Pentagon in March to effectively replace Anthropic with ChatGPT in classified environments. OpenAI confirmed in a statement Friday that it was the same agreement it announced in early March.

“As we said when we first announced our agreement several months ago, we believe the people defending the United States should have the best tools in the world,” the company said.

One company's agreement with the Pentagon included language that said there should be human oversight over any missions in which the AI systems act autonomously or semiautonomously, according to a person familiar with the agreement who was not authorized to speak about it publicly. The language also said the AI tools must be used in ways that are consistent with constitutional rights and civil liberties.

Those resemble sticking points for Anthropic, though OpenAI has previously said that it secured similar assurances when it made its own deal with the Pentagon.

The Pentagon's point of view

Emil Michael, the Pentagon's chief technology officer, told CNBC on Friday that it would have been irresponsible to rely on only one company, an acknowledgment of the friction with Anthropic.

“And when we learned that one partner didn’t really want to work with us in the way we wanted to work with them, we went out and made sure that we had multiple different providers,” Michael said.

Some of the companies, including Amazon and Microsoft, have long worked with the military in classified environments, and it was not immediately clear if the new agreements significantly altered their government partnerships. Others, such as chipmaker Nvidia and the startup Reflection, are new to such work. Both companies make open-source AI models, which Michael has described as a priority to provide an “American alternative” to China's rapid development of AI systems in which some key components are publicly accessible for others to build upon.

The Pentagon said Friday that military personnel are already using its AI capabilities through its official platform, GenAI.mil.

“Warfighters, civilians and contractors are putting these capabilities to practical use right now, cutting many tasks from months to days,” the Pentagon said, adding that the military's growing AI capabilities will “give warfighters the tools they need to act with confidence and safeguard the nation against any threat.”

In many cases, the military uses artificial intelligence the same way civilians do: to take on rote tasks that would take humans hours or days to complete, said Toner, of Georgetown University.

AI can be used to better predict when a helicopter needs maintenance or figure out how to efficiently move large amounts of troops and gear, she said. It can also help determine whether vehicles on a drone's surveillance feeds are civilian or military.

But people shouldn't become overly dependent on it.

“There's a phenomenon called automation bias, where people can be prone to assume that machines work better than they actually do,” Toner said.

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O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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Follow the AP's coverage of artificial intelligence at https://apnews.com/hub/artificial-intelligence.

The university’s digital well-being team hosted a World Digital Wellness Day event on the Drillfield in Blacksburg, offering students a screen-free way to decompress during one of the most stressful stretches of the academic year.

“Today is World Digital Wellness Day,” said Laurie Fritsch, assistant director of Hokie Wellness. “It’s just really fun to see people leaning into being off their phones today.”

Students say the break is worth it

For many students, the event was a welcome interruption to a cycle of screens — in class, in the library and on their phones.

“I’m always staring at a computer during class, so this is a good way to get outside,” said Alex Le, a sophomore. “Just to de-stress.”

Sophomore Jacob Scott said he makes a point to attend Drillfield events like this one. “It’s a nice chance to relax and figure out how to not be on your phone,” he said.

Junior Hugh Cameron put it plainly: “Events like this are a lot more valuable than time spent on your phone.”

Signs on the Drillfield pushed the message home

Throughout the event, posted signs challenged students to put their devices away. Fritsch said the message is simple but powerful.

“It’s just a great reminder to put your phone away when you want to focus better, put your phone away when you want to lean into having better conversations and having more fun,” she said.

Junior Millaser Spinski said she and a friend stumbled onto the event while taking a study break. “We walked by and saw it and thought it looked fun,” she said. “It seems like a good way to take breaks other than being on your phone.”

For freshman Sam Webster-Main, the advice was straightforward: “Don’t focus on the test — come out and just play some games, hang out.”

Screen fatigue runs deep

Some students said the event came at the right time. Junior Fredric Reese noted that Hokie Wellness consistently offers campus programming during high-stress periods. “It’s really nice to get your mind off things,” he said.

Sophomore Jack Bolton said the pull of his phone — makes unplugging genuinely difficult. “I find myself getting really just sucked into my phone reading about the news,” Bolton said. “It can be difficult by myself to get myself out of that.”

The event is part of a broader digital wellness push at Virginia Tech. Fritsch said resources and events like this one contributed to Virginia Tech being named the first digitally well university in the world in 2023 by the Digital Wellness Institute.

The group spearheading the recall petition has gathered 283 signatures, well above the minimum requirement of 212. The signatures will now be certified by the general registrar before being forwarded to the commonwealth’s attorney for review.

ORIGINAL STORY:

A group of Pittsylvania County residents is circulating a petition to remove a member of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors following a recent shoplifting charge.

Dudley was caught on camera stealing Kratom from an Altavista convenience store back in November.

The effort targets Tim Dudley, who represents the Staunton River District. The petition comes weeks after the board voted to censure Dudley, formally rebuking him and removing him from committee assignments. However, a censure does not remove an elected official from office.

Under Virginia law, only voters in Dudley’s district can initiate his removal. Petition organizers must gather signatures from at least 10% of voters who cast ballots in the last election in which Dudley was elected — more than 200 signatures. The signatures must be collected within 90 days of the first signature, a deadline that falls in mid-May, and then be submitted to the county.

Richard Aldridge, who is leading the petition effort, said the charge undermined his trust in Dudley.

“Nobody’s perfect. But you need to be trustworthy,” Aldridge said. “If people lose their trust in you, they can’t believe in you.”

Aldridge said he was among many residents outraged by the situation and felt compelled to act.

“To be honest with you, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” he said. “You just can’t do that stuff and get by with it.”

His group has organized two signing events so far, and says they plan on continuing to go door-to-door and hosting more events until they get enough signatures.

“We’ve had a very good turnout, and we really appreciate everybody who’s signed,” Aldridge said. “We’ve got to get the petition filled, get them notarized and send them to Circuit Court.”

Some residents who signed the petition said they believe elected officials should be held to a high ethical standard.

“They need to have integrity, and we need to be able to trust them. I don’t trust him,” said Kathy Grant, a Pittsylvania County resident.

Another signer, who declined to be identified, said, “We need to take action, and he needs to be removed. We need someone that can vote for us when we have important matters.”

Others in the community have come to Dudley’s defense on social media, saying he deserves a second chance and should not be defined by one mistake.

Attempts to reach Dudley and his attorney for comment were unsuccessful.

More than 40 search warrants have been issued, authorities in North Carolina say, focusing on a married couple who allegedly knew Biffle and his wife Cristina. The suspects did “a lot of planning in an attempt to make a financial gain” off their deaths, Iredell County Sheriff Darren Campbell said. The Associated Press is not naming the pair because no arrests have been made.

Biffle, his wife and his two children, along with three others, died in the Dec. 18 crash, which remains under investigation by the NTSB. Some survivors of those killed are suing the estates of Biffle and the pilot for millions of dollars.

According to a search warrant affidavit, the husband being investigated met Biffle when the former driver used his private helicopter to deliver aid after Hurricane Helene. The woman attended a Christmas party at the Biffles' home in Mooresville, North Carolina, weeks before the crash.

Authorities reported a break-in at the home on Jan. 8, saying $30,000 in cash, two Glock handguns and NASCAR memorabilia were stolen. Search warrants were later executed at two sites, one near the Biffles’ residence and another in a nearby county.

A person seen on surveillance video, identified as a woman, appeared to be familiar with the large home's layout, including the locations of cameras, closets and a safe room, a detective wrote in a search warrant affidavit. The intruder spent nearly six hours inside the house the night of Jan. 7 into the following morning.

Evidence showed a cellphone and multiple devices were active on the property during that time, according to the warrant. The only people allowed to be there would've been the administers of the estate, but they weren't present.

Authorities say they linked the woman to someone who attended Biffle’s celebration of life, and said license plate readers placed her husband’s truck near the home that night.

The warrants also describe alleged financial crimes. Investigators say that bank, Venmo and PayPal accounts tied to the Biffles were accessed online using personal information, with phone numbers and email addresses changed to gain control of funds. Money was then allegedly transferred to accounts not belonging to the family and used for purchases, according to the warrant.

At least one fraudulent check tied to Biffle’s business interests was cashed, and other attempts were made to access accounts. The activity occurred across multiple states. The sheriff would not say whether the same suspects in the break-in are being investigated for the financial crimes, saying the department is waiting for more evidence.

Meanwhile, the plane crash sparked lawsuits against the estates of Biffle and the pilot Dennis Dutton, who was killed along with his son.

On April 17, the estates of Dutton and his son sued Biffle’s estate for at least $15 million each, alleging Biffle failed to properly maintain the plane and operated it in a defective condition. The claims include lost income and “pre-death pain and suffering.”

In February, Biffle’s ex-wife, Nicole Biffle, filed a notice of claim against Dutton’s estate on behalf of the couple’s 14-year-old daughter’s estate, seeking at least $10 million for wrongful death.

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Associated Press writer Allen G. Breed in Wake Forest, North Carolina, contributed to this report. ___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/apf-AutoRacing

You can watch the full interview here:

Jurors found Republican David Rivera and an associate, Esther Nuhfer, guilty on all counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department and conspiracy to commit money laundering as part of their work for former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's government.

Much as he did throughout the trial, Rivera looked stone-faced as the jury delivered its verdict.

Rivera, 60, had been out on bond, but Judge Melissa Damian ordered him taken into custody, finding that he posed a flight risk because he has access to sizable funds, faces a potentially long prison sentence, and faces additional federal charges in Washington, D.C., in a related foreign lobbying case.

The seven-week trial offered a rare glimpse into Miami's role as a crossroads for foreign influence campaigns aimed at shaping U.S. policy toward Latin America, one highlighting the city's reputation as a magnet for corruption and anti-communist crusaders among its sizable exile population.

It included testimony from Rubio, Texas Congressman Pete Sessions and a top Washington lobbyist — all of whom testified that they were shocked to learn belatedly of Rivera’s consulting contract with a U.S.-based affiliate of Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA.

“These convictions expose a simple truth: the defendants sold access and influence to a hostile foreign regime for money,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones. “In South Florida, where so many families fled communist oppression, that kind of betrayal carries real weight.”

Attorneys for Rivera said they plan to appeal.

In an indictment unsealed in 2022, prosecutors alleged that Rivera was tapped by then Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez — now Venezuela’s acting president — to work Republican connections from Rivera's time in Congress to get the first Trump administration to abandon its hard-line stance and ease crippling sanctions on Venezuela.

As part of the charm offensive, prosecutors alleged, Rivera and Nuhfer, a political consultant, manipulated influential friends, including Rubio and Sessions, like “pawns on a chess board." The goal: to try and normalize relations with the new Trump administration at a time when the Maduro government was buffeted by serious accusations of human rights violations.

“As long as the money kept coming in, they didn’t care from where,” prosecutor Roger Cruz said of the defendants during closing arguments.

‘Massive secret’ threatened to damage Rivera's political career

But the two held onto the “massive secret” and didn't disclose their lobbying work as required, for fear it would have ended Rivera's political career as an anti-communist stalwart, Cruz said.

To hide his work, prosecutors allege, Rivera also set up an encrypted chat group called MIA — for Miami — with his main conduit to the Maduro government: Venezuelan media tycoon Raúl Gorrín, who was subsequently charged in the U.S. with bribing top Venezuelan officials.

Members of the group used playful code words to discuss their activities: Maduro was the “bus driver,” Sessions “Sombrero,” Rodríguez “The Lady in Red,” and millions of dollars “melons,” according to copies of text messages presented to the jury.

“It was all about La Luz,” Cruz said, referring to the Spanish word for light, which Rivera and others repeatedly used to discuss payments from Caracas.

Attorneys for Rivera and Nuhfer said the two acted in good faith and believed they were under no requirement to disclose their work. The three-month, $50 million contract with Rivera's one-man consulting firm, they say, was focused exclusively on luring oil giant ExxonMobil back to Venezuela — commercial work that is generally exempt from the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Wholly distinct from that consulting work, they say, were Rivera's meetings with Rubio and Sessions, which occurred after the consulting contract had expired and was focused on ushering in leadership in Venezuela that would be less hostile to the U.S.

“He was working every possible angle to get Nicolás Maduro out,” defense attorney Ed Shohat said during closing arguments. “There was not a word in the chats about normalizing relations.”

Nuhfer's attorney, David Oscar Markus, likened the government's case to the 17th century Salem witch trials, presuming ill intent that was belied by the flimsiest of evidence.

“My client does not have a dark heart,” he said.

Exxon meetings for Rodríguez

Prosecutors said Rivera used the contract with New York-based PDV USA as cover for illegal lobbying.

Once exposed, the partners tried to hide the work — backdating documents and coming up with sham agreements like one to justify a wire transfer of $3.75 million to a South Florida company that maintained Gorrín’s luxury yacht.

The political activity included setting up meetings for Rodríguez in New York, Caracas, Washington and Dallas. As part of the effort, the two roped in Sessions, who later tried to broker a meeting for Rodríguez with the CEO of ExxonMobil that had succeeded Trump’s then-secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. After a secret meeting in Caracas with Maduro, Sessions also agreed to deliver a letter from the Venezuelan president to Trump.

The outreach quickly unraveled, however. Within six months of taking office, Trump sanctioned Maduro and labeled him a “dictator,” launching a “maximum pressure” campaign to unseat the president.

However, nearly a decade later, Rodríguez has emerged as the second Trump administration's trusted partner after the U.S. military's ousting of Maduro.

Before being elected to Congress in 2010, Rivera was a high-ranking Florida legislator. During that time, he shared a Tallahassee home with Rubio, who eventually became the Florida House speaker.

Rivera has previously faced controversy, including allegations that he secretly funded a Democratic spoiler candidate in a 2012 congressional race. Last year, federal prosecutors dropped the case after an appeals court threw out a sizable fine imposed by a lower court. Rivera was also investigated — but never charged — for alleged campaign finance violations and a $1 million contract with a gambling company while serving in the Florida Legislature.

The alarms began blaring in the arena during Magic coach Jamahl Mosley's pregame media availability in advance of Game 6 of the series on Friday night, doing so while he was being asked if injured forward Franz Wagner might be able to play in a Game 7.

And as that question was being asked, the horns started.

“That's not a good sign,” Mosley said.

Mosley went on to answer the question, explaining that it all hinges on how Wagner responds to treatment. He did that while a computerized voice gave instructions on what people who were in the building should have been doing at that moment.

The alarms returned again a few seconds later, and Mosley decided that was his cue to end the talk.

“All right, that's good, thank you, appreciate it,” Mosley said.

For the record, a team official confirmed that the alarms were false. And Detroit coach J.B. Bickerstaff's pregame media session, which started about 10 minutes after Mosley's ended, went off without any alarms.

The Magic took a 3-2 lead into Game 6 of the series on Friday.

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

The win almost certainly guarantees top tier football at Elland Road next season. Leeds moved nine points clear of Tottenham Hotspur, the team occupying the third and last relegation spot.

Daniel Farke’s men improved to 14th place, above Newcastle, Nottingham Forest and West Ham, all of whom have a game in hand. The bottom two, Wolves and Burnley, are already going down.

The Leeds players celebrated in front of a delirious home crowd at the final whistle and although they were not taking their survival for granted yet the win was clearly a relief.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” one of Leeds' stars Dominic Calvert-Lewin said. “Leading from the front, high up the pitch, and we executed the game plan really well. They’ve come in playing with nothing to lose and that can be dangerous sometimes, but pleased with and proud of the boys with how we’ve performed.”

Anton Stach put the home side ahead in the eighth minute with a low shot from 30 meters out that somehow sneaked inside Martin Dubravka’s post.

The second came seven minutes into the second half thanks to sloppy defending by Burnley’s Bashir Humphreys. His pass was intercepted by Calvert-Lewin, whose neat backheel created more space in the Burnley defense and allowed Noah Okafor to fire home.

Calvert-Lewin got the third himself four minutes later when he was on hand to prod home in a crowded penalty box after Dubravka could only parry Ao Tanaka’s long-range effort.

Loum Tchaouna got Burnley’s consolation goal.

The Lancashire club fired manager Scott Parker after two years in the role on Thursday and interim coach Mike Jackson was appointed for the last four games of the season.

“I knew this game could go one of two ways with what’s happened in the last 24 hours," Jackson said. “The shock of it to the group. I had a feeling it could go a little bit like that. First half, first 25 minutes, we looked a little bit shellshocked in a way. We grew into the game a little bit more. We started the second half I thought pretty well, and then we can’t make those errors. And then you’re always up against it.”

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

Arkansas announced a week ago it would drop its men's and women's programs and Saint Louis followed Monday with the same announcement. Illinois State said Tuesday it would end its men's program, and North Dakota said Thursday it would shut down its men's and women's teams. Gardner-Webb announced in February this would be the last season for the men's and women's programs.

Arkansas and Gardner-Webb are among the 64 teams in the men's NCAA Tournament.

The number of Division I schools sponsoring tennis in 2024-25 was 237 for men and 304 for women. An NCAA spokeswoman said Friday that numbers for 2025-26 were unavailable.

Dozens of schools across all divisions shut down programs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since revenue sharing with athletes started last year, Division I schools have chosen to redirect resources to fund direct payments to athletes in football, basketball and a few other sports.

Brian Vahaly, chairman of the board and president and interim co-CEO of the U.S. Tennis Association, said in a statement to The Associated Press on Friday that visibility of the college game needs to be elevated, the pathway for players to continue competing beyond juniors needs to be strengthened and tennis leaders need to work more directly with athletic departments.

“A strong collegiate tennis landscape is fundamental to the future of our sport,” Vahaly said, “and we will continue to look for ways to support its growth and long-term sustainability.”

Arkansas' decision to drop the sport caught the tennis community off guard.

“We in the tennis world have sort of been battling this at the lower levels of college tennis, but not the big, bad SEC,” ESPN tennis analyst and former college and pro player Patrick McEnroe said on the WholeHogSports podcast. "The Division II schools and some of the smaller Division I programs over the years, you're always sort of on the lookout in the tennis community to fight and protect as many programs as possible."

Tennis has been targeted as youth participation for American boys and girls has declined and the ratio of international players at U.S. colleges has continued to grow.

In 2006, the number of boys and girls ages 12-17 playing tennis was equal, at 1.1 million, according to the National Sporting Goods Association. Over the last 20 years, participation has dropped 23% for boys in that age group (849,000) and 26% for girls (811,000).

The most recent NCAA data showed that among first-year college players in 2022, 64% of men and 61% of women were international students. At Arkansas, seven of the nine men and seven of the 11 women on the 2025-26 rosters are international students.

The math didn't work for the Razorbacks anymore. They spent a combined $2.35 million on the two teams in the 2025 fiscal year; the men's team generated $3,202 in revenue and the women $82.

Arkansas' operating expense per player in 2025 was $41,772 for the men and $41,582 for the women, among the highest in the athletic department.

Tennis also ranked among the most expensive sports per player at North Dakota and Gardner-Webb, and at Illinois State the $10,224 cost per men's player was more than football and baseball. At Saint Louis, cost per player ranked third out of six men's sports and sixth out of eight on the women's side.

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

Then his phone rang on Friday morning with a number from California he did not have saved. It was trainer Doug O'Neill calling to ask if he wanted to take the mount on Robusta, who got into the field when Kenny McPeek's Right to Party was scratched by track veterinarians.

“I was shocked,” Torres told The Associated Press after riding in the fifth race at Churchill Downs later in the day. “I didn’t respond for a few seconds because I couldn’t believe it. It’s been a roller coaster of emotions but just very happy and very grateful.”

Torres, a native of Puerto Rico who began riding in 2019, was set to be aboard Silent Tactic in the 152nd running of the Derby. Trainer Mark Casse and owner John Oxley made the call Wednesday to scratch Silent Tactic because of a foot injury and plan for the Preakness on May 16.

Casse said it was an easy decision in the best interests of the horse but that he felt badly for Torres.

The second chance materialized with Robusta getting in off the also-eligible list. O’Neill tapped Torres for the mount because Emisael Jaramillo was already booked to ride at Santa Anita Park in California on Saturday.

“It’s been crazy,” Torres said. “But I’m very happy to be here, and I’m grateful for Doug. He called me and gave me the chance to ride Robusta. Man, just grateful. Grateful with every opportunity that comes and very happy and very excited.”

Torres is going into the biggest race of his career with limited knowledge of Robusta, who was second in the San Felipe Stakes on March 7 and seventh in the Santa Anita Derby on April 4.

“I’ve watched his replays, his races when he ran in California, but I’m not very close to the horse so I’m just going to watch the replays and see and talk with Doug and see what we can do,” Torres said.

Robusta was the second-to-last horse eligible for the opening leg of the Triple Crown. Dallas Stewart's Corona de Oro would draw in if there are any additional scratches to the current field of 20 horses.

In addition to Right to Party and Silent Tactic, Brad Cox scratched Fulleffort after an X-ray revealed a chip and fluid in the colt's left hind ankle.

Right to Party was a vet scratch, not a choice made by McPeek and owner Chester Broman Sr.

“The safety and well-being of the racehorses training and competing in Kentucky are the center of everything we do,” the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Commission said in a statement.

“(The commission) closely monitors data pertaining to scratches, including those based on the advice of our regulatory veterinarians,” the organization said. "It is one of the most difficult parts of the job, as we share the goal of each horse’s connections for the horse to compete safely. ... We all want what is best for the horse.”

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This story has been corrected to show that Corona de Oro is also eligible if there is another scratch.

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AP horse racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing

Catherine Nance, a Liberty alum, has been selected to take over the program after spending the past six seasons involved at multiple levels. Nance served one year as a varsity assistant coach and also held the role of middle school head coach within the program.

In addition to her work at the school, Nance brings experience from the AAU circuit, where she coached several players who are currently on Liberty’s roster.

She takes over a program coming off a strong season that included a run to the state quarterfinals. Liberty was led in part by All-State honoree Shania Brown.

Nance now steps into the head coaching role aiming to build on that recent success while continuing her connection to the program she once played for.

In a Monday statement announcing his death, Marvel described Conway as a legendary comic book writer with a prolific career. He died Sunday at his home in Thousand Oaks, California, the New York Times reported. His wife told the news outlet the cause was pancreatic cancer.

“From Spider-Man to the Avengers, Iron Man to Captain Marvel, Gerry Conway has deftly written almost every character in the Marvel Universe,” Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski said. "Gerry Conway’s legacy has made an undeniable and indelible impact on the Super Hero stories we know and love. He will be dearly missed.”

Tributes were also shared on social media.

“While many know his Marvel accomplishments ... Gerry’s contributions to DC were equally impactful and significant: shaping Batman, Superman, the Justice League of America, and co-creating Firestorm, Jason Todd and Power Girl and so many more,” Jim Lee, chief creative officer and president of DC Comics, said in an Instagram post. “Thank you, Gerry, for the worlds imagined and the heroes created.”

Conway was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 10, 1952. A lifelong fan of comic books, he started writing comic book stories as a teenager, and by the age of 19 he landed work on “The Amazing Spider-Man" — which Marvel's statement described as "the job that would change his life — and the comic book industry at large — forever.”

Conway's writing featured "pivotal moments” that redefined the series, Marvel said, such as the death of Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker's girlfriend. He also co-created the Punisher, a vigilante antihero known for the skull logo on his chest.

The skull imagery has been used by law enforcement in recent years, sparking controversy at times. Nearly a decade ago, Conway objected to police departments putting Punisher decals on their vehicles, saying in a social media post that the character was “a complex morally compromised anti-hero, not to be emulated by cops,” as reported the Syracuse Post-Standard.

Conway had a way of imbuing characters with nuance and emotional depth, Marvel said in its statement.

“Gerry Conway brought real stakes to his writing, able to weave together sensational super heroics with the human and relatable, and in doing so created some of the most memorable stories and characters of all time,” Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said.

Beyond the Spider-Man comics, Conway wrote for several other major Marvel titles, including “Fantastic Four,” “Thor” and “The Incredible Hulk.”

In a 1981 interview with The Comics Journal, Conway noted how comic books can appeal to both younger and older audiences.

"I'm writing for the youthful part of myself, the primitive part of myself,” he told the magazine. "If an adult likes the books it's because of a nostalgic feeling for that primitive, easy conceptualization of heroic purpose.”

Conway is survived by his wife, Laura Conway, and two daughters from previous marriages.

Your out-the-door forecast doesn’t require the umbrella Friday! Just a light jacket is needed, especially if you are headed out to the strawberry festival!

Futurecast is dry for the day, barring a few mountain showers. Saturday changes a few things with light rain showers on and off during the day in Southern Roanoke, Southside, and NRV.

This rain is much needed! We have an updated drought monitor now in Severe and Extreme drought territory. This map doesn’t account for the Wednesday rain, so we should have at least next week’s map not getting any worse than this week.

Please be cognisant of outdoor burning, especially in these dry conditions!

After Saturday’s rain, we dry out Sunday and Monday before we pick back up with an active pattern Tuesday through Thursday. Have a great weekend!

Langdon topped the previous record of 343.51 mph set by Brittany Force last year in Indianapolis. He covered the 1,000-foot track in 3.724 seconds, not far behind Force's record run of 3.623 during that same run in 2025.

Langdon's record-breaking pass came during the NHRA debut at South Georgia Motorsports Park, one of the newest stops on the drag-racing series' 20-event schedule.

The 2013 Top Fuel champion turned heads with several 340 mph runs during preseason testing and entered the weekend second in points, trailing only Doug Kalitta after four events.

“It was special for the guys," Langdon said. “I was happy for them, especially (crew chief) Brian (Husen). We were able to do that testing, and some people had different ideas on what they thought — if it was legit or not. We kind of talked about it and Brian was like, ‘Well, we’ll just do it in the season to prove it was legit.'”

Three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart, racing his third full season in NHRA's top division, was second in qualifying with a 3.758-second run at 334.40 mph.

The NHRA added two new tracks to its 2026 schedule, marking the drag-racing series’ first expansion in more than a dozen years. After racing at South Georgia Motorsports Park near Valdosta, Georgia, the series will run in Mechanicsville, Maryland, for the first time later this month.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

RMPD said they responded to an incident reported at the mayor’s office on Thursday regarding the “impersonation of a law enforcement officer as well as possible threats.” The incident is under investigation, and law enforcement is not aware of any current threats to the public.

Authorities said the incident was related to Perdue’s personal business, not his position as mayor.

Mayor Perdue released a statement on Facebook following the incident:

This afternoon, an individual came to my office posing as a law enforcement officer. He was armed and made direct threats toward me and members of my staff.

Rocky Mount Police responded immediately and handled the situation with professionalism. I am grateful for their quick action, and the matter is now under active investigation.

Police believe this is an isolated incident and there is no reason for general public to be alarmed.

Most importantly, my staff is safe. Everyone is safe.

I know many in the community saw the police presence and had concerns. I appreciate the calls, messages, and people checking in.

Let me be clear. Threats of this nature will always be taken seriously. The safety of our employees and the public comes first, and we will continue to work closely with law enforcement to ensure that standard is upheld.

Rocky Mount is a strong community. We look out for one another, and we will move forward the same way we always do. Steady, focused, and together.

Mayor Holland Perdue

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

The S&P 500 climbed 0.3% to its latest all-time high and closed out a fifth straight winning week. That’s its longest such streak since 2024. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 152 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.9% to its own record.

Apple led the way after the iPhone seller reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Because it’s one of Wall Street’s biggest stocks in terms of overall size, Apple’s rally of 3.3% was by far the strongest force lifting the S&P 500.

Stock prices generally follow the path of corporate profits over the long term, and U.S. companies have been blowing past expectations for earnings in the first three months of 2026. That’s even with the war with Iran and high oil prices souring confidence for many U.S. households.

A little more than a quarter of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported already, and 84% of them have topped analysts’ estimates, according to FactSet. The index is on track to deliver roughly 15% growth in profit from a year earlier.

Estee Lauder’s stock climbed 3.4% after reporting better earnings than expected, thanks in part to strength in China, and it raised some of its upcoming financial forecasts. Sandisk jumped 8.3% after the maker of storage for computers blew past analysts’ expectations for profit thanks in part to voracious demand from data centers.

Colgate-Palmolive added 2.2% after likewise delivering bigger results than expected, though CEO Noel Wallace said it expects “volatile macroeconomic conditions and slower category growth to continue in 2026.”

The main uncertainty for the global economy is where oil prices are heading because of the Iran war. Oil prices spurted higher early this week on worries that the war will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed for a long time. That would in turn keep oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf instead of delivering crude to customers worldwide.

But such moves have been quick to reverse throughout the war, as hopes rise and fall for a reopening of the strait. On Friday, the price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 2% to settle at $108.17. Brent was selling for a little more than $70 per barrel before the war began.

That rise since the end of February helped the two biggest U.S. oil companies report stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. But stock prices nevertheless fell for both Exxon Mobil, 1%, and Chevron, 1.4%, as oil prices regressed Friday and each reported drops in net income from a year earlier.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 21.11 points to 7,230.12. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 152.87 to 49,499.27, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 222.13 to 25,114.44.

The fall in oil prices helped Treasury yields ease in the bond market. So did a report in the morning that said growth for U.S. manufacturing was a touch softer last month than economists expected.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.38% from 4.40% late Thursday. Such dips can make mortgages and other loans for U.S. households and businesses cheaper, and they also tend to give upward pushes to prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments.

Many stock markets worldwide were closed for May Day. Among the indexes still trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.4%, and London’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.1%.

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

Progressive groups criticized the report, saying it fails to document a pattern of discrimination, focuses on causes favored by conservative Christians and amounts to “advocacy dressed up as investigation.”

The Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, created within the Justice Department by President Donald Trump last year, issued its conclusions Thursday in a 200-page report.

“When Christian beliefs about morality and human nature conflicted with the Biden Administration’s views, religious rights often suffered," the report said.

Report alleges an unfair hard line against conservatives

The task force — which included numerous Cabinet secretaries — didn't accuse the Biden administration of any large pattern of suppressing churches themselves or the right to worship. But the report did accuse it of taking a hard line against those who advocated for conservative policies on the basis of their faith in such areas as abortion, gender, school curriculum and vaccine exemptions.

“The Biden Administration generally tolerated religious beliefs that were privately held but zealously pursued actions to limit Christians’ ability to act in accordance with their faith," it said.

Critics said the report essentially equates one strand of conservative Christianity to be representative of Christians overall, then construes policy disagreements to be persecution.

The report is “advocacy dressed up as investigation,” said Jim Simpson, executive director of the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University.

He said the report falsely deems policy disagreements to be “evidence of anti-Christian bias rather than the normal functioning of a pluralistic democracy." He also said it falsely positions Christians — nearly two-thirds of Americans — as “a persecuted minority despite being the country’s largest and most politically influential religious group.”

The task force report contends that the Biden-era Justice Department sought severe penalties for anti-abortion activists who illegally blockaded clinics and took such protests more seriously than threats to pregnancy resource centers — often Christian-run facilities that seek to persuade women not to obtain abortions.

It cited a group of people convicted in federal court and sentenced to prison after invading and blockading a Washington abortion clinic. Trump pardoned them in 2025.

The report contended that the Biden administration “sidelined Christians in favor of their preferred constituencies.”

Alleged abuses related to Easter and LGBTQ+ rights

One section of the report accuses Biden of “replacing Easter" with Transgender Day of Visibility, which takes place every March 31. That event coincided with Easter on 2024. In fact, Biden issued proclamations honoring both occasions. The report accused Biden of “profound lack of consideration for the Christian faith.”

Christian groups have mixed views on LGBTQ+ issues, with some progressive churches flying Pride flags. Conservative denominations generally oppose same-sex marriage and transgender rights. The report chided the Biden administration for flying Pride flags at U.S. Embassies, including at the Vatican.

Melissa Rogers, who served as executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships under Biden, contrasted Trump's Easter messaging this year with his predecessor's.

“President Biden spent Easter and Orthodox Easter wishing Christians worldwide joyful Resurrection Sundays, not by pretending to be Jesus, by tweeting profanities, and by attacking the pope,” she said.

She also noted that Biden is a devout Catholic, and that his administration's officials routinely met with Christian and other faith leaders to cooperate on a wide range of concerns, from the security of sanctuaries to immigration to supporting COVID-19 clinics.

The task force’s report criticized a Biden-era Justice Department memo that discussed possible efforts to prevent violence and threats targeting school boards. The discussions never led to federal action, and then-Attorney General Merrick Garland defended the effort, saying it was to curtail violence, not inhibit debates over policy.

The report did not directly say how it considered this anti-Christian bias, though many school board meetings in that time period did draw conservative Christians and other critics denouncing school policies and lessons on such topics as gender and race.

The report also criticized denials in federal agencies for Christians seeking exemptions from such things as COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

It criticized federal regulators that had told a Catholic hospital in Oklahoma to snuff its chapel candle, deemed a safety hazard because of the risk of combustion to patients with oxygen equipment. The hospital was allowed to keep the candle while putting up a barrier and a warning notice.

The report also cited what it said were disproportionately heavy fines imposed by Biden's Department of Education on two Christian universities — Grand Canyon University for allegedly deceiving thousands of students over program costs, and Liberty University for failures to comply with required disclosures of crime statistics. The Trump administration cleared Grand Canyon University of the charges and rescinded the fine.

Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, criticized the report for “cherry-picked anecdotes” that don't add up to a pattern of persecution.

“To the extent that the government ever did overreach or violate the law in any of these examples, the courts of law, not a partisan political report, provide the right venue to settle any legal disputes,” she said. “Focusing government resources on this narrow issue while ignoring or discounting the much more widespread instances of anti-religious discrimination against other faith groups in the U.S. further harms religious freedom for all.”

The report comes even as the Religious Liberty Commission, another entity created by Trump, prepares a report on its findings; its hearings featured many of the same grievances cited by the task force.

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

Judge Dale E. Ho in Manhattan extended the status temporarily while a lawsuit seeking to preserve the protections plays out. In an emergency order, he wrote that people granted the status are ordinary, law-abiding people who the U.S. government had determined could face threats to their safety if they were returned to a country facing an ongoing armed conflict.

Amid its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration has terminated Temporary Protected Status for people from nine countries, including Haiti, Venezuela and Ethiopia. Before Ho’s ruling, protections for Yemeni refugees were set to end on Monday, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

People with Temporary Protected Status are eligible to remain in the U.S., may not be removed from the country, and are able to receive work and travel authorization.

In his ruling, Ho criticized former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, saying Congress had established a process for Temporary Protected Status to be altered or rescinded, but she had not followed it.

He was particularly critical of a social media message she sent out in early December in which she said she had just met with President Donald Trump and was recommending a full travel ban “on every damn country that's been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”

On Feb. 13, he noted, Noem announced in a news release that Temporary Protected Status would be terminated for Yemen, finding that letting them stay in the U.S. was “contrary to our national interest.”

“TPS holders from Yemen are not ‘killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies,’ ” Ho wrote at the start of his conclusion in his 36-page decision.

He noted that among 2,810 Yemenis who hold TPS status and another 425 who have applied were a pregnant 33-year-old Detroit woman due to give birth this month whose unborn child has a congenital heart condition that is not treatable in Yemen and a 50-year-old former human rights worker in Brooklyn who is a target of Houthi-aligned militias in Yemen.

“Temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from activist judges legislating from the bench," the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

“Allowing TPS Yemen beneficiaries to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interest," the department’s statement said, emphasizing that the Trump administration is “returning TPS to its original temporary intent.”

Razeen Zaman, director of immigrant rights at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, applauded Ho's ruling, saying that “the court has made clear that humanitarian statutes like TPS cannot be used as a deportation pipeline."

Zaman said in a release that Homeland Security had determined that it was unsafe for Yemeni refugees to return to their country “but terminated their protection anyway.”

Zaman said Ho's ruling "affirms that protection must be based on facts and conditions on the ground, not on the political appetite to end it.”

Noem announced her decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Yemen in February. The Department of Homeland Security on Friday said she had reviewed conditions in the country and consulted with government agencies before determining that Yemen no longer met the legal requirements for temporary status.

Yemenis praise ruling

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund included comments from several lawsuit plaintiffs in its press release heralding Ho's ruling.

One plaintiff identified by a pseudonym to protect his safety wrote that the people fighting to preserve protections for Yemenis were “doctors, engineers, and pilots like myself, and also drivers, deli workers, and countless other people who contribute meaningfully every day, supporting not just our own families but the broader fabric of society.”

He added that their presence "represents resilience, skill, and dedication — values that strengthen the nation as a whole.”

A woman also identified by a pseudonym called Ho's decision “a lifeline for my family.” She added: "It is the moment we finally breathed a sigh of relief after months of existential anxiety,”

Yemen was initially designated for Temporary Protected Status in 2015, about a year after the country’s civil war began.

As the war persisted, the Obama and Biden administrations extended the designation multiple times, most recently in 2024, when officials estimated that 2,300 Yemenis were eligible to reregister for protected status and that 1,700 Yemenis were newly eligible.

Ho cited other instances in which courts have recently permitted those who have fled other countries under various circumstances to stay in the U.S.

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Associated Press writer Larry Neumeister contributed to this report.

Brailen Weaver is charged with armed bank robbery and firearms offenses that caused death, according to federal court records.

Weaver entered a branch of U.S. Bank in Berea on Thursday, just before 2 p.m. and “immediately shot and killed a male victim” and then fatally shot a teller, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court Friday. He checked multiple drawers in the bank and then fled, the affidavit said. Investigators have not said if any money was taken from the bank.

"While there is no longer imminent danger, we understand that the tragedy is far from over for the community," Olivia Olson, special agent in charge of the Louisville FBI office, said at a news conference Friday. “The only solace that we can offer is that this individual, who valued a stolen dollar more than two human lives, will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman announced Friday he would pursue state murder charges against Weaver. Court records say Weaver is 18, and officials said Friday he lived somewhere in Kentucky.

Authorities identified a silver BMW sedan on surveillance video and matched it to a car for sale by Weaver on Facebook, the affidavit said. Investigators were also able to match clothing on the suspect to photos of Weaver on social media. Investigators said Weaver continued to post on social media after the robbery.

The FBI located Weaver’s car on I-75, and he was pursued at speeds over 100 mph (161 kph) Thursday night. He exited the highway into Lexington, where he exceeded speeds of 130 mph (209 kph) before crashing the car and fleeing on foot, the affidavit said.

Kentucky State Police Officer Justin Kearney said in a social media post Friday that a “person of interest believed to be involved in yesterday’s Berea bank robbery has been apprehended."

The affidavit was written before he was captured so it makes no mention of an arrest.

Rawl Kazee, a Lexington attorney identified in court records as representation for Weaver, did not immediately return a phone message later Friday morning.

Jason Parman, first assistant U.S. attorney for the eastern half of Kentucky, said in his 18 years as a prosecutor, he could not recall a death related to a bank robbery. Parman said it’s not uncommon for a bank robber to be armed and to threaten violence, but deaths are uncommon in his experience.

Bank robberies nationally have declined from 5,546 in 2010 to 1,263 in 2023, a decrease of 77%, according to the FBI’s annual Bank Crime Statistics report. There were no deaths associated with bank robberies in 2022 and 2023, the most recent year available for the data.

Tom Myers, a crime historian and retired FBI agent, said the drop in bank robberies is due to experienced criminals opting to move on to easier crimes that don’t come with the risk of a lengthy federal prison sentence. Bank security technology has also evolved rapidly, he said, and tiny, powerful tracking devices can make it easier to find stolen money bundles once a robber has left the bank.

“The juice ain’t worth the squeeze,” Myers said. “There’s so many other things to do that are profitable — you can go to a big box store and walk out with the same amount in some places, and only face state charges if you’re caught.”

Law enforcement officials went door to door in search of information and surveillance video, as well as using helicopters, drones and dogs. The Lexington Police Department and county sheriff’s offices took part in the search, along with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Area schools went into lockdown for a while Thursday until campuses were deemed safe. Students were not allowed to go home on buses and had to be picked up by their parents, state police said.

U.S. Bank said it was working closely with law enforcement and committed to supporting the victims' families and bank colleagues. The small bank branch in the quiet community of Berea is located just a mile from Berea College and its campus that dates back to the 1850s.

“We’re deeply saddened by the tragic event that took the lives of two of our employees at our Berea, Kentucky branch earlier today,” the company said in a statement Thursday. “Our hearts go out to the families of the victims, our colleagues and the entire Berea community.”

Berea is about 36 miles (58 kilometers) south of Lexington.

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Rebecca Boone contributed to this story from Boise, Idaho.

Two people have been arrested following the shooting that occurred in Danville earlier this month that left one man dead and four others injured, Danville Police Department said.

DPD said 26-year-old Darryl Maurice Newby has been arrested and charged with the following:

• Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon
• Reckless Handling of a Firearm
• Shoot/ discharge a Firearm in a Public Place

Newby is now being held at the Danville City Jail without bond.

In addition, a 16-year-old was also arrested and charged with the following:

• Malicious Wounding
• Shoot at a Car with Malice
• Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon
• Shoot/ discharge a Firearm in a Public Place
• Use of a Firearm in Commission of a Felony
• Reckless Handling of a Firearm
• Possession of a Handgun or Rifle Under Age 18

The teen is now being held at the W.W. More Juvenile Detention Center.

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

ORIGINAL STORY:

One person is dead and four others are injured after a late-night shooting in Danville, according to police.

Officers responded to multiple calls of shots fired around 11:36 p.m. on April 18 in the 700 block of Arlington Road. When they arrived, they found a man lying in a driveway suffering from a gunshot wound.

Police say the victim, identified as 34-year-old Christopher Darnell Moore of Danville, was given life-saving aid at the scene and transported to the SOVAH Danville emergency room, where he later died from his injuries.

As officers were responding, four additional victims arrived at the hospital in personal vehicles with gunshot wounds.

Investigators say a large gathering was taking place at a home on Arlington Road when multiple shots were fired, striking all five victims at the same location.

The four surviving victims - a 48-year-old man, a 33-year-old man, a 25-year-old woman, and an 18-year-old woman, all from Danville - were treated for what appear to be non-life-threatening injuries.

Police say the shooting was not a random act.

The investigation remains active and ongoing. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Danville Police Department.

The NBA announced its list of invitees this week, featuring many of the top prospects in college basketball and international play. Lawal and Onyenso are among the players who will have the opportunity to showcase their skills in front of NBA executives, scouts and coaches at the annual event in Chicago.

Lawal was a versatile forward while at Virginia Tech, building on a strong prior campaign in which he averaged about 12 points and seven rebounds per game during the 2024-25 season. Throughout the 2025-26 season, he continued to emerge as a key contributor, highlighted by multiple standout performances, including a 22-point, 11-rebound effort against Notre Dame and several 17-plus point outings in ACC play. Known for his athleticism and defensive versatility, Lawal has drawn attention for his ability to impact the game on both ends of the floor.

Onyenso, a 7-foot center for the Virginia Cavaliers, has built his reputation as one of the premier rim protectors in college basketball. During the 2025-26 season, he earned All-Defensive Team honors in the ACC, anchoring Virginia’s interior defense with his size and shot-blocking presence. Earlier in his college career, he averaged 3.6 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.8 blocks per game at Kentucky, showcasing the defensive skill set that has translated to his current role.

The NBA Draft Combine serves as a critical evaluation period, with players participating in measurements, interviews, athletic testing and five-on-five scrimmages. Performances at the combine often impact draft positioning, giving both Lawal and Onyenso a chance to further elevate their profiles.

The 2026 NBA Draft is scheduled for later this summer, with both players now firmly in the conversation as potential selections.

A week removed from teaming with his brother Matt and winning the Zurich Classic — a victory that earned him membership on the PGA Tour — Fitzpatrick remained hot Friday. He shot a bogey-free round of 6-under 66, getting to 6 under at the midpoint of the Cadillac Championship at Trump International Doral.

It's not something he expected a few months ago. Or even a few days ago, really.

“The text messages and stuff has slowed down, but the overwhelming feeling of like joy and happiness is yet to go away,” Fitzpatrick said. “I think for me, this year, it’s going to be a whirlwind and no matter what happens it will be a success. I can’t believe how many people have come up to me and congratulated me ... players and caddies and staff. It’s been incredible.”

Fitzpatrick had a ticket for a Sunday night flight that would have taken him from New Orleans to Turkey for this week's stop on the DP World Tour, then changed those arrangements in a hurry to get to Miami and begin prepping for his first $20 million signature event.

He's called this week “the first day of school” as he gets a real taste of life on the PGA Tour.

So far, the report card has been just fine. He got through a five-birdie, five-bogey roller-coaster to shoot an even-par 72 on Thursday, then had the six-birdie, no-bogey day on Friday.

“I think the nice thing is it feels like I’m doing the right things with my golf game. I’m working towards the right things,” Fitzpatrick said. “It's exciting. I feel like my game has been good for a while now. I think for a few months it didn’t really translate on the golf course how I would have liked, but it’s really taken a turn the past two months. I feel in control of my ball, which is nice. So, hopefully I keep hitting fairways and hitting greens and we’ll see what happens this weekend.”

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

Pope Leo XIV announced Friday the appointment of the Most Rev. Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, an auxiliary bishop in Washington, D.C., as the new leader of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, which comprises West Virginia, one of the nation’s least racially diverse states.

Menjivar-Ayala, 55, fled El Salvador's civil war as a teen in the late 1980s, eventually crossing illegally into the United States in 1990, he told The Associated Press in an interview last year. But within “a couple of weeks” he gained humanitarian protection, later was granted a visa as a religious worker, and became a U.S. citizen two decades ago.

Nonetheless, he feels close to immigrants who have been caught up by raids, including last year’s federal law enforcement surge in Washington, because “that could have been me,” he said in 2025.

The Catholic Church has long advocated for humane treatment of migrants and refugees in the United States and around the world. Menjivar-Ayala and other U.S. church leaders have strongly condemned the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies while also affirming a nation’s right to control its borders and urging reconciliation.

New bishop to prioritize those on the margins

Menjivar-Ayala did not mention immigration policies nor Trump is his speech Friday, instead focusing on his desire to be accepted by West Virginians and his willingness to listen to the community. A portion of his speech was in Spanish.

“I have much to learn, but my heart is ready and wide-open,” he said. “Above all, I want to listen to the poor. Those in the margins of the church and society. To workers, to the immigrants, because as Matthew 25 says, the way we treat the least is the way we treat Jesus.”

In the Washington archdiocese, which includes the District of Columbia and parts of Maryland, more than 40% of parishioners are Latino. In West Virginia — all of which is covered by the Wheeling-Charleston diocese — only 2.4% of the population is Latino and 92.6% of its 1.77 million residents identify as white, according to the U.S. Census.

Menjivar-Ayala replaces the Most Rev. Mark Brennan, 79, who has served as West Virginia’s bishop since 2019. Brennan had taken over after a scandal over a former bishop’s sexual harassment of adults and lavish spending of church money. In a shared news conference in Wheeling on Friday, Brennan reminded West Virginians that many in America come from somewhere else.

“But he loves all the people here. He’s not going to be bishop just for one group within the diocese. He’ll be bishop for all the people. I can assure you of that.”

The new bishop, who has spent his ministerial career in the nation's capital and surrounding communities, will work in a less Catholic and more rural region, overseeing the diocese’s 61,000 Catholics and 92 parishes throughout West Virginia.

While acknowledging the beauty of West Virginia mountains and natural resources, he said many people in one of the nation’s poorest states “continue to endure hardship, marginalization and inequality.”

Lauded for his immigration advocacy

Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington praised Menjivar-Ayala’s advocacy for migrants during his tenure in the capital, saying in a statement that “his passion for justice and sensitive care for the Hispanic and immigrant communities of our Archdiocese have planted seeds of grace that will yield a harvest here for decades to come.”

In an article he wrote last year for the Catholic Standard, the official newspaper of the Washington archdiocese, Menjivar-Ayala spoke out against the treatment of immigrants by Trump’s administration.

“Each day this situation is getting worse and more ominous,” Menjivar-Ayala wrote. “For weeks now, the federal government has pursued a ‘shock and awe’ campaign of aggressive threats and highly visible operations of questionable legality that go far beyond mere immigration ‘enforcement.’”

Menjivar-Ayala, whose appointment comes a few weeks after the pope’s disagreement with Trump over the U.S. war against Iran, will be installed as bishop at a ceremony on July 2. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Menjivar-Ayala’s appointment.

Another Latin America-born priest was also named a U.S. bishop on Friday. The Rev. John Gomez will start his tenure in the Diocese of Laredo, Texas, on June 30. Gomez was born in Colombia, came to the United States on a student visa in 2002 and became a U.S. citizen in 2021, according to his current diocese in Tyler, Texas. In a statement, Bishop Gregory Kelly of Tyler praised his “commitment to Hispanic Ministry.”

Pope Leo’s first American bishop appointment, two weeks after his own election in May 2025, was a former refugee: Michael Pham, who was born in Vietnam and became bishop of San Diego, California.

The number of priestly ordinations in the United States has been declining for decades, making foreign-born clergy essential to many parishes nationwide.

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Dell'Orto reported from Minneapolis.

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

NFFF Weekend is May 2 and May 3. Spanberger has ordered that the flags be lowered at sunrise on Sunday, and remain at half-staff until sunset.

You can read Spanberger’s entire flag order below:

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 honor of National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend. Virginia’s volunteer and professional firefighters run toward danger to protect their neighbors and communities. We honor the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty.

I hereby order that the flags shall be lowered at sunrise on Sunday, May 3, 2026, and remain at half-staff until sunset.

Ordered on this, the 1st day of May 2026.

Sincerely,

Governor Abigail Spanberger

York's overtime goal beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 1-0 in Game 6 of their first-round series and helped the Flyers advance in the playoffs for the first time since 2020.

York was caught up in the moment — “definitely don’t want a lawsuit,” he cracked after the long toss — and hoped the Flyers fan who retrieved the valuable piece of equipment would return the souvenir.

“I figured even if it did hit him, that he was going to still enjoy the moment and be happy,” York said Friday.

Longtime Flyers fan Jack Brod, who grabbed the stick around Section 113 in the lower level, had planned to gift the stick to a family friend. Once he learned that York wanted the stick back, Brod graciously returned it. Wearing the same Flyers sweatshirt he did in Game 6, Brod was a guest Friday at Flyers practice and got to meet York.

York said right after the game he thought, “why did I do that?”

“When my career is done and over with, I want to have some things to look back on, remember and cherish,” York said on Friday. “This was obviously a special moment for me. Super nice guy. Just met him. For me to just give it back for kind of nothing, I really appreciate that. That's one of the best things about Philly fans is, they love their players and they want their players to perform at the highest level they can.”

Brod didn't go home empty-handed. He received a new stick and a signed York No. 8 jersey. York hoped to frame the stick.

The Flyers open their second-round series Saturday at Carolina.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Explosions and a fire were recorded at the terminal, the statement from the General Staff said. Local officials in Russia said a Ukrainian drone attack sparked the blaze and that no casualties were reported.

The facility had been hit previously on April 16, April 20 and April 28. Regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said a fire at the city’s oil refinery had also been extinguished Thursday, less than 24 hours before the latest strike.

Meanwhile, Russian attacks continued to strike Ukraine.

Russia attacked the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil with over 50 drones on Friday, Mayor Serhii Nadal said.

Hits were recorded in industrial facilities and infrastructure, he said. At least 10 people were wounded, he added, while some neighborhoods remain without electricity as a result of the mass attack.

Two multi-story residential buildings and port infrastructure in Odesa were damaged after Russian forces launched another overnight drone attack on the southern region, local authorities said.

As a result of the strikes, an apartment in a 16-story building was destroyed and the roof caught fire. In another high-rise residential building, a fire engulfed the 12th floor, according to Ukraine's Emergency Service.

In a post on Telegram, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at least five people were wounded in the region. He said damage from overnight attacks was also recorded in the central city of Kryvyi Rih and the northeastern Kharkiv region, where railway infrastructure was hit.

“Russia continues to attack our energy infrastructure, critical infrastructure, and civilian objects. Tonight, there were 210 drone strikes, and about 140 of them were “Shahed” drones,” Zelenskyy wrote.

Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News Channel contributor, has promoted several aspects of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again agenda, including removing food additives, cutting ultraprocessed foods from diets and encouraging exercise.

But she has been a more vocal advocate for vaccination than Kennedy, and at times she has criticized the Trump administration's handling of health issues as “embarrassing.”

If confirmed as the nation's doctor, Saphier would be empowered to issue advisories that warn of public health threats. Surgeons general also have used the office to advocate on vaccination issues — though the office doesn't create vaccine policy.

Means, a Stanford University-educated physician and MAHA influencer who didn’t complete her surgical residency in Oregon and has an inactive medical license, faced grueling questioning from senators of both major political parties over her experience and stance on vaccination. She told The Associated Press her failed nomination was the result of a “yearlong smear campaign."

Saphier is a mom, radiologist and former Fox News contributor

Trump's new surgeon general pick is the director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Monmouth, according to her profile on the institution’s website. She has a medical degree from Ross University School of Medicine in Barbados, along with fellowships at the Mayo Clinic, according to her profile.

She has earned the approval of institutions including the American College of Radiology, whose president, Dr. Dana Smetherman, on Thursday called her a “tireless advocate for women's health.” Kennedy said in a social media post that her experience with breast cancer patients and early detection will help the Republican administration take on the chronic disease epidemic.

Saphier was also a longtime Fox News Channel contributor until this week — one of several of the channel's personalities Trump has brought into his administration. Trump's first surgeon general pick, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, was also a contributor at the network, but her nomination fell apart last year after questions arose about her academic credentials.

An author and podcaster with her own show, “Wellness Unmasked with Dr. Nicole Saphier,” Saphier frequently comments on the Trump administration's approach to health, often positively. She also used the phrase “Make America Healthy Again” years before Kennedy popularized it. It was the title of a 2020 book she wrote that criticized the government’s handling of healthcare and the Affordable Care Act.

Saphier also has dipped into the wellness product industry, creating a line of herbal supplements called Drop Rx, according to her LinkedIn profile.

A mom of three boys, Saphier has often said she is thankful she decided to keep her first son after becoming unexpectedly pregnant at age 17. She has advocated for more resources for mothers who make the same choice.

Advocating for vaccination while criticizing COVID-era mandates

Like Means, Saphier has questioned some aspects of the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule, including the universal birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine, a longtime recommendation that the Trump administration has been trying to weaken.

She also has aligned with Kennedy's disdain toward COVID-19 vaccination requirements in schools, saying on her podcast in September that they were “a complete disaster" and one of the reasons for declining trust in vaccination.

Saphier says she supports immunization while arguing patients should be free to make their own medical decisions. In March, she praised acting U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya for posting a message encouraging Americans to get vaccinated against measles.

“The more vaccine confusion we create, the more preventable disease we will see,” she said in September, urging the administration to get itself in order "because it’s really upsetting.”

She's called the health department's mistakes ‘embarrassing’

While being supportive of the Trump administration at large, Saphier has publicly cringed at some of its health mishaps. Last summer, she decried its long-anticipated first attempt at a MAHA report, which cited some studies that didn't exist.

"There were a lot of flaws in this report," she said on her podcast. “In fact, it was pretty embarrassing."

She said Kennedy's firing of his first CDC director, Susan Monarez, after less than a month on the job was “a mess.”

"When we keep hearing radical transparency and we’re going to regain trust, I can tell you these shenanigans are taking us farther away from that mission,” Saphier said on her podcast.

In an email to the AP last year, Saphier said Trump's advice to pregnant women not to take Tylenol, which promoted unproven ties between the medication and autism, was overly simplistic. She said equally important, and missing from Trump's message, was the fact that untreated fever or severe pain can also pose serious risks to mothers and babies.

After Means' confirmation hearings earlier this year, Saphier said on her podcast that she expected Means would do a good job as surgeon general but wished she were “a little bit less involved with MAHA.”

“I’d really like to see a little bit more reaching across the aisle when it comes to public health,” Saphier said. “That doesn’t mean it has to be some Democratic nominee for surgeon general, maybe just someone a little less aligned with the MAHA movement who, I don’t know, finished their residency and has an active medical license.”

At least a few prominent MAHA influencers have suggested Saphier is no ally. Turning Point USA podcaster and anti-pesticide campaigner Alex Clark said in a post on Friday that Saphier “gets an F when it comes to all things MAHA.”

The new rules also include significant changes to the much-criticized international film category, expanding eligibility to include films that won top qualifying awards from prestigious film festivals like Cannes, Venice and Toronto.

“As we do every year, we made a lot of, we think, really smart and progressive changes,” film academy CEO Bill Kramer told The Associated Press. “Obviously, as the academy becomes more global, we need to think about how we are inviting international films into the Oscars conversation.”

AI and the Oscars

As part of its annual review of Oscar eligibility rules, the academy is tackling one of the global filmmaking community's biggest concerns: generative artificial intelligence.

The new rules state that “the tools neither help nor harm the chances of achieving a nomination” and that the academy and each branch “will judge the achievement, taking into account the degree to which a human was at the heart of the creative authorship when choosing which movie to award.” They’re also reserving the right to request more information from the filmmaking team about the nature of the use of AI and “human authorship.”

“Humans have to be at the center of the creative process,” said academy president Lynette Howell Taylor. “As AI continues to evolve, our conversations around AI will do so along with that. But for the academy, we are always going to put human authorship at the center of our awards eligibility process.”

When it comes to the eligibility of performances, only roles “demonstrably performed by humans with their consent” will be considered. The organization declined to comment on whether the upcoming AI-rendered Val Kilmer performance would be eligible as the filmmakers have not yet submitted it for consideration.

A likeness is not an actor, for one, but it might also depend on how Kilmer is credited in the film: As Val Kilmer or something else? One could also take Andy Serkis as Gollum as an example of a human collaborating with technology for the final performance.

“We will review that on a case-by-case basis,” Kramer said. “We, like everybody in our industry and world, we will be assessing this every year.”

There is less ambiguity in the screenplay categories, where the rules state that “screenplays must be human-authored to be eligible.”

The film academy has often had to review its standards to meet the technological advances of the moment, whether it be sound, color or computer generated imagery (CGI).

Sweeping changes to international film eligibility

As its membership has grown much more international, there have been increasing calls for an overhaul to the international film category, which had been continually criticized as unjust, outdated and subject to political interference. That's led to independent and dissident filmmakers often pointedly not being submitted to represent the country they’re from.

Last year’s Palme d’Or-winner at Cannes, for instance, was “It Was Just an Accident,” from Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, was not submitted as Iran’s official entry for the 98th Academy Awards, but France’s.

Under the new rules, “It Was Just an Accident” could be considered eligible because it won the top Cannes prize and not because a country chose to submit it. In addition to the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the Golden Lion at Venice and the Platform award at Toronto, other festivals with eligible qualifying awards will also include the Berlin International Film Festival’s Golden Bear, the Busan International Film Festival’s best film award and the Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Grand Jury Prize.

All the international films will also be credited as the nominee, not the country or region, and the award will be accepted by the filmmaker. The director’s name will also be listed on the Oscar plaque, “after the film title and country if applicable.”

“That really reflects our desire to honor the film’s creative team. That is how we approach other categories,” Kramer said. “And as we become more global, as the filmmaking community becomes more global. I think it’s really about a focus on the filmmakers and less a focus of the country.”

Actors can now be nominated for more than one award in a category

The acting branch is catching up with the rest of the academy in allowing an actor to be nominated for more than one performance in a single category. If, say, this year’s best actor winner Michael B. Jordan has two extraordinary leading performances in two different films in 2026, he could possibly get two best actor nominations.

This is standard practice in the other categories. In 2001, at the 73rd Oscars, Steven Soderbergh was nominated for best director for both “Traffic” and “Erin Brockovich,” winning the prize for the former.

And about those original songs in the end credits

The organization also clarified the eligibility of original songs used during a film’s end credits. For songs in which the first music cue plays over the end credits, that song must overlap with at least the film’s last 15 seconds before the credits roll in order to be considered eligible. This year’s original song winner, “Golden” was a key part of “KPop Demon Hunters” and used several times throughout the film.

“We never stop looking at ways to improve our eligibility process,” Taylor said.

Trump turned back the latest proposal almost as soon as it was delivered. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that Iran handed over its plan to mediators in Pakistan on Thursday night.

“They want to make a deal, I’m not satisfied with it, so we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters Friday at the White House, without elaborating on what he saw as its shortcomings.

The shaky three-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran appears to still be holding though both countries have traded accusations of violations.

While the ceasefire has largely halted fighting in Iran, the U.S. and Iran are locked in a standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas passes in peacetime. A U.S. Navy blockade stopping Iran’s tankers from getting out to sea has Iran’s economy reeling. The world economy is also under pressure as Iran maintains its chokehold on the strait.

Negotiations have continued by phone after Trump called off his envoys’ trip to Pakistan last week, the president said. Trump this week floated a new plan to reopen the critical passageway used by America’s Gulf allies to export their oil and gas.

On Friday, Trump expressed frustration with Iran’s leadership, describing it as fractured.

“It’s a very disjointed leadership,” Trump said. “They all want to make a deal, but they’re all messed up.”

Discussing a briefing he had Thursday with Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, the president said the U.S. has just two options in Iran.

“I mean, do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever? Or do we want to try and make a deal? I mean, those are the options,” Trump said.

Trump said he believes Iran’s leadership has made some progress toward unifying around a resolution.

“They’ve made strides, but I’m not sure if they ever get there,” he said. “There’s tremendous discord, they’re having a tremendous problem getting along with each other in Iran.”

Iran’s top diplomat sought support for plan

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a flurry of calls on Friday with many of his regional counterparts, including from Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Azerbaijan, to brief them on his country’s latest initiatives to end the war, according to his social media.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas also spoke over the phone Friday with Araghchi. They discussed ongoing diplomatic efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and long-term security arrangements, Kallas’ office said in a statement. Kallas also has been in contact with the EU’s Gulf partners.

Pakistani officials have said efforts were continuing to ease tensions between Iran and the U.S.

Pakistan’s former ambassador to Washington, Masood Khan, said the continued exchange of proposals indicates that the U.S. and Iran remain engaged in seeking a diplomatic midpoint.

The proposals also come after leaders of the two countries had exchanged some of their harshest threats, Khan said, fueling fears that military hostilities could resume at any moment.

Imprisoned Iranian Nobel laureate moved to hospital

Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi was urgently transferred from prison to a hospital in northwestern Iran after a “catastrophic deterioration” of her health, her foundation said Friday.

The Narges Mohammadi Foundation said she had two episodes of complete loss of consciousness and a severe cardiac crisis. She was believed to have suffered a heart attack in late March, according to her lawyers who visited her a few days after the incident.

The hospital transfer comes “after 140 days of systematic medical neglect,” since her arrest, the foundation said.

Mohammadi, 53, a rights lawyer who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while in prison, was arrested in December and sentenced to seven more years in prison.

Explosion of leftover bombs killed 14 in Iran

An explosion of leftover bombs from strikes during the war against Iran killed 14 Revolutionary Guard members, IRNA and other Iranian media reported Friday.

A report by the Nournews website, believed to be close to Iran’s security, said the explosion happened near the northern city of Zanjan, which is northwest of Tehran.

It was the largest number of Revolutionary Guard members reported to be killed since the ceasefire began on April 7. The report said the ammunition included cluster bombs and air mines dropped during the fighting.

Since the war began on Feb. 28, at least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran, and more than 2,600 people in Lebanon, where new fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah broke out two days after the war started, according to authorities.

Additionally, 24 people have died in Israel and more than 20 in Gulf Arab states. Seventeen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and 13 U.S. service members throughout the region have been killed.

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Ezzidin reported from Cairo and Binkley from Washington. Associated Press writers Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

Korda only took advantage on two of the four par 5s at El Camaleon, and she had to scramble on the par-5 18th coming out of the right rough. But she had the right touch on a gap wedge from just over 50 yards to 4 feet to close out her round with a birdie.

That allowed her to catch Do, who had a fairway metal for her second shot into the par-4 ninth and finished with a bogey for a 69.

They were at 9-under 135 among the early starters, though they still faced a stronger wind than the morning wave from the day before on the course along the coast of the Caribbean Sea.

“Drive it straight, hit it close and make putts,” Korda said of the key to playing El Camaleon, the rest course that previously hosted PGA Tour and LIV Golf events.

Minami Katsu of Japan had a 69 and was two shots behind.

Melanie Green, who shared the 18-hole lead with Do, and Carlota Ciganda were among those playing in the afternoon when the temperature climbs and the wind typically picks up.

Korda hit only seven of the 14 fairways, though she was rarely out of position and at times went with a fairway metal off the tee to avoid the bunkers. But she putted for her birdie on all but two holes and was steady over a few 4-foot par putts.

She also had a big following, only partially related to being the No. 1 player in women's golf with her wire-to-wire victory last week in The Chevron Championship for her second win this year, and her third career major.

She was playing alongside Gaby Lopez of Mexico, who shot 71 and was four shots behind.

“Playing with Gaby the crowds have been amazing to see the local support for her, ” Korda said. “And not complaining about where I am on the leaderboard. Playing some solid golf and playing in front of fun crowds, hometown crowds for Gaby is fun to see. Hopefully I can continue playing well, good golf going into the weekend.”

Do, the 36-year-old American, managed her 69 without making birdie on the par 5s. But her iron game gave her plenty of good looks for birdie, and she converted four of them.

She tied for ninth at the Riviera Maya Open a year ago, her only top 10 on the LPGA Tour.

“I put myself in that position last year here and so I think I’m going to be a little more prepared for it this year,” Do said. “I don’t think you’re ever very comfortable being in contention and leading, and so I’m going accept it and kind of just play within myself and feel the feels and kind of see what happens — just accept what happens.”

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

However, they also agreed to continue discussing alternative proposals and entertain new ones, which could change the plan substantially.

Nations met this week at the International Maritime Organization headquarters in London in preparation for potentially voting in the late fall on new, global regulations to clean up shipping, or the “Net-zero Framework." Instead of finishing the discussions, the delegates scheduled more meetings for the fall to keep working ahead of a vote, keeping the framework as a foundation for their negotiations.

A number of countries submitted alternative proposals and suggested changes, and said those should still be on the table, for inclusive, constructive negotiations. The meeting chairman, Harry Conway of Liberia, assured the group on Friday that these options could still be considered at the forthcoming meetings, and new documents could still be submitted. The document that outlines the work for these meetings was modified to make that explicit.

Australia and others expressed concerns that continuing to discuss alternatives would set the process back, when the impacts of climate change are being felt worldwide and the shipping industry is calling for certainty now to make investments in green technologies.

As the meeting closed, IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said “we kind of are back on track,” while urging delegates to rebuild trust and continue talking to each another.

Em Fenton, of Opportunity Green, said the framework survived, with a majority of countries supporting it, but “survival is not a victory and we cannot end up in a cycle of open-ended negotiations.”

“We must now look forward to moving toward adoption of the framework later this year in a way that maintains urgency and ambition, and delivers justice and equity for countries on the front lines of climate impacts,” said Fenton, senior director for climate diplomacy at the U.K.-based climate change nonprofit.

The regulations would establish a pricing system which would impose fees for every ton of greenhouse gases emitted by ships above allowable limits, in what is effectively the first global tax on greenhouse gas emissions. The United States and Saudi Arabia are among those that strongly oppose a fee.

Nations agreed on the Net-zero Framework last year. Delegates met in October to adopt it, a step that was widely expected to be a formality. The U.S., with trade threats from U.S. President Donald Trump, and support from Saudi Arabia and others, derailed the meeting. Delegates decided to postpone the decision by a year and adjourn.

Most ships today run on heavy fuel oil that releases carbon dioxide and other pollutants as it’s burned. Shipping emissions have grown over the past decade to about 3% of the global total as trade has grown and vessels use immense amounts of fossil fuels to transport cargo over long distances. There is a lot of interest in ammonia as an alternative fuel because the molecule doesn’t contain carbon.

The framework would set a marine fuel standard that decreases, over time, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions allowed from using shipping fuels. The regulations also would establish the pricing mechanism. The fees collected would go into an IMO fund to invest in fuels and technologies needed to transition to green shipping, reward low-emission ships and support developing countries so they aren’t left behind with dirty fuels and old ships.

This will put the global shipping industry on more sustainable footing, both environmentally and economically, than where it is today, said Mark Brownstein, senior vice president, energy transition at Environmental Defense Fund. Oil prices keep going higher since the war with Iran began.

The IMO, which regulates international shipping, set a target for the sector to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by about 2050, and has committed to ensuring that fuels with zero or near-zero emissions are used more widely.

Large ships last about 25 years, so the industry would need to make changes and investments now to reach the goal around 2050. The International Chamber of Shipping, which represents over 80% of the world’s merchant fleet, has advocated for adoption of the regulations.

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

Trump said in a social media post that the EU “is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal,” though he did not flesh out his objections in the post.

Asked by reporters on Friday about the increase in import taxes as he departed the White House for Florida, Trump said the EU was not “as usual” adhering to last year's trade framework, without detailing the source of the tension. He added that he believed the shift to higher tariffs “forces them to move their factory production much faster” to the U.S.

Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had agreed to the trade deal last July. It set a tariff ceiling of 15% on most goods, though the Supreme Court this year ruled against the legal authority that Trump had used to charge that tax. This left Trump looking for substitute authorities, and his administration has imposed a 10% tax while investigating trade imbalances and national security issues to put in new tariffs to make up for lost revenues.

Tariffs could hit a global economy already hurt by the Iran war

The tariffs hit at a moment when the Iran war has crushed the world economy with expectations of slower growth and higher inflation, as oil and natural gas prices have risen due to the effective closure of the critical Strait of Hormuz after strikes by the U.S. and Israel began at the end of February.

At the same time, Trump faces political pressure in the U.S. going into November's midterm elections because of rising levels of inflation. Trump, a Republican, returned to the White House last year on the explicit promise that he could quickly tame prices that jumped in the aftermath of the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic, but higher energy costs pushed annual inflation in March to 3.3%, which was higher than what he had inherited.

Just 30% of U.S. adults approved of Trump's handling of the economy, according to the latest poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Europe wants last year's trade deal to hold

The European Parliament has been moving slowly on finalizing last year's trade agreement but was expected to finish work on the deal next month. The EU said in a statement that it was implementing its “commitments in line with standard legislative practice” and should the U.S. “take measures inconsistent with" that agreement "we will keep our options open to protect EU interests.”

Trump administration officials have not responded to questions about the tariff increase and why Trump said the agreement had been violated. But Trump has had a testy relationship with Europe, having threatened earlier this year to take control of Greenland and later blasting NATO allies for not providing more support to the U.S. for the Iran war.

Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament trade committee, posted on social media that Trump's tariff hike on autos was “unacceptable” and that the Trump administration “keeps breaking its commitments,” including on import taxes for steel and aluminum products.

Jennifer Safavian, CEO of Autos Drive America, which represents the American operations of foreign auto manufacturers, said the tariff increase “would threaten the progress that has already been made to open EU markets and grow the U.S. auto industry.”

Both the U.S. and the EU had previously confirmed their commitment to preserving the trade framework, known as the Turnberry Agreement, which was named after Trump’s golf course in Scotland.

Trump's tariff plans were already upended by the Supreme Court

The status of the 2025 deal was first cast into doubt after the Supreme Court this year ruled that the president lacked the legal authority to declare an economic emergency and charge tariffs on goods from the members of the EU and other states.

The Trump administration has opened up trade investigations under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to replace the tariffs struck down by the court. One of the investigations is looking into whether those trading partners have been lax in cracking down on forced labor. And the other is pursuing allegations that they’ve overproduced goods, driving down prices and putting American manufacturers at a disadvantage.

The alternative tariffs being explored by the Trump administration could ultimately put the agreement with the EU in risk of violation, though European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maroš Šefčovič told reporters last week that the relationship with the U.S. had become more positive over the past year.

To raise tariff rates, Scott Lincicome of the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies said, the president would likely use Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows for duties on national security grounds.

Trump imposed 25% Section 232 tariffs on foreign autos in March 2025, but those tariffs were then lowered as part of the trade framework with the EU.

Lincicome also said Trump’s threats are “just another example of why these trade deals are vaporware. They all rely on handshakes and winks and hopes that Trump doesn’t get mad about something.’’

The EU had said it expected the bilateral deal would save European automakers about 500 million to 600 million euros ($585 million to $700 million) a month.

The value of EU-U.S. trade in goods and services amounted to 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion) in 2024, or an average of 4.6 billion euros a day, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat.

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AP writers Paul Wiseman in Washington and Alexa St. John in Detroit contributed to this report.

Israel’s military and Hezbollah kept up their attacks despite a ceasefire in place since April 17.

Israel’s military on Friday afternoon urged residents of the Lebanese village of Habboush near the southern city of Nabatiyeh to evacuate, warning that those close to Hezbollah’s facilities would be in danger. An airstrike on Habboush that occurred around the time of the warning killed six people, including a woman and a child, and wounded eight, the Health Ministry said.

The state-run National News Agency reported that four people were killed in strikes on three other southern villages.

By Friday afternoon, Hezbollah had issued six statements saying it launched drones and rockets at Israeli military positions.

The Israeli military confirmed that Hezbollah launched an explosive drone that fell in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon. Israeli media reported that a drone strike near Margaliot in northern Israel caused a fire, and that two soldiers were lightly wounded in a separate Hezbollah drone impact in the area.

Friday’s exchanges came after paramedics in southern Lebanon recovered the bodies of five people, including a man and his three sons, from under rubble in the village of Kfar Rumman, also near Nabatiyeh, a day after they were killed.

National News Agency reported that the five were killed in an airstrike late Thursday on Kfar Rumman. The agency identified those whose bodies were recovered as Malek Hamza and his sons, Ali, Fadel and Hamza. It said the strike also killed a Lebanese soldier. The Lebanese army confirmed that a soldier, Ali Jaber, was killed in the strike.

Damaged homes and overburdened hospitals

Despite the war, residents have continued to return to homes in southern Lebanon after being displaced for weeks because of the hostilities.

One of them was Umm Ali Khodor, whose apartment in the southern port city of Tyre was damaged during the previous Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024 and again in the current conflict.

“We were displaced, we rented a house, but as you know the situation is very difficult,” the woman said. “We could not continue so we returned to our home.”

At Jabal Aamel hospital in Tyre, one of the few in the area that are still functioning, director Wael Mroueh said many of the wounded they are treating are people who initially fled but decided to return and take their chances in areas facing periodic bombardment.

The dynamic was “different from all the previous wars,” he said. Many residents left the villages surrounding Tyre in the early days of the war, "but a large number did not find places and came back.”

Many of the hospital’s staff are also displaced, and the medical facility is hosting them and their families to ensure that it can continue to operate. The hospital has enough food and supplies to last for a month, Mroueh said, and is relying on international organizations to maintain its supply chain.

Official condemns targeting of Red Cross

Also Friday, a senior official with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies condemned the targeting of Red Cross volunteers during the Israel-Hezbollah war.

IFRC Under Secretary General for National Society Development and Coordination Xavier Castellanos Mosquera, who was visiting Lebanon, said that two Lebanese Red Cross volunteers have been killed and 18 others wounded by Israeli strikes. More than 100 health workers in total have been killed in Lebanon during the war, according to the country’s health ministry.

Mosquera told The Associate Press that Red Cross volunteers in southern Lebanon have described hugging each other before departing on a call “because they don’t know if they will return.”

He added that he had seen video showing “ambulances that were hit by bullets” while trying to rescue journalist Amal Khalil, who was buried in rubble when an Israeli strike hit a building where she was sheltering in southern Lebanon last month. Her body was pulled from the rubble hours later when rescuers were able to reach the scene.

The IFRC official also recently visited Iran, where he said key facilities of the Iranian Red Crescent Society had been targeted. Two chemical plants that had been their main providers of raw materials to produce plastic syringes and dialysis components were struck and destroyed. Another strike hit close to a Red Crescent rehabilitation center in Tehran that served children, elderly people and people with disabilities, causing damage.

Israel has denied that it deliberately targets health facilities and emergency workers.

The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the United States and Israel launched a war on its main backer, Iran. Israel has since carried out hundreds of airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, capturing dozens of towns and villages along the border.

Since then Lebanon and Israel have held their first direct talks in more than three decades. The two countries have formally been in a state of war since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.

A 10-day ceasefire declared in Washington went into effect on April 17. The ceasefire was later extended by three weeks.

The Health Ministry said Friday that the war’s death toll reached 2,618 while 8,094 were wounded.

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Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press journalist Koral Said in Abu Snan, Israel, and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.

The message from President Donald Trump effectively skirts a May 1 legal deadline to gain approval from members of Congress to continue the war with Iran. That deadline was already set to pass without action from Republican lawmakers who are deferring to the president.

The letter brings into stark relief the bold but legally questionable assertion of presidential power at the heart of Trump’s war, which he began without congressional approval two months ago.

“The hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated,” Trump wrote House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the Senate president pro tempore.

Yet he also made it clear in the letter that the war may be far from over.

“Despite the success of United States operations against the Iranian regime and continued efforts to secure a lasting peace, the threat posed by Iran to the United States and our Armed Forces remains significant,” the Republican president said.

Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Congress must declare war or authorize the use of force within 60 days — Friday was the deadline — or within 90 days if the president asks for an extension. This Congress made no attempt at enforcing that requirement, leaving town Thursday for a week after the Senate rejected a Democratic attempt to halt the war for a sixth time.

Some GOP senators are growing uneasy about the war’s timeline, which Trump initially said would last a few weeks. But Trump's letter showed how the president continues to forego congressional approval. It contends the deadlines set by the law do not apply because the war in Iran effectively ended when a shaky ceasefire began in early April.

The Republican debate over the war

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday he did not plan on a vote to authorize force in Iran or otherwise weigh in.

“I’m listening carefully to what the members of our conference are saying, and at this point I don’t see that,” Thune said.

The reluctance to defy Trump on the war comes at a politically perilous time for Republicans, with public frustration mounting both over the conflict and its impact on gas prices. Still, most GOP lawmakers say they are supportive of Trump’s wartime leadership or are at least willing to give him more time amid the fragile ceasefire.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said he would vote for an authorization of war if Trump asked for it. But Cramer questioned whether the resolution passed during the Vietnam War era, as a way for Congress to claw back its power, was constitutional.

“Our founders created a really strong executive, like it or not like it,” Cramer said.

Some GOP senators did make it clear that they eventually want Congress to have a say.

Indiana Sen. Todd Young said in a statement that lawmakers “must ensure that the people, through their elected representatives, weigh in on whether to send our military into combat.”

He added that since the Trump administration is stating that “the Iran conflict has ceased, there should be no hostilities moving forward,” and that if the conflict resumes, he expects the White House to work with Congress to pass an authorization for use of military force.

Some Republicans signal they want a vote

A handful of GOP senators have said for weeks that Congress should assert its authority over the war at some point. One of those, Maine's Susan Collins, voted for the first time with Democrats on Thursday to halt the war. She said in a statement that she wants to see a defined strategy for bringing the conflict to a close.

“The president’s authority as commander in chief is not without limits," Collins said, adding that the 60-day deadline is “not a suggestion, it is a requirement."

In addition to Collins and Young, Republican Sens. John Curtis of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Josh Hawley of Missouri, among others, have said they would eventually like to see a vote.

Curtis said he would not support continued funding for the war until Congress votes to authorize it.

“It is time for decision-making from both the administration and from Congress — and that can happen in league with one another, not in conflict,” Curtis said.

Thune suggested the White House step up its outreach to lawmakers with briefings and hearings if it wants continued support from Capitol Hill.

“Obviously, getting readouts from our military leadership on a somewhat regular basis, I think, will be helpful in terms of shaping the views of our members about how comfortable they are with everything that’s happening there, and the direction headed forward,” Thune said.

Administration argues the deadline doesn't apply

With the 60-day window under the War Powers Resolution expiring Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a congressional hearing Thursday, “We are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means, the 60-day clock pauses or stops.”

The administration is making that argument even though Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. Navy is maintaining a blockade to prevent Iran’s oil tankers from getting out to sea.

Trump on Friday echoed Hegseth’s argument, and stressed that other presidents had similarly not sought congressional approval as laid out under the 1973 law.

“Every other president considered it totally unconstitutional, and we agree with that,” Trump said at the White House as he departed for Florida.

Democrats scoffed at the suggestion that May 1 was not the real deadline.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said on social media, “There’s no pause button in the Constitution, or the War Powers Act. We’re at war. We’ve been at war for 60 days. The blockade alone is a continuing act of war.”

The development came as little surprise to at least one House Democrat who oversees the military.

Washington Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told The Associated Press: "Is the expectation that the Trump administration is going to follow the law? I do not have that expectation.”

But back-to-back convincing wins by the 76ers in Game 5 and Game 6 have left a Boston team that once looked like a favorite to emerge from the Eastern Conference on the brink of an epic collapse.

A loss in Saturday’s Game 7 would be the No. 2 seed Celtics’ earliest exit from the playoffs since the 2020-21 season.

They may have to do it with star Jayson Tatum dealing with a new ailment after he briefly left Game 6 in the third quarter for unspecified treatment to an apparent left calf injury. Tatum, of course, is just 22 games into his return from the torn right Achilles tendon injury he suffered in last season’s playoffs.

The Celtics downplayed the current situation, with Tatum saying afterward that his leg was only feeling “a little stiff.” He said following a quick assessment and some time on the exercise bike he didn’t return because the game was out of hand and the starters had already been pulled.

Coach Joe Mazzulla said there was no injury at all and reiterated that in a conference call Friday.

“He’ll play,” Mazzulla said.

The recent history for winner-takes-all games for Philadelphia teams isn’t exactly on the 76ers side, though.

The Flyers’ return to the NHL playoffs served as a reminder they are the last Philadelphia sports team to win a Game 7, beating, yes, Boston, in the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinal.

Since then, the 76ers in 2012, 2019, 2021 and 2023 have all lost Game 7s; the Flyers lost one in 2014 and 2020; and the Phillies lost Game 7 of the NLCS in 2023.

The Phillies also lost a decisive Game 5 in the 2011 playoffs.

The Celtics have long had the Sixers’ number in the playoffs, winning the last six series. The 76ers last eliminated the Celtics in the 1982 Eastern Conference semis.

“I’ve been playing these guys for so long,” 76ers star Joel Embiid said. “I’m tired of losing to them. We have a chance to accomplish something special.”

Philadelphia 76ers at Boston Celtics

When/Where to watch: Game 7, 7:30 p.m. EDT (NBC/Peacock)

Series: Series tied 3-3

Betting line: Celtics by 7.5

What to Know: The Celtics are 27-10 all-time in Game 7s, the 76ers are 6-12 in such games and are 0-4 in them since 2001. It’ll be the ninth Game 7 between these two franchises, with Boston going 6-2 in the previous ones. Philadelphia is the 37th team in league history to force a Game 7 after trailing 3-1. Only 13 teams have overcome that deficit and won the series. If Boston is going to prevent the 76ers from becoming the 14th, its shooting must improve. The 76ers have held the NBA’s No. 2 rated offense during the regular season to under 100 points per game in back-to-back games. The Celtics also combined to shoot just 30.5% (22/72) from 3-point range, with 11 makes in each of those games. They led the league in the regular season, averaging 16 3s per game.

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AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston contributed.

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

The team has completed three races already but its biggest debut comes this weekend, on American soil, at the Miami Grand Prix. Cadillac F1 markets itself as the only true American team in the European-dominated series — Haas F1 is owned by California businessman Gene Haas — and represents the American dream.

The effort to enter F1 began with Michael Andretti, son of motorsports' most famous naturalized U.S. citizen, and its 2026 car is named after Mario Andretti. And for its first race in North America, Cadillac debuted a special livery presented by the team’s primary partner, TWG AI.

The design integrates a stars and stripes motif in Cadillac’s signature black and white color scheme, includes 50 stars on the front of the car and “USA” is emblazoned on the rear wing. There is also a splash of red inside the wheels to get red, white and blue on the car.

“Racing at home for the first time is a major milestone for this team and something we’ve been looking forward to for a long time,” said Dan Towriss, CEO of the team and a part-time Fort Lauderdale resident. “There’s a lot of pride in representing the United States as the American team, especially in front of our home fans. We understand what that means and we’re focused on showing up and delivering for them.”

Cadillac fields cars for Valtteri Bottas of Finland and Sergio Perez of Mexico, two veterans who have won in F1 for other teams. Through the first three races their best performance was Bottas finishing 13th and Perez 15th in the second round. Expected to be the worst performing team out of 11 based solely on this being its maiden year, Cadillac heads into Sunday’s race ranked 10th ahead of Aston Martin in the constructors’ standings.

Colton Herta, who left the Andretti Global IndyCar team to race in F2 this season to earn the super license needed to compete in F1, is expected to eventually move into one of the Cadillac seats. The Californian was fastest in Friday’s practice for the junior series and the plan now would eventually make him the only American driver on the F1 grid.

An unexpected five-week layoff because of the war in Iran forced F1 to cancel two events scheduled in the Middle East, and Cadillac used that time to put together “a fairly substantial upgrade package” for Miami.

“It’s spread over different parts of the car so probably the main area is the floor, but there are also changes on front and rear brakes, front wing as well,” team principal Graeme ⁠Lowdon said. “It’s a mixture of aero and a bit of weight saving as well. It’s reasonably sizeable. We’ll be watching the performance of the upgrade with great interest because there’s an awful lot that we need to verify that other teams will be well down the route of doing.”

Most of the teams came to Miami with upgrades, but because Cadillac is so new, it might not have had the bandwidth to make so many changes if not for the break.

“I hope that we can make a bigger step than some other teams,” Bottas said. “Because we should be able to do that in theory from where we started. So that’s the goal. In the first three races I felt like every ⁠race was getting smoother and smoother, less and less issues.”

Lowdon, however, acknowledged that Cadillac is still in its teething phase as it competes against long tenured teams.

”We’re racing against teams that have done literally thousands of grand prixs,” Lowdon said. “If there is a thing such as team muscle memory how you operate, other teams have that advantage. Everything for us is new.”

That includes the attention the team is receiving.

Interest and popularity in Cadillac began even before one of its cars hit the track. Jim Campbell, vice president of performance and motorsports commercial operations, said General Motors CEO Mary Barra and President Mark Reuss will be in Miami all weekend, alongside dealers, customers and invited guests.

“It’s our fourth race, but it’s our first time to race our Cadillac F1 on American soil, it’s super special,” Campbell said. “We’ve been looking forward to this day. We have been here the last three years, really trying to learn about the F1 platform and so to be here now racing is super exciting, as opposed to being here observing.”

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

“There are a lot of young people, mostly young men, going to blue-collar construction jobs, playing the lottery. It drives me crazy,” Bessent said in an interview, giving an example of why he has prioritized meeting with community bankers, retirees and schoolchildren to talk about how to budget, save and manage debt.

”The best thing you can do is not play the lottery," he said — rather, people should invest and “then watch it grow.”

Bessent spoke to The Associated Press about the basics of building a workable budget and saving for the future at the tail end of Financial Literacy Month, an initiative the billionaire hedge fund manager has made a priority since joining President Donald Trump's administration, driven by a childhood marred by poverty.

Former Treasury Secretaries Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner were known for helping navigate the U.S. out of the global financial crisis. Steven Mnuchin made his mark designing and promoting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and Janet Yellen was the only person to also head the Federal Reserve and the Council of Economic Advisers. But Bessent's passion for promoting financial literacy is what he hopes, in part, defines his legacy.

His push to boost budgeting skills comes as Americans grapple with the cost of housing, groceries, energy and everyday items and are skeptical about the Republican administration's performance on the issue. The latest AP-NORC poll data shows Trump’s approval rating on the economy dropped from 38% in March to 30% in April.

The nation is enmeshed in record levels of debt, which surpassed $39 trillion in March, and critics wonder how Bessent can persuade Americans to save for their futures when the government itself is drowning in debt.

“The Trump administration in particular has a problematic record on cutting taxes without offsets and growing spending," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

A billionaire with humble beginnings

Bessent, 63, made his money through a long career in hedge funds, including working with George Soros, a financier and philanthropist whom Trump and other Republicans have vilified. Bessent was famously involved in the Soros firm’s 1992 currency speculation against the British pound tied to Black Wednesday, which generated massive profits. Bessent later launched his own hedge fund called the Key Square Group.

But he often talks about his humble beginnings in rural South Carolina, not far from Myrtle Beach, where at the age of 9 he got his first jobs as a busboy at a cafeteria and hustling to set up chairs and umbrellas on the beach. His father, a real estate developer, had lost generations of Bessent family wealth by overleveraging his obligations.

Bessent wanted to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in 1979 but was barred as an openly gay applicant. That also shut the door to joining the foreign service.

He went to Yale University, where his former professor David Darst recalled teaching him about new financial instruments in capital markets. Darst described Bessent as a "guy who’s working at the highest levels, but he’s interested in people learning the ABCs of finance.”

In 2025, Bessent became the nation's first openly gay treasury secretary. “I sit here knowing that President Trump chose me because he believes I’m the best candidate, not because of my sexual preference, not because treasury secretaries with green eyes do better," Bessent said at his confirmation hearing.

After reaching public office, one of Bessent's first actions was relaunching Financial Literacy Month at the agency.

“Wall Street has grown wealthier than ever before, and it can continue to grow and do well,” Bessent has peppered into various speeches over the past year, insisting that his work in the Trump administration is "focused on Main Street.”

During a roundtable with community financial institutions at the department — one of several such events Bessent hosted last month — he listened to bankers express concerns about the a surge in sophisticated fraud schemes targeting customers and their efforts to get high schoolers interested in saving.

“It could be as simple as a 14-year-old starting a savings account and watching interest compound at 4% a year,” said Thomas Fraser, CEO of First Mutual Holding Co. in Lakewood, Ohio, who attended that roundtable.

Promoting financial literacy to young people

Bessent is not a newcomer to preaching financial literacy. Geoff Canada, president of Harlem Children’s Zone, has known Bessent for 30 years and said the treasury secretary has mentored one of the program's scholars for more than a decade. Canada said Bessent has a “deep understanding that financial literacy is essential for fostering real social and economic mobility for America’s children.”

He said Bessent “has championed this issue long before joining the administration, and I know it remains a top priority.”

A conversation with Bessent about financial literacy inevitably turns to Trump Accounts — the financial vehicle meant to give $1,000 to babies born during the Trump administration. That money is then invested in the stock market by private firms, and the children can access the money when they turn 18.

Bessent said he thinks it will encourage a generation of young people to care more about investing as it shows them “the power of compounding, because that money is locked up for 18 years."

But Bessent said people of all ages and income brackets could be better at managing their money. “There’s a narrative that doctors are famously terrible at finance,” Bessent said.

Critics of the treasury secretary’s approach argue that the problem is less about Americans not knowing how to invest and more about people not having enough spare income to do so, as the cost of living has steadily increased and the war in Iran has driven energy prices higher.

“You cannot preach penny-pinching while making it harder for Americans to pay their grocery, utility and healthcare bills,” said Emily DiVito, senior adviser for economic policy at the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative. “If Secretary Bessent is serious about advancing financial literacy, he should focus on lowering the cost of living for working families.”

Rising debt in the foreground

Bessent's desire to see Americans invest wisely comes as the U.S. debt has reached record levels — and the trajectory of those increases is a cause for concern for budgeting experts.

The U.S. national debt hit $37 trillion in August and then $38 trillion just two months later. Now, it’s at $39 trillion and has surpassed the size of the economy.

Budget advocate MacGuineas warned that the long-term trend of borrowing more and paying more in interest will force Americans to face tougher fiscal tradeoffs ahead.

She praised Bessent for having the goal to cut deficits in half and bring them down to 3% of gross domestic product but said ”it’s going to take a combination of spending reductions, revenue increases and economic growth” to get there.

The Treasury argues that the federal deficit decreased during Trump’s first year back in office and that the provisions in Republicans' tax cuts law have put money back in Americans' pockets.

“It's hard to disagree with the fact that we need more financial literacy in this country,” MacGuineas said. “The bigger picture, of course, is that we should also probably give a financial literacy class to our lawmakers."

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills was forced to abandon her U.S. Senate campaign on Thursday, unable to generate sufficient fundraising or enthusiasm to compete against Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who has never served in elected office. The announcement marked a stinging defeat for Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who recruited Mills to lead the party's decades-long quest to defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

The swift defenestration of a two-term governor by a political neophyte highlighted a stark reality that has begun to take hold at a pivotal moment — Democratic voters are rejecting their party’s establishment and embracing new risks, even as their confidence grows that a blue wave is coming in November's midterm elections.

Sometimes Democrats seem almost as angry at their own party's aging and entrenched leadership as they are at President Donald Trump.

“Rank-and-file Democrats don’t want the Democratic Party as we know it,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the Democratic resistance group Indivisible. “Rank-and-file Democrats want fighters.”

Local Indivisible chapters, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who's an independent but caucuses with Democrats, and other leaders from the party's progressive wing had already lined up behind Platner, who is now almost certain to be the Democratic nominee in one of the party’s best Senate pickup opportunities in the nation.

Platner on Friday insisted he would continue to speak out against his party's leadership, including Schumer, although he acknowledged that the two spoke privately the night before.

“The fact that we’ve been able to do all of this without the help of the establishment, it puts us in such an amazing position,” Platner said on MS NOW's “Morning Joe.” “My criticisms of the party leadership, my criticisms of the party, they have not changed, and I’ve been very vocal about that since the beginning. But we will absolutely take the help that we can get.”

Republicans, meanwhile, are giddy — and some moderate Democratic strategists are worried — that the anti-establishment shift may undermine the party’s effort to claw back control of Congress in November.

“Chuck Schumer has officially lost the first battle in his proxy war with Bernie Sanders,” said Bernadette Breslin, spokesperson for the Senate Republicans' campaign arm. “As Sanders hits the campaign trail to prop up progressives in messy Democrat primaries in Michigan and Minnesota, Schumer’s chances of getting his preferred candidates through look grim.”

The backlash is bigger than Maine

Maine is far from alone.

Prominent anti-establishment clashes are playing out in high-profile Senate races across Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa, along with House races in several states.

Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, continues to promote Platner and other critics of the Democratic Party's national leadership. The Vermont senator will campaign this weekend in Detroit with Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is running in a three-way Senate primary against Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow.

“There’s a desire to turn the page on the old guard,” Sanders' political adviser Faiz Shakir said. “It’s not even just the Democratic electorate. There’s a populist mood in this country. You’d have to be blind not to see it.”

Indeed, McMorrow is actively working to remind voters that she would not support Schumer as Democrats’ Senate leader if given the chance.

“Frankly, I was the first person in this country to say no,” McMorrow said in a video she posted Thursday on social media. “It is a different moment. This is no longer a Republican Party we’re dealing with, it is a MAGA party that has been taken over by Trump loyalists. ... You need to respond in a very different way.”

Veteran Democratic strategists like Lis Smith, who works with candidates across the country, tied the anti-establishment shift to the party's painful losses in 2024, when President Joe Biden was forced to abandon his reelection bid and Vice President Kamala Harris went on to lose to Trump.

“After 2024, voters are sick of the gerontocracy, sick of the status quo, and Chuck Schumer has completely misread that,” Smith said.

Moderates push back

Privately, Schumer's allies downplay the impact of the anti-establishment backlash.

The Senate Democratic leader's preferred picks in North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska haven't faced the same challenges as Mills did in Maine. The four states represent the party's most likely path to a majority in the chamber, which has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats.

Mills is the oldest of the candidates and, at 78, would have been the oldest freshman senator in history. She promised to serve one term if elected. Platner is only 41.

Schumer's team is unwilling to make any apologies for backing Mills over Platner.

“Leader Schumer’s North Star is taking back the Senate," Schumer spokesperson Allison Biasotti said. "When no one thought a Senate majority was possible just a year ago, he made it a reality by recruiting great candidates across the country and laying out an agenda for lower costs and better lives for Americans.”

Some in the Democratic Party’s moderate wing are worried.

Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left group Third Way, said that Platner’s emergence in Maine “without a doubt” will make it harder for Democrats to defeat Collins in November. He warns that it could be the same elsewhere if Democratic primary voters rally behind anti-establishment candidates.

“Our message is if you would like to beat Donald Trump’s Republicans, you better nominate people who can win,” Bennett said.

Far more have a hand in making the opening jewel of the Triple Crown happen.

As Cherie DeVaux looks to become the first woman to train a Derby winner, she is surrounded at Churchill Downs by hundreds of influential women at the track, on the air and behind the scenes on the first Saturday in May.

“I often hear about women being involved with a male-dominated sport, but for me it feels like it’s my sport,” jockey-turned-NBC broadcaster Donna Brothers said. “Women are an integral part of it. You see a lot of exercise riders out there who are women, a lot of female grooms, hotwalkers. Unfortunately, you still don’t see a lot of women in the top names — the top jockeys and the top trainers — but I think we’re getting there.”

Brothers is joined on NBC's broadcast by Britney Eurton, who has been in horse racing her entire life as the daughter of trainer Peter Eurton. Lindsay Schanzer four years ago became the first woman to produce the Kentucky Derby, and the 152th running will be her fifth in charge.

"It’s not just a male-dominated sport but also a male-dominated industry, sports TV, so I feel great pride," said Schanzer, who is one of more than 30 women involved in the production, operation and marketing of the race for NBC Sports. “I feel honored to be in this position and to represent the team that I have as best I can.”

DeVaux, who trains Golden Tempo, earlier this week seemed to downplay her chance at history. Seeing a young girl on the backstretch near her barn made her realize in the moment just how monumental it would be if Golden Tempo puts her in the record books.

“It would be irresponsible of me to not acknowledge that what I’m doing does inadvertently make a difference, even if it’s not my intent,” said DeVaux, who grew up with seven brothers and two sisters. “My brothers are a lot bigger than me, so I think that’s what shaped me. I’ve had to fight and scrap and be heard so that I could survive growing up. And I understand that’s not the same for everybody.”

Brothers, whose mother was a jockey, started thinking about the ramifications for DeVaux after watching Golden Tempo on the track and realizing how good a chance he has. Jena Antonucci with Arcangelo in the Belmont Stakes in 2022 is the only woman to train the winner of a Triple Crown race.

The Derby adds another layer.

"Take gender out of it: She’s a phenomenal trainer," Eurton said of DeVaux. “For her, this is her life. Male or female, this is what she’s wanted to do and she’s very, very good at it. It’s just a matter of time whether it’s Cherie or another talented female trainer.”

An exercise rider for Brad Cox, Katie Tolbert would have a huge hand in the success if Commandment gets the job done on Saturday. And there are countless other women at the barns and around all the horses in the race.

“My dad has a lot of female grooms, assistants,” Eurton said. “It can always be greater, but to have that representation is where the start is. And to have so much female support, I think, is huge.”

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AP horse racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing

Employees of Cuba’s Electric Union are working 24 hours a day as the island’s power grid continues to crumble, provoking islandwide outages worsened by a lack of gasoline stemming from a U.S. energy blockade.

“We are living through difficult times,” said Yunier Meriño Reyes, an accountant with the Electric Union who joined Friday’s march to celebrate his colleagues. “We are carrying out a very tough, arduous and relentless effort — day and night — to provide electricity to the people who need it.”

Cuba’s power crisis deepened after the U.S. attacked Venezuela in early January, halting critical oil shipments from the South American country. Later that month, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba.

As a result, the island spent more than three months without a single oil shipment until a Russian tanker laden with 730,000 barrels docked in Cuba in late March.

Before it arrived, Cuba was relying solely on natural gas, limited solar power and disintegrating thermoelectric plants.

“It was brutal,” Vicente de la O Levy, Cuba’s energy and mines minister, recently told reporters.

Once the Russian oil arrived, it had to be refined, a process that took roughly two weeks.

“We have been working eight hours a day without stopping,” said Rafael Martínez, a refinery worker at Cuba’s Petroleum Union.

He recalled his joy when he heard that the Russian tanker had docked.

“Our job is to push ahead, that’s all you can do,” he said as his colleagues rallied around him on Friday, playing on cowbells and a large drum as they celebrated their day.

Cuba’s Petroleum Union posted a recent video highlighting its workers, including driver José Antonio Báez.

“Our work generates the entire economy of the country. We drive the country’s economy,” he said.

Pedro Luis López Manzano, an engineer and the director of maintenance at the Cienfuegos refinery, said in the video that crews had to take several steps to ensure operability because the refinery was shut down for four months.

“It’s a challenge, but we always thought it was possible,” he said.

Meanwhile, Gustavo Rodríguez Cordero, an engineer and a director general at Cuba’s Petroleum Union in Villa Clara, criticized the U.S. energy blockade in a video posted by his company.

“No one has the international right to oppress a people in this manner,” he said.

After the oil was refined, de la O Levy said the government chose to prioritize vital sectors including agriculture and food production.

“This enabled the irrigation of tobacco, corn and soybeans,” he said. “There were more hours of power outages than anticipated because we diverted a portion of the energy supply toward production; we could not allow factories to remain idle.”

He said some of the petroleum was converted into approximately 6,000 tons of diesel and fuel oil that was used to power hospitals, generators and transportation.

De la O Levy said Cuba’s situation began to improve starting April 17: “not the desired one, but significant.”

He said the government distributed 800 tons of fuel a day out of the 1,600 tons needed.

“If we used 1,600 tons, there would be fewer blackouts, but the (fuel) would last half as long,” he said.

De la O Levy warned the Russian oil was expected to last only until the end of April, noting that the priority is to sustain the island’s thermoelectric plants using Cuban crude oil.

“Without this fuel, we would face a total, systemwide blackout,” he said.

Cuba produces 40% of its required fuel and depends heavily on imports.

As the island’s crises grind on, Katiusca Carreño, 53, who works at the Electric Union’s command center, said she is committed to satisfying Cuba’s people.

“Resources aren’t reaching us, but all of us workers are still here,” she said after Friday’s rally. “It’s hard, but not impossible. We work 24 hours a day.”

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

Talankin, who co-directed the best documentary winner “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” didn't expect to have to check his statuette for a flight from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport bound for Frankfurt, Germany, on Wednesday. But a Transportation Security Administration agent said it couldn't go on board.

“At the airport, a TSA agent stopped him and said the Oscar could be used as a weapon,” Talankin's co-director, David Borenstein, said Thursday night in a post on Instagram.

“Pavel didn’t have a bag to check it in, so the TSA put the Oscar in a box and sent it to the bottom of the plane,” added Borenstein. “It never arrived in Frankfurt.”

After Borenstein's announcement prompted an international outcry, the airline Lufthansa on Friday said it had found the lost Oscar.

“We can confirm that the Oscar statue has now been located and is safely in our care in Frankfurt,” the airline said in statement. “We are in direct contact with the guest to arrange its personal return as quickly as possible. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and have apologized to the owner.”

Lufthansa added that an “internal review of the circumstances is ongoing.”

In March, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” won the Academy Award for best documentary, and Talankin and Borenstein's acceptance speech supplied one of the most memorable moments of the ceremony.

Talankin — the “Mr. Nobody” of the film — was a teacher and activities director in a small-town school in Russia who captured on video his students’ lessons, chants and songs promoting Putin's war in Ukraine. He smuggled his hard drives out of the country to collaborate with Borenstein, who lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Talankin, speaking in Russian through a translator, said from the stage: “In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now.”

The TSA didn't immediately respond to queries Friday.

Buckle up for a few seismic changes. Shania Twain will host for the first time ever, taking over for Reba McEntire. The awards ceremony will also take place May 17 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, leaving the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, just north of Dallas, after three years. And women lead the nominations.

But where will the 2026 ACM Awards stream? Who is nominated? What else is noteworthy this year and who will perform?

Read on for those answers and more.

How to watch the ACMs

The 2026 ACM Awards will stream on Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch as well as the Amazon Music app on May 17 at 8 p.m. EDT.

Who is nominated?

It's the emo cowgirl herself. Megan Moroney leads the 2026 Academy of Country Music Awards with nine nominations.

She's followed by Miranda Lambert, the most-decorated artist in ACM Awards history, with eight, as well as Ella Langley and Lainey Wilson with seven.

Then it is Chris Stapleton with six, Zach Top with five and Cody Johnson with four.

In addition to Moroney, those competing for entertainer of the year are Wilson, Stapleton, Johnson, Luke Combs, Jelly Roll and Morgan Wallen.

In 2025, Wilson took home the top prize — for a second year in a row.

In the album of the year category, Wallen’s “I’m the Problem” faces off against Top’s “Ain’t In It For My Health,” Riley Green’s “Don’t Mind If I Do,” Parker McCollum’s “Parker McCollum” and first-time nominee Carter Faith’s “Cherry Valley.”

Other first-time nominees include 49 Winchester, Avery Anna, Mackenzie Carpenter, Hudson Westbrook, Stephen Wilson Jr. and more.

What's noteworthy?

A lot! Beyond the move to Las Vegas and Twain's first-time taking a turn at hosting, it's clear that women are ruling the nominations, with Moroney, Lambert, Langley and Lainey Wilson leading the pack.

But is it a sign that the country music business is making room for more female talent?

“I think it is so cool,” country singer Ashley McBryde told The Associated Press about women leading the nods.

But the music industry pitting women against one another? She says she's not sure that will ever stop. “But I think we've managed — me, Miranda (Lambert), Carly (Pearce), Kelsey (Ballerini), we’ve been trying to build a table, and we’ve been trying for years to make the table bigger, and now it is. And I’m looking forward to operating in the environment that we built.”

Additionally, unlike last year, there isn't just one song dominating. Who could forget the year of Langley and Riley Green's “You Look Like You Love Me,” which accounted for six of her eight nods last year?

This time around, in the single of the year category, Lambert and Stapleton’s “A Song to Sing” will go head-to-head with Moroney’s “Am I Okay?,” Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” Top’s “I Never Lie” and Wilson’s “Somewhere Over Laredo.” And that's just scratching the surface.

Who is performing?

Performers will include Lambert, Langley, Top, Faith, Wilson, Johnson, Green, Kacey Musgraves, Little Big Town, Blake Shelton, Dan + Shay, Jordan Davis, Kane Brown, The Red Clay Strays, Thomas Rhett, Avery Anna and Tucker Wetmore.

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For more coverage of this year’s ACM Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/academy-of-country-music-awards

The activists, Spanish-Swedish citizen of Palestinian origin Saif Abukeshek and Brazilian citizen Thiago Ávila, were among dozens of activists intercepted by the Israeli navy off the coast of Crete. They are members of the Global Sumud Flotilla's steering committee, whose mission was to break Israel's naval blockade and bring some humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory.

In all, 22 boats and 175 activists were intercepted by the Israeli navy. Activists said Israeli forces stormed their vessels, smashed engines and detained some of those onboard. The incident occurred hundreds of miles (kilometers) from Gaza and Israel overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.

Israeli officials said they needed to take early action against the flotilla before it reached Israeli waters because of the high number of boats involved.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Friday on X that it was taking the two activists to Israel for questioning, and that Abukeshek was “suspected of affiliation with a terrorist organization” and Ávila was “suspected of illegal activity," without providing evidence.

In a joint statement, the governments of Brazil and Spain condemned “the kidnapping of two of their citizens in international waters by the Government of Israel." Unlike other flotilla participants who were disembarked in Crete, the Spanish and Brazilian activists remained detained aboard an Israeli navy ship in Greek territorial waters.

“This flagrantly illegal action by the Israeli authorities outside their jurisdiction constitutes a violation of International Law, which may be invoked before international courts, and may constitute a crime in our respective national jurisdictions,” the statement added.

The governments of both nations demanded the immediate return of their citizens and immediate consular access.

Activists say they were mistreated by Israeli forces

The Global Sumud Flotilla appealed for international support to pressure Israel to release the activists. It said it was particularly concerned for Abukeshek, who was aboard an observer boat and did not plan on sailing to Gaza, and Ávila.

“We don’t know if they are still in Greek waters,” Ávila's spouse, Lara Souza, said. She added that Brazil's government told her that once the two activists were taken to international waters, it would become more difficult to achieve their release.

In an audio message released Friday, Spain's Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares demanded Abukeshek's immediate release. Around 30 other Spanish citizens disembarked in Crete and were assisted by the embassy in Greece, he said.

Flotilla organizers said Israeli authorities denied activists food and water and forced them "to sleep on floors that were deliberately and repeatedly flooded.”

When Israeli forces proceeded to take Abukeshek and Ávila away, the group resisted and were met with “sheer violence,” flotilla organizers said in a statement Friday. “Participants were punched, kicked and dragged across the deck with their hands bound behind their backs. They suffered broken noses, cracked ribs and bloody beatings. Shots were even fired at them in the chaos.”

Some 34 people, including citizens of the U.S., Australia, Colombia, Italy, Ukraine and others were injured and taken to the hospital upon disembarkation, organizers said.

Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to the accusations. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Thursday that activists “taken off the vessels were taken off unharmed.”

Of the 53 vessels that had been sailing prior to the interception, 31 reached safe waters and would continue their attempts to “break the illegal siege of Gaza,” organizers said. The flotilla set sail earlier this month from Barcelona, Spain.

The Greek Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it had asked Israel to withdraw its ships from the area and offered its “good services” for the activists to disembark in Greece and be repatriated.

US condemns the flotilla

Protests in solidarity with the flotilla erupted across several capitals including in Rome, Athens and Istanbul.

The U.S. government described the flotilla as a “pro-Hamas initiative” and called on allies to deny the vessels' port access, among other actions.

“The United States expects all our allies, particularly those who have committed to supporting President Trump’s successful 20-Point Plan, to take decisive action against this meaningless political stunt,” the State Department said.

The flotilla’s latest attempt to reach Gaza comes less than a year after Israeli authorities foiled a previous effort by the group. That attempt involved about 50 vessels and around 500 activists, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela, and several lawmakers.

Israel arrested, detained and later deported the participants, including Ávila, who claimed Israeli authorities abused them while in detention. Israeli authorities denied the accusations.

But this year, delays in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that has shielded her and hundreds of thousands of others from deportation, led to her missing her renewal deadline, losing her job and fearing detention in the country she has called home since she was 6 years old.

She said that as an immigrant in the U.S., fear has become her “new baseline." “But now, having a new level of vulnerability, it was a very quick increase in the fear," said Candia.

Renewal wait times for the Obama-era program that allows people who were brought to the U.S. as children to temporarily remain in the country and work have increased to levels not seen since 2016 when there were significant technical issues.

Some of the program’s more than 500,000 beneficiaries, often referred to as “Dreamers,” have waited months for an answer only to see their deadline pass without a decision. Now they’re stuck in a type of limbo in which their work authorization disappears, oftentimes along with their driver’s license, and their ability to stay in the U.S. is at risk.

“It’s not just anecdotal; it’s happening at a larger scale than we’ve ever seen before,” said Greisa Martinez Rosas, executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant youth-led network.

No numbers were available on how many people have recently missed their renewal deadline despite applying 120 to 150 days before their DACA lapses, which is what U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recommends.

“Under the leadership of President Trump, USCIS is safeguarding the American people by more thoroughly screening and vetting all aliens, which can lengthen processing times," Zach Kahler, an agency spokesperson, said in a statement.

Wait times nearly 5 times longer

DACA grants those who qualify two-year, renewable permits to live and work in the U.S. It does not confer legal status but is meant to offer protection from deportation.

From October 2025 to the end of February 2026, the median wait time for renewals was about 70 days, compared to about 15 days in fiscal year 2025, according to USCIS. This is the longest median wait time since 2016, when it was about 79 days, according to the agency’s data, which did not include 2020 because of the pandemic.

The Department of Homeland Security attributed the 2016 delays to technical issues that emerged as it transitioned to fully processing DACA renewals in its electronic immigration system.

At the end of April 2026, USCIS was reporting that the majority of renewal requests were being completed within about 122 days. That marked a two-week increase from the processing times listed earlier that month.

Federal lawmakers and immigrant groups say some applicants recently have had to wait 6 months — about 183 days — or longer.

“The delays that people are concerned about used to be sort of a matter of weeks at a time,” U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said in an interview. “Now it’s from a few months to many, many months.”

He is one of dozens of lawmakers behind letters sent to federal agencies that question the inflated wait times and whether people who have missed their renewal deadline are being targeted for arrest or deportation.

More than five months after Elsa Sanchez submitted her DACA renewal request, she is still waiting for an answer. When the deadline passed at the beginning of April, she was put on leave at her job at a healthcare IT company and now, as a single mother of a college freshman, has no income.

It's made her worried about everything from traveling to spending money on pricier household products like shampoos and detergents.

“I’m like, ‘I don’t know, maybe I can cut down on that. Maybe I don’t need this,'" she said. “Because I’m saving every penny.”

Sanchez said something similar happened about a decade ago, but this time she's scared of the possible repercussions amid President Donald Trump’s mass deportations agenda.

Since DACA's introduction in 2012, it's faced myriad legal battles, including two that made it to the Supreme Court. And now, while the government is still approving renewals, a 2025 federal court decision means it isn't processing first-time applications and has left the door open for another possible trip to the Supreme Court.

Hundreds of DACA recipien

ts arrested

In the first 11 months of 2025, more than 250 DACA recipients were arrested and 86 deported, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said earlier this year. She said the majority of those arrested had “criminal histories,” without indicating the nature of the crimes or if they were arrests, charges or convictions. In a separate response to a Democratic congresswoman’s inquiry, DHS reported conflicting numbers saying that 270 were arrested and 174 DACA applicants were removed in the first nine months of 2025.

Their eligibility is dependent in part on not having a felony conviction, a significant misdemeanor or three misdemeanors. Previously, if their status was in jeopardy, they would get a warning and still have the chance to fight it before immigration officers detained them and began efforts to deport them.

Kahler, from USCIS, said that DACA recipients are not automatically protected from deportation.

“Any illegal alien who is a DACA recipient may be subject to arrest and deportation for a number of reasons — including if they committed a crime,” he said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to questions about whether DACA beneficiaries were being targeted after missing their renewal deadlines.

But federal lawmakers have recently noted people picked up by ICE after their DACA lapsed.

Their protections may have been further eroded with a precedent decision last week in which the Board of Immigration Appeals determined that DACA status alone is not enough to stop deportation.

People from certain countries may be most at risk

Experts have suggested the longer wait times could be related to the biometric appointments, which were paused during the pandemic, being restarted. Some may also not be getting approved by their deadline because they're not sending it in by the recommended time.

Maria Fernanda Madrigal is an immigration attorney and DACA recipient who submitted her renewal application about a month and a half before the deadline because she said that’s all the processing time that’s been needed in the past. She said she was also waiting for her job to hold a DACA workshop so that she could get the more than $550 fee for renewal waived.

Earlier this month, her DACA lapsed and the mother of three was let go from her job.

“My first concern was my cases, to be honest, because I knew I was going to have to hand off everything, and my team is already overworked,” said Madrigal.

Immigration attorneys have also said that USCIS has paused processing renewals for people from dozens of countries the agency described in recent policy memorandums as “high-risk” following presidential proclamations. The National Immigration Law Center estimated that as many as 3,000 to 4,000 people could be impacted.

“This process that has no timeline is leading to people from certain countries experiencing a pause. And we don’t know how long that pause will be in place," said Ignacia Rodriguez Kmec, attorney at the National Immigration Law Center.

Every day, Candia checks on her renewal. She said she's most afraid of being locked up in bad conditions in an ICE detention facility, but also thinks about what it would be like returning to Bolivia after more than 25 years.

“If God forbid that happened, it would break my heart because I’ve been in this country since I was 6," she said. “My entire life is here.”

The Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, which represented Baselitz, said the artist died on Thursday, citing his family. It said he died “peacefully,” but did not give a cause of death.

Born Hans-Georg Kern, Baselitz took his artistic name from the village of Deutschbaselitz in the eastern Saxony region, where he was born on Jan. 23, 1938, in Nazi-ruled Germany before the outbreak of World War II. After growing up in the ruins of the war, he left the then-East Germany in 1957 at a time of rising political pressure, and emigrated to the West.

“I was born into a destroyed order, into a destroyed landscape, into a destroyed people, into a destroyed society,” he told German news agency dpa before his 85th birthday.

The gallery called him “a titan of contemporary painting, sculpture, drawing and printmaking" and “one of the most important artists of our time," who influenced fellow artists and the international art world.

His first exhibition in 1963 reportedly caused a stir, with a vice squad identifying pornography in at least two of his paintings, and confiscating them.

He was often described as an “artist of rage,” and had a motto of "contradiction," according to dpa.

His works hang in some of the world's top galleries and have fetched millions at auction. In 2017, German police announced they had recovered 15 stolen paintings and drawings by Baselitz worth around 2.5 million euros ($2.9 million).

Baselitz recalled that some of his earliest recognition came in the 1960s through his series of golden-colored “Hero” paintings, based on fictional characters from Russian civil war novels. The works depicted broken figures staggering toward the viewer in ragged uniforms — in distorted sizes, giant hands and small heads. His battle-weary hero, “Der Hirte (The Shepherd)” from 1966 won international acclaim.

In 1969, Baselitz created “Der Wald auf dem Kopf,” (The Forest on its Head), his first “inverted” painting — featuring trees upside down, a theme that would become one of his trademarks.

“Georg Baselitz did not just turn his paintings upside down; he also turned our thinking routines upside down,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. “Having experienced the destruction and suffering of the Second World War as a child, the collapse of all order forced him to question everything around him.”

Baselitz mused about his long career in a recent video, commenting that “typical painting has never appealed to me.”

“I actually wanted to be more of a black-and-white painter, and above all, I didn’t want to work spatially, perspectively, with shadows and light and such things that arise with the imitation of nature," he said while seated in a wheelchair in a paint-smudged jacket.

“I must say that throughout my life, I was not aware that I was a painter of color, even though I am constantly told that I have such wonderful colors,” Baselitz said.

Baselitz said he sought to “construct my connection to the world, to myself and to my wife,” using the most “simple and ordinary" means possible. He spoke in a video from the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice, which is hosting an exhibition of Baselitz's “Golden Heroes” works from May 6 to Sept. 27.

A “Naked Masters” exhibit at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 2023 spanned his half-century career and dealt with controversial themes of nudity — notably of the painter and his wife, Elke — displayed alongside oil paintings by old masters also evoking nudity.

He is survived by his wife and sons, Daniel Blau and Anton Kern, the gallery said.

There’s more than a few up-and-coming talents to get excited about in the movies this summer. The Associated Press spoke to 11 ones to watch.

Catherine Lagaʻaia, “Moana”

Catherine Lagaʻaia (“lung-uh-aye-uh”) found out she got “Moana” on a school day. It was around 8:15 a.m. and she’d just heard the best news of her life after a very stressful year of auditioning. But the celebration would have to wait: It was swimming carnival day and she was on deck for the 400-meter backstroke.

“I guess, like, the water vibes carried through,” said Lagaʻaia, 20, laughing.

Lagaʻaia, who is one of eight children, grew up around acting in Sydney, Australia. Her father played Captain Typho in the “Star Wars” prequels, she went to a performing arts high school and a lot of her siblings are in theater. Two of her sisters even auditioned for “Moana” alongside her, but she was just the right age at the right time, she said.

The animated film meant the world to Lagaʻaia, who is of Samoan heritage, and she’s acutely aware of the big expectations for the live action film (out July 10) — she has them for herself too.

“I felt a fair bit of impostor syndrome stepping into it,” she said. “I think we’ve made some great changes, and we’ve kept a lot of the stuff that holds the heart of the film the same.”

Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen, “Leviticus”

Teenage boys Ryan (Stacy Clausen, 21) and Naim (Joe Bird, 19) are drawn to one another in their backwater Australian community in “Leviticus,” the “conversion therapy” horror that broke out at the Sundance Film Festival. It hits theaters on June 19.

“It is about growing up queer and how the fear of growing up queer can block someone mentally from acting on their desires, and physically,” Clausen said. “But I think that there is something in it for everyone, like whether you’re LGBTQIA or not, it’s about love.”

They knew they had made something special, but it’s been affirming to see it resonate with audiences. When the trailer posted on YouTube, Bird noticed one commenter who wrote that they wished they’d had this film when they were younger.

“It just takes one person to be inspired, or you know say, ‘Oh, I wish I had a film like this’ to know that you’ve kind of done your job,” Bird said. “It’s all about connecting.”

Kara Young and Mallori Johnson, “Is God Is”

Aleshea Harris chose a two-time Tony-winner, Kara Young, and a relative newcomer, Mallori Johnson, to anchor the big screen adaptation of her Obie-winning play “Is God Is.” The story is centered on twin sisters searching for their abusive father, who burned and scarred them as babies.

Young plays Racine the Rough One; Johnson is Anaia the Quiet One. After fending for themselves their entire lives are set on an epic road trip and a journey of revenge and reckoning. It’s in theaters on May 15.

“Anaia depends a lot on Racine to protect her,” Johnson said. “I think that they’ve set up a dynamic since they were children … they have this kind of codependent relationship.”

And although both Young and Johnson are in different phases of their careers, their enthusiasm for the material, and getting to be part of it, is identical.

“Getting into the world of ‘Is God Is’ feels like an ancestral calling in some wild, beautiful, almost like indescribable way,” Young said. “It’s an epic road trip. It’s a Greek tragedy. It’s a love story between two sisters …. I lost my train of thought because I just got so hyped.”

Kane Parsons, “Backrooms”

Kane Parsons was a teenager when he was signed to direct his first feature, based on his viral YouTube series “Backrooms.”

The concept was inspired by an internet creepypasta that imagined never-ending expanse rooms and hallways full of fluorescent lights, old carpet and monotonous yellow paint; He took that idea and ran with it, creating unnerving videos from his bedroom with the help of the open-source 3D graphics software Blender. Soon both James Wan and Shawn Levy’s companies were interested in taking it to the next level.

In the film, out May 29, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a struggling furniture store owner who seemingly slips out of reality. Renate Reinsve co-stars.

“I don’t think of this as inherently horror-driven; it’s definitely not a building full of monsters,” Parsons, 20, said. “I’ve always been more interested in the sort of man looking in the mirror version.”

The bachelors, “72 Hours”

“SNL” cast members Kam Patterson, 27, and Ben Marshall, 30, play a couple of Gen Z guys on a bachelor trip, with Marcello Hernández, groom-to-be Mason Gooding and a middle-aged colleague (Kevin Hart) who was accidentally added to the group chat in the new Netflix comedy “72 Hours” (streaming July 24).

“It was the most fun you could possibly have shooting a movie,” Marshall said.

Between goofing around in a mansion in New Jersey and hanging in Miami with Hernández, it was, Patterson said, like summer camp. And Hart was their de facto counselor. They teased Gooding about never having his shirt on, Marshall for being so uniquely bad at jet skiing and Patterson for that time someone left him with one of the production assistant’s walkie talkies and for 5 minutes he had an open mic to the entire crew. That energy continued when the cameras were on too.

“I don’t think we said one word that’s actually in the script,” Marshall laughed.

Patterson chimed in: “Not at all. We take that script and threw it out the window.”

The new assistants in “The Devil Wears Prada 2”

Call them the new Emilys. Or, maybe don’t. But there’s a new batch of smart, young things manning the desks at “Runway” in “The Devil Wears Prada 2” (now in theaters).

Simone Ashley, of “Bridgerton” fame, is Miranda Priestly’s first assistant Amari, who screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna didn’t want to be Emily 2.0.

“With Amari the comedy comes from, like, flick of the wrist kind of sassiness and her quiet confidence,” Ashley, 31, said. “Me and Aline kind of had this inside joke that Amari is like secretly the next Miranda.”

Comedian Caleb Hearon, 31, is Miranda’s second assistant, Charlie, who is not allowed to leave his desk. Ever. But he’s not mad about it: This is literally the dream.

“I really thought a lot about a guy like Charlie and what it would mean to him to be in this office and why he wouldn’t mind staying at the desk all day,” Hearon said.

And finally, there is Helen J Shen, 26, who after breaking out on stage in “Maybe Happy Ending” makes her big screen debut as Andy’s assistant, Jin.

Shen said she “was excited to see that the dialogue was so silly to me, but Jin doesn’t find it silly.”

“I felt like that was a fresh take on someone who knows exactly what they’re trying to do,” Shen added. “She has a lot of wonderful things under her belts, intelligence wise, and she’s just trying to like, show that and be as helpful to Andy as possible.”

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For more coverage of this summer’s upcoming films, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/movies

Exxon Mobil and Chevron reported quarterly results on Friday, with adjusted profits for both companies topping Wall Street expectations. The shares of both companies, up sharply this week, ticked higher before the opening bell.

With energy prices depressed at the start of the year, Exxon Mobil and Chevron had arranged hedges to offset volatility, a standard practice in the industry. Companies and investors through hedges lock in a price in advance to protect themselves from futures swings. That can provide them with some predictability on costs.

In the aftermath of an attack by the U.S. and Israel on Iran, however, the physical delivery of oil became impossible with the Strait of Hormuz essentially closed. Exxon and Chevron cannot book gains on those hedges until the crude is physically delivered.

The near closure of the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran is a flashpoint in the war and the source of much of the economic pain being felt globally. About 20% of the world’s oil passes through the strait on a typical day, but the passage has been choked off since the war began in late February.

Exxon earned $4.18 billion, or $1 per share, for the period ended March 31. A year earlier it earned $7.7 billion, or $1.76 per share. The company lost almost $4 billion in the quarter on what it called “unfavorable estimated timing effects” of its hedges.

Removing such one-time impacts, Exxon earned $1.16 per share, 9 cents better than Wall Street projections, according to a survey by Zacks Investment Research predicted. Exxon does not adjust its reported results based on one-time events such as asset sales.

Revenue totaled $85.14 billion, breezing past Wall Street's expectation of $81.49 billion.

First-quarter net production was 4.6 million oil-equivalent barrels per day. That’s down from 5 million oil-equivalent barrels per day in the previous quarter.

“If you look at the unprecedented disruption in the world’s supply of oil and natural gas, the market hasn’t seen the full impact of that yet," CEO Darren Woods said during a conference call. "So there’s more to come if the strait remains closed, why haven’t we seen those impacts manifest themselves fully in the market yet? Well, I think we all know there was a lot of water and a lot of oil in transit on the water, a lot of inventory on the water.”

Chevron reported a first-quarter profit of $2.21 billion, or $1.11 per share. It earned $3.5 billion, or $2 per share, a year earlier.

The company said that its quarter included a $360 million net loss related to a legal reserve and that foreign currency effects lowered earnings by $223 million.

Chevron's adjusted profit was $1.41 per share, easily beating the 92 cents per share Wall Street was calling for. Like Exxon, Chevron does not adjust its reported results based on one-time events such as asset sales.

The company's revenue totaled $48.61 billion, also better than expected.

Exxon and Chevron are among the big drillers reporting earnings this week. On Tuesday BP said that its first-quarter profit more than doubled.

The oil companies' results come at a time when gasoline prices in the U.S. hit new multiyear highs, a point of increasing agitation for travelers, households and also businesses that are particularly sensitive to higher energy prices.

The average price of gasoline in the U.S. hit $4.39 on Friday, according to motor club AAA, up more than 8% this week.

Inflation in the U.S. rose sharply in March, fueled by the largest jump in gas prices in six decades, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor. The surge in gas prices has squeezed the budgets of lower- and middle-income families, making it more difficult to pay for necessities.

But it’s disrupting businesses as well, particularly those sensitive to higher fuel costs. Airlines worldwide have begun canceling flights as the war in the Middle East strains jet fuel supplies and pushes up ticket prices.

Oil prices eased on Friday, helping to steady the relatively few stock markets open worldwide on the May Day holiday.

Prosecutors said they decided to charge Claire Freemantle, 49, with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and seven counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving after the Metropolitan Police reopened its investigation and discovered new evidence.

The London police force apologized for how it initially treated the crash and said it had referred its own officers to a watchdog agency looking into police misconduct.

Freemantle was originally not charged after prosecutors said she had an epileptic seizure. She had issued a statement expressing her “deepest sorrow” but said she had no recollection of what occurred.

Defense lawyers questioned why prosecutors reversed their original decision not to charge Freemantle and said she will plead not guilty when she makes her first court appearance June 16 in Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

It's not clear what new evidence police found, but the reinvestigation came after complaints by the parents of Nuria Sajjad and Selena Lau, who were killed in the crash outside the private Study Preparatory School in Wimbledon, south London, on July 6, 2023.

The driver plowed through a fence and into the side of the school building. More than a dozen people were treated for injuries at the scene and 10, including several pupils, were taken to the hospital for treatment.

School board members reviewed additional cost-cutting options during a budget workshop. However, no there was no approving any official reductions.

What we know so far

The shortfall comes after a change in the city’s school funding formula.

In March, the board approved a preliminary $269 million budget that includes a 2% pay raise and higher health benefits. The district also announced it would eliminate 170 positions — most through existing vacancies, resignations or retirements — but 65 of those positions are currently filled.

Superintendent of Roanoke City Public Schools, Verletta White, said restoring those jobs remains a priority if additional funding becomes available.

“It is a matter of budget cuts where they have lost their jobs and have disrupted their livelihoods that that would be the priority to restore positions if by some miracle we have more money than we thought we were going to have,” White said.

Options still on the table

The district’s chief financial officer outlined several remaining cost-cutting options to help close the budget gap.

Among them: reducing activity buses, which currently serve about 173 students per day, and limiting that service to Monday through Thursday during spring sports.

The district is also considering scaling back its VPI preschool program for 3-year-olds from nine classrooms to three, which would mean fewer open seats for families.

Another option under discussion is phasing out PLATO, the district’s gifted elementary school program, over two years so current students can finish. Board members said PLATO could be brought back in the future.

School board member Christopher Link raised concerns about eliminating a program that has proven successful.

“We typically don’t build up successful programs to then stop them,” Link said.

Beyond programs, the board also weighed potential cuts to deferred facilities and maintenance, grounds and landscaping, technology, safety, professional learning, student assessments, and school and office supplies.

Taken together, those alternative cost-cutting options would still leave a remaining budget gap of a little more than $200,000.

Board member Michael Cherry acknowledged the weight of the decisions ahead.

“I know there’s a lot of emotions and have been a lot of emotions,” Cherry said.

“The goal is to try to preserve the forward progression that we’ve made all of the improvements and the momentum that this division and our superintendent and her vision, we want to preserve that as much as possible but we also have to be realistic and understand this is where we’re at this season,” Cherry said.

What comes next

District leaders say they are still waiting on the finalized state budget, and any additional state funding could affect what ultimately gets cut.

The district expects a budget update May 12, a budget preview May 26 and a final vote June 9.

Essa Suleiman was remanded into custody after appearing in Westminster Magistrates' Court to face two counts related to the attack in Golders Green. He also faces a third count of attempted murder over an incident elsewhere in the city earlier Wednesday that left a man with minor injuries.

Police have labeled the Golders Green attack an act of terrorism.

Suleiman, a Somalia-born British citizen who lives in London, did not enter a plea. His case was transferred to the Central Criminal Court for a May 15 hearing.

Prosecutor Emma Harraway said Suleiman attacked Ishmail Hussein, his friend of 20 years, in south London before taking a train to the north part of the city where he targeted Jews hours later.

Shloime Rand, 34, was stabbed in the chest outside a synagogue, puncturing his lung, and Norman Shine, 76, who was wearing a traditional Jewish skullcap, was stabbed in the neck at a bus stop.

“As Mr. Shine adjusted his kippah, Suleiman ran towards him and set upon him, launching a series of aggressive blows," Harraway said.

Rand was discharged from the hospital and Shine is in stable condition.

Police said Suleiman was referred in 2020 to the government’s Prevent program, which tries to steer individuals away from extremism. The police force said his file was closed later the same year, and didn’t disclose the reason for the referral.

The British government pledged to tackle antisemitism after the stabbings in an area in north London that is an epicenter of Britain’s Jewish community. The assault followed a string of arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish sites in London in recent weeks.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that his government would increase security for the Jewish community and “do everything in our power to stamp this hatred out.”

Britain’s official terror threat level was raised from substantial to severe after Wednesday’s stabbing attack. Severe is the second-highest rung on a five-point scale and means intelligence agencies consider an attack highly likely in the next six months.

The government said the change was not due solely to the Golders Green attack but also due to increased danger “from Islamist and extreme right-wing terrorist threat from individuals and small groups based in the U.K.”

The death of Sunshine “Sunny” Stewart, 48, of St. George, last year shocked the community around Crawford Pond in rural Union, Maine. Authorities charged Deven Young of Frankfort, Maine, with murder in Stewart's death in July, about two weeks after Stewart's body was discovered.

The court system has thus far treated Young as a juvenile. Prosecutors in the state want to charge Young, who was 17 at the time of Stewart's death and is 18 now, as an adult. First, he needed to be deemed competent to stand trial, and a judge ruled this week that he is.

"The court finds that the defendant is competent to proceed based on the court’s finding that the juvenile has a rational, as well as a factual, understanding of the proceedings and a sufficient present ability to consult with legal counsel with a reasonable degree of rational understanding," wrote Maine District Court Judge Eric J. Walker on Wednesday.

Young is due back in court on May 7. Police have said a medical examiner determined Stewart's cause of death was strangulation and blunt force trauma.

Jeremy Pratt, an attorney for Young, declined to comment on Thursday. Prosecutors in the case also declined to comment Thursday.

Authorities have not publicly stated a possible motive in the case. Court documents about the case, which were briefly made public before being removed from the state's courts website, contained little detail other than stating that Young “did intentionally or knowingly cause the death of another human being, namely Sunshine Stewart.”

Audio recordings by the Waldo County Sheriff's Office that were obtained by news agencies earlier this year provided details about Young's history of violent behavior and mental health challenges prior to Stewart's death. The Portland Press Herald reported that Young had been waiting for behavioral health services from the state.

Stewart went missing at Crawford Pond, where she was paddleboarding, on July 2 and her body was found the next day. The pond is a popular summertime attraction for swimming, boating and fishing. Stewart lived about 21 miles (34 kilometers) from the pond in the Tenants Harbor neighborhood in St. George.

Stewart's friends and family celebrated her life with a maritime service last August. The memorial included a procession of boats, some decked out with flowers, in Tenants Harbor.

On the boats were pictures of Stewart smiling and a large sign that read, “Shine On.” Over the years, Stewart worked as a fisherman, boat captain, biologist, carpenter and bartender, friends have said.

Police said the unnamed man was arrested after the attack Wednesday near David’s Tomb — a holy site outside Zion’s Gate on the southern side of the Old City — “on suspicion of a racially motivated attack,” and remained in custody.

Police video showed the nun bruised and the attacker wearing tzitzit, a fringed undergarment worn by some observant Jewish men.

Olivier Poquillon, the director of the French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research, said the nun was a researcher at the school. He called the attack an “act of sectarian violence" in a post on X.

The Old City in Israel-annexed east Jerusalem is a centuries-old walled enclave built atop millennia of history and home to some of the holiest sites for Jews, Christians and Muslims. It is a flash point for tensions as access and ownership to the sites are deeply entangled with the historic and political claims that lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Religious groups have documented a rise in acts of harassment and violence against Christian pilgrims and clergy as well as Palestinian Christian residents, including assaults and spitting, often by ultra-Orthodox Jewish yeshiva students.

Wadie Abunassar, the coordinator of the Holy Land Christian Forum, called attacks targeting Christians a growing phenomenon. He attributed the quick response to the attack on the nun to the fact that it was caught on video.

He said he felt “great anger on the system and great sadness because I feel that this will not end anytime soon.” One of the problems, he said, was the deterrence against such violence.

“Many times in such cases there are no arrests and if there are arrests, sometimes after one or two days, (suspects) are released,” he added. “In some cases, the police do not recommend the prosecution to file charges or to indict them. And in some cases, when there is indictment, the indictment is mild.”

The arrest comes as Israeli treatment of religious minorities is under scrutiny, weeks after police limited access for holiday worship to Muslims as well as Christians, up to Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa.

Israel also drew international criticism after a soldier photographed himself having bludgeoned a fallen statue of Jesus on the cross with an ax in southern Lebanon. Israeli leaders later disavowed the incident and said he would be reprimanded.

“In a city sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike, we remain committed to protecting all communities and ensuring those responsible for violence are held accountable,” Israeli police said in a social media post about the man arrested for attacking the nun.

The postseason switch sure got flipped against the rival Denver Nuggets, as the players promised all along. The energy and urgency was never greater than in the series-clinching Game 6 victory on Thursday, when the determined Timberwolves shook off the absence of their three best guards and beat the Nuggets 110-98.

“Still part of our growth,” coach Chris Finch said. “We’ve been really good with the high moments. Our consistency sometimes throughout the season isn’t always there, which we don’t really like about ourselves, but we know we have it in ourselves to meet these moments.”

Jaden McDaniels clearly does.

Nobody on the Timberwolves embodies the mercurial nature of this close-knit but often-moody team than McDaniels, the sixth-year forward who made a name for himself in this series.

Tirelessly chasing All-Star guard Jamal Murray around screens and everywhere he tried to go along the perimeter, limiting him to 4-for-17 shooting in Game 6, McDaniels did even more on the offensive end.

With a big chunk of the team's shot creation missing due to injuries to Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo and Ayo Dosunmu, McDaniels went 13 for 25 from the floor for 32 points with 10 rebounds.

“What I was the most proud about him was just his emotional control, being able to stay poised, not overreact to adversity, calls or missed shots, or mistakes,” teammate Rudy Gobert said. "He stayed present, and he stepped up big time when we needed him the most, so I’m really, really proud of him.”

McDaniels tossed even more spice into this well-developed rivalry early in the series with his blanket “ bad defenders ” jab at the opponent, and he made no secret of the motivation he gets from seeing “Denver” or “Nuggets” sewed on the other team's jersey.

“The only thing I said to him, after he had made his comments, was, ‘Now it’s time to back it up,’” Finch said. “And talking doesn’t matter. You've got to go do it. I knew he was going to put the effort in, so he was ready for it, and he owned it, and he responded.”

McDaniels later irked Nuggets star Nikola Jokic by taking an uncontested layup in the closing seconds of Minnesota's blowout win in Game 4, sparking a brief shoving match.

McDaniels had his worst game of the series in the loss in Game 5 on Monday, when he was booed often by the Denver crowd, but he responded on his home court with one of the best games of his career.

With the Timberwolves trying to put away the game, McDaniels delivered the dagger shot — swishing his signature mid-range pull-up to give them a seven-point lead with 1:06 to play. Then he intercepted a harried pass by Jokic to get the ball back and start a parade to the line.

Jokic gave McDaniels a hug after the final horn, a sign of respect from the three-time NBA MVP despite the irritation he caused all series long.

“I’m just happy it’s over, happy we were able to come out on top,” McDaniels said. “Stuff was said. I’m just happy we were all able to prove our point, get the win and move on to the next round.”

Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs have been waiting. They'll host Game 1 on Monday.

“I figured the real winner of this series was going to be San Antonio, because both these teams were going to take a lot of pieces out of each other, and did,” Finch said. “So I’m not sure what we have left standing there before we go down there.”

Even if they're short-handed and overmatched, the Timberwolves are a good bet to put up a strong fight.

“You have to believe that you can win, no matter what,” Gobert said. "Obviously we’re missing some pretty important players, right? But no matter who’s out there, we believe in our defense. We believe in trusting one another. Anything’s possible.”

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

In April, Cerina’s life was tragically cut short when her estranged husband, former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, killed her and then himself weeks before a judge’s deadline to move out of their family home. She was 49 years old.

You can read Spanberger’s entire flag order below:

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 honor of Dr. Cerina Wanzer Fairfax and in memory and honor of all victims of domestic violence.

We remember Dr. Cerina Fairfax’s life and her devotion to others, her patients, and most especially, her children. We honor her educational achievements, professional success, service to our Commonwealth, and her deep love for her family.

We honor Dr. Cerina Fairfax by drawing attention to the reality that women in any community or circumstance may face domestic violence, and we lower the flags in memory of her and all women whose lives have been lost to domestic violence.

With a solemn commitment to helping those who face domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, I hereby order that the flags shall be lowered at sunrise on Monday, May 4, 2026, and remain at half-staff until sunset.

Governor Abigail Spanberger

Herrera, who works two jobs at Atlanta's airport, never imagined he would own a home at the age of 27.

“It’s special. It’s magical,” he said.

In May, nearly 1,000 volunteers with Habitat for Humanity will complete Herrera's new home and 23 other affordable housing units in Atlanta's Sylvan Hills neighborhood for the 40th Carter Work Project.

The intensive, weeklong building sessions named after former President Jimmy Carter and his late wife Rosalynn have constructed roughly 5,000 homes in 14 countries since 1984. The project is returning to Atlanta for the first time since 1988, when the Carters helped construct 21 homes in another neighborhood.

Habitat is not just a homebuilder anymore

The Sylvan Hills construction also reflects a new shift into real estate development for Habitat for Humanity, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year amid a growing crisis in affordable housing and a broadening political battle over affordability more generally.

“The gap between what a family can afford and what it costs to create that unit of housing is the widest it has been in modern history,” said Jonathan Reckford, CEO of the international organization.

The nonprofit plans to serve as a developer on more of its projects because many smaller developers still haven’t recovered from the losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic or have gone out of business altogether.

The Sylvan Hills project includes another first for Habitat

In Sylvan Hills, Habitat for Humanity is building on 8 acres (3 hectares) of land that it purchased in 2015. It also worked to get the site, which used to house a saw-blade manufacturer, rezoned for residential use. The 24 housing units will be a mix of single-family homes and townhomes, forming a new community called Langston Park. It's the first time Atlanta Habitat for Humanity will build multifamily townhomes.

“We do believe it’s important to get the best use out of every precious piece of land that we’re able to acquire and come by so that we can serve more families,” said Atlanta Habitat for Humanity President and CEO Rosalyn Merrick.

The homes in Langston Park will cost about $200,000 each to build. The new homeowners will pay a monthly mortgage based on their income, but Habitat does not charge them interest. The goal is to eventually build 40 more homes on the site.

Phileena Daniel, 27, also qualified to buy one of the homes. She and her 7-year-old son have struggled with housing over the past two years, including living in a unit infested with rats and roaches. She’s grateful for the stability a permanent home in Langston Park will bring.

“You know, sometimes we don’t see ourselves going far in life as young Black women in this society,” she said. “This is giving us an opportunity to expand.”

Habitat's shift earns praise

Habitat for Humanity’s move into community development is “a classic example of a nonprofit organization really trying to be responsive to community needs,” said Vincent Reina, urban economics and planning professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“They can still be true to their core mission, which is advancing homeownership opportunities, but they are also acknowledging that we need a diverse set of housing solutions to really meet the needs of individuals,” said Reina, who is also founder and faculty director of the Housing Initiative at Penn.

High home prices and 30-year mortgage interest rates over 7% have made it impossible for even moderate-income households to afford a home in all but a handful of the 98 most expensive metro areas in the country, according to research published last year by Reina and Benjamin J. Keys, a Wharton real estate and finance professor.

That shift has made affordable housing a major issue around the country.

Congress steps in

In Congress, both the House and the Senate have passed different affordable housing bills. Lawmakers are working to reconcile differences to send a final bill to President Donald Trump for approval.

Trump has signed executive orders to reduce housing regulatory burdens and help smaller banks provide mortgages. His proposed 2027 budget, however, seeks cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the elimination of numerous community development programs that currently help cities build affordable housing.

Herrera is hopeful

Back in Atlanta, Herrera couldn't stop thinking about all the possibilities homeownership could unlock. His mother had breast cancer, and she and his father could come live with him if the need arose. A low, stable monthly payment for housing would also help him pursue his goal of owning a coffee shop. Herrera said rising rents in the Atlanta area had forced him to move previously, taking time and money away from that project.

“Now, I can finally take some risks,” he said.

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Gamboa reported from Cleveland. 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.

To some degree, he has. Gone are the social media video clips of now-retired Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino clashing with protesters. Mullin's predecessor, Kristi Noem, made her first trip as secretary to New York City to make arrests with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In contrast, Mullin went to North Carolina to review hurricane recovery efforts.

The Republican administration appears to be recalibrating its approach to a centerpiece policy that helped bring Trump back to the White House, moving in many ways away from aggressive, public-facing tactics toward a quieter approach to enforcement. Despite that shift, the administration insists it is not backing down from its lofty deportation goals.

“Clearly they’ve stepped back from the, for want of a better word, the Bovinoist tactics of before," said Mark Krikorian, the president of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for immigration restrictions. "But it’s not clear this means they’re actually stepping back from immigration.”

The Trump administration launched a series of immigration enforcement operations last year in mostly Democratic-led cities, which drove up arrests in large-scale sweeps. The crackdown sparked clashes between protesters and enforcement officers and led to the shooting deaths in Minneapolis of two U.S. citizens.

Since then, the president’s hard-line anti-immigration agenda has lost popularity with voters and there have been no new high-profile city-based operations launched, raising questions about the administration's strategy.

“We’re still enforcing immigration laws. We’re still deporting illegals that shouldn’t be here. We’re still going after the worst of the worst — but we’re doing it in a more quiet way,” Mullin said in an interview April 16 with CNBC.

Immigration arrests have dropped, but deportation goals remain

ICE arrests have fallen in recent months, and the number of people in immigration detention has dropped from a high of roughly 72,000 in January to 58,000 this week, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.

But in a sign of its continued determination, ICE in budget documents says it plans to remove 1 million people this fiscal year and the next compared with roughly 442,000 people last year. The agency also has plenty of money to carry out its mission, with Congress granting the Department of Homeland Security more than $170 billion for Trump's immigration agenda last year.

The administration aims to have enough space to detain roughly 100,000 people this fiscal year, which would more than double the average daily number held in ICE detention last year. The administration has already expanded its detention capacity with the purchase of 11 warehouses across the country.

“They are working on really building a juggernaut of a system,” said Doris Meissner, who headed the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, a predecessor to ICE, during President Bill Clinton's Democratic administration and is now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said there had been no change to Trump's strategy.

"President Trump’s highest priority has always been the deportation of illegal alien criminals who endanger American communities,” Jackson said.

ICE did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Stripping away legal protections to ramp up deportations

Advocates for immigrants are bracing for the Trump administration to turn its attention more intently to stripping away protections for migrants with temporary legal status to remain in the U.S. while their cases are being adjudicated.

In one example of this, the number of green cards approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services dropped by half over the course of a year under the Trump administration, according to an analysis by the Cato Institute, which supports immigration into the U.S. Humanitarian visas for refugees or people who qualified for asylum saw the biggest declines.

USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler said the drop was due to increased vetting of applicants by the administration.

The Trump administration has also pushed to strip Temporary Protected Status from hundreds of thousands of people, with a key case weighing whether it's overstepped its power to do so being heard at the Supreme Court this week.

Advocates see it as a way to send a chilling message to immigrant communities and make more people vulnerable to deportation. It also enables the department to operate without the public spectacle of workplace raids or home arrests.

ICE has also focused over the past year on creating agreements with jurisdictions around the country that allow local and state law enforcement to carry out an expanding array of immigration enforcement tasks, ranging from checking the immigration status of people in their jails to incorporating immigration checks during routine traffic stops.

These agreements, known as 287g, have grown from 135 in 20 states before Trump took office to more than 1,400 in 41 states and territories now.

Some states, most noticeably Florida and Texas, have mandated various forms of cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE.

Meissner, from MPI, said Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, is likely to prioritize further discussions about how cities and states can cooperate with ICE.

“At the end of the day, some of this may very well succeed in increasing the numbers,” Meissner said.

Calls to enforce work restrictions

Conservatives who want more deportations say the only way to truly crack down on illegal immigration is to make it so difficult for the migrants to work that they’ll leave on their own.

The Trump administration has already taken steps to make life harder for people in the country illegally including limiting who can live in public housing by immigration status, sharing Medicaid information with ICE and requiring people in the country illegally to register with the federal government.

Krikorian, of the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Social Security Administration could send out letters alerting employers when an employee's name doesn't match their Social Security number. Authorities could repeatedly and consistently carry out audits of I-9 forms, which companies are supposed to fill out and submit to the federal government showing that new hires are legally able to work. And they could require banks to collect citizenship information on customers.

Whatever the strategy going forward, the administration is facing heavy pressure not to back away from its goals.

“The numbers are too low," said Mike Howell, part of the Mass Deportation Coalition, which launched a playbook for how the administration can actually get to a million deportations a year by using tactics such as worksite enforcement.

“The deportation numbers are just too low," Howell said, "and they need to be much higher, and they can be much higher.”

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This story has been corrected to show Meissner’s quote was “working on really building a juggernaut,” not “working really on building a juggernaut.”

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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Will Weissert contributed to this report.

The China deal covers Africa's 20 largest economies, including South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria and Kenya. China had already dropped tariffs on 33 poorer African countries, meaning 53 of the continent's 54 nations are now eligible for “tariff-free treatment” for their goods, according to China.

The country not eligible is the small nation of Eswatini because it is the only one in Africa that maintains formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

China says it'll help mutual development

The Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council in China said the agreement would promote the common development of China and Africa. China's official Xinhua News Agency said a shipment of 24 metric tons of apples from South Africa that cleared customs in Shenzhen in the early hours of Friday was the first batch of goods to enter under the new zero-tariff policy.

According to Xinhua, China's Commerce Ministry said it would especially benefit African products like cocoa from Ivory Coast and Ghana, coffee and avocados from Kenya, and citrus fruits and wine from South Africa, which used to face tariffs of between 8% and 30%.

Ivory Coast is by far the world's biggest cocoa producer and it and Ghana account for more than 50% of the global supply. South Africa is a major citrus fruit exporter.

African nations looking away from the US

Several of Africa's top economies said they would look for new markets for some of their U.S.-bound products after the Trump administration imposed reciprocal tariffs a year ago — at one point with rates of 30% for Africa's leading economy, South Africa, and higher than 40% for some other African countries.

“South Africa looks forward to working with China in a friendly, pragmatic and flexible manner,” South African Trade Minister Parks Tau said in February during bilateral talks in China.

While the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump's far-reaching global tariffs as unconstitutional in February, the Republican president said his administration had "very powerful alternatives” and promptly rolled out temporary import taxes to replace them.

China is already the biggest trade partner for Africa, a continent of 1.5 billion people that's expected to nearly double to 2.5 billion by 2050, according to the United Nations, when it would have more than a quarter of the world's people.

China dominates a large trade imbalance with Africa

China hailed its tariff-free deal as promoting common development, but there is a large trade imbalance between it and Africa, while African nations owe Beijing billions in debt repayments.

China-Africa trade reached a record $348 billion in 2025, though China's exports to Africa increased by around 25% to $225 billion, while its imports from Africa increased by only around 5% to $123 billion, widening the trade deficit for Africa.

China has long imported raw materials from Africa and sent back manufactured goods. Thierry Pairault, a China-Africa expert at France's National Center for Scientific Research, said that while the new policy might have some benefits for agricultural products, most African raw material exports like oil and minerals already had tariff-free access to China.

“(Chinese leader) Xi Jinping is positioning China as the antithesis of Western protectionism. This gesture is intended to appeal to both African public opinion and global markets,” Pairault wrote in an assessment published by the China Global South Project, which analyzes China's relationship with poor countries.

But the policy “only applies where it costs (China) almost nothing,” Pairault wrote.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

The trade deal was signed Jan. 17 at a meeting of the South American group. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's move to provisionally enact the deal, effectively sidestepping the EU Parliament, is being challenged by EU lawmakers at the bloc’s judiciary. The agreement will be halted if the European body rules against it.

“This is good news for EU businesses of all sizes, good news for our consumers and good news for our farmers, who will gain valuable new export opportunities, with full protection for sensitive sectors,” she said Thursday.

Von der Leyen is expected to hold a videoconference Friday with leaders of Mercosur nations Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay to celebrate the agreement.

Earlier this week, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, one of the key supporters of the agreement, signed a decree validating the deal in his country. He said it is a response to unilateral tariffs imposed last year by U.S. President Donald Trump and a reaffirmation of multilateralism.

“Nothing better than believing in the exercise of democracy, in multilateralism, and in cordial relations between nations,” Lula said in a ceremony in the capital, Brasilia, to celebrate the milestone after more than 25 years of negotiations.

Last week, Brazil's vice president and one of the negotiators of the deal, Geraldo Alckmin, said in an interview with The Associated Press and other news agencies that not striking the deal with the EU would have meant staying behind while competitor nations made other agreements.

Brazil is by far Mercosur’s largest economy, with a gross domestic product estimated at over $2.3 trillion in 2025.

Lia Valls, an associate researcher at the think-tank Fundacao Getulio Vargas based in Rio de Janeiro, agrees that the deal offers better perspectives against unilateralism worldwide.

“The EU and Mercosur are showing that it is possible for big blocs to reach a deal in this world where that multilateral system is being very weakened and where the U.S. clearly operates to do that,” Valls told the AP. “It is a very positive sign.”

The agreement faced opposition from European farmers and environmental groups and was delayed in December, before being referred to the EU’s top court.

South American agribusiness industries, chiefly beef, fruit and minerals, are expecting a boost in exports to Europe. European automakers, pharmaceutical companies and technology firms also look forward to making new inroads in Mercosur markets.

While companies based in Mercosur countries have expressed fear of tough competition from European peers in hi-tech industries, European farmers have shown concerns about price pressures and imports that do not follow similar environmental standards.

French President Emmanuel Macron, one of the critics of the deal, has long demanded safeguards to monitor and stop large economic disruption in the EU, increased regulations in the Mercosur nations like pesticide restrictions, and more inspections of imports at EU ports.

The agreement gradually removes trade barriers and tariffs in the two blocs, but it also keeps economic safeguard clauses for European countries to protect some sectors from excessive competition, such as poultry, beef, sugar, and fruit.

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

The incident happened around 3 p.m. in the Indian Draft area. Authorities told 10 News that no injuries were reported, and all students on board were safely transported home. Families were notified soon after.

School officials, the Callaghan principal, and the school resource officer remained on scene to ensure students were safe.

The king delivered a diplomatic master-class on the trip, mixing praise for his host with subtle criticism. It’s unclear, though, whether it will make a major difference to a trans-Atlantic relationship troubled by divisions over issues including the Iran war.

“In the short term probably yes, in the long term probably no,” said Kristofer Allerfeldt, a University of Exeter professor specializing in American history. But he said Charles had “definitely clawed back some of the prestige of the monarchy” in his homeland with his assured performance.

“He’s done us proud,” Allerfeldt said.

Like all royal visits, the four-day trip to Washington, New York and Virginia by the king and Queen Camilla was a carefully choreographed diplomatic event carried out at the request of the U.K. government. Timed to help mark the United States’ 250th birthday, it was a chance to heal rifts between the U.K. government and the Trump administration.

Trump has criticized Keir Starmer

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

It’s part of a wider split between Trump and the United States’ NATO allies, whom he has called “cowards” and “useless” for not joining action against Iran.

None of that has soured Trump’s fondness for the British monarchy, which seems to have been deepened by the president’s unprecedented second state visit to the U.K. in September.

Some U.K. opposition politicians had called for the king's reciprocal trip to be canceled, lest the president do or say something to embarrass the monarch.

In the end, there was much warmth and few awkward moments –- though Trump did not always adhere to the convention that conversations with the monarch should remain private.

At a white-tie state dinner on Tuesday, Trump said “Charles agrees with me, even more than I do” that Iran must never have nuclear weapons.

Trump also said that “if that were up to him,” the king “would have followed the suggestions we made with respect to Ukraine.”

Buckingham Palace appeared relaxed about Trump’s Iran comment, noting that “the king is naturally mindful of his government’s longstanding and well-known position on the prevention of nuclear proliferation.”

The king’s speech chided Trump policies

On Ukraine, however, differences were clear. The U.K. has been one of Kyiv's strongest supporters in its fight against Russia’s invasion, and in a speech to Congress the king underscored the importance of the need for “unyielding resolve” to support Ukraine.

It was one of several implicit rebukes to the “America first” U.S. administration in the speech, the centerpiece moment of the trip.

With regal understatement and in a cut-glass accent, Charles stressed the essential role of NATO, the importance of checks on executive power, the threat posed by climate change and the strength drawn from “vibrant, diverse and free societies.” He spoke of his pride at having served in the Royal Navy, a force Trump has disparaged.

“It’s difficult to imagine he could have gone much further in what he said and what he didn’t say,” historian Anthony Seldon told The Guardian. “He judged it incredibly well: very brave, very smart, very clever.”

Allerfeldt noted the “extraordinary” reception from both sides of the political aisle to the speech, which drew multiple standing ovations.

“Apart from the section on the natural world and the environment, both Republicans and Democrats stood up and applauded,” he said.

In a less formal speech at the state banquet, the king even drew laughs when he joked about British troops burning down the White House in 1814.

The king alluded to Epstein's victims

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

Epstein victims had urged the king to meet with them and other sexual abuse survivors. He didn’t, but he did refer obliquely to the issue in his speech to Congress, mentioning the need to “support victims of some of the ills that, so tragically, exist in both our societies today.”

Andrew Lownie, author of a biography of the former Prince Andrew called “Entitled,” praised the speech as “the best defense of the monarchy in years.”

After the royal couple left the U.S., Trump announced he was lifting certain tariffs on Scotch “in honor of the King and Queen of the United Kingdom.”

Buckingham Palace toasted the announcement, saying the king “sends his sincere gratitude for a decision that will make an important difference to the British whisky industry and the livelihoods it supports.”

Trump called the king “a phenomenal representative” for his country, before turning back to a familiar theme: criticizing Starmer.

The president told Sky News that Charles is “a much different person than your prime minister.

“Your prime minister has to learn to deal the way he deals, and he’ll do a lot better,” he said.

For that, Palou has earned a multi-year contract extension on his current deal that ran through the 2027 season. The extension was finalized following this week's two-day Indianapolis 500 test. Ganassi never publicly discloses contract terms.

The reward capped a celebratory week for Palou, who drove into Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the defending Indy 500 winner for testing and saw a larger-than-life banner of himself chugging the traditional winner’s milk. It’s the main banner as you enter the speedway — key placement he’d seen reserved for rival drivers the previous six years.

“I took a picture when I was driving by and sent it to my parents,” Palou said.

Palou has won four IndyCar championships in five years, including the last three consecutive titles. He won eight times last season, including the 500, as he's blossomed in IndyCar since joining Ganassi in 2021.

Ahead of the Long Beach Grand Prix two weeks ago, former Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi was asked if anything had surprised him through the first quarter of the season. His response was immediate: “Yeah, that Alex has only won two races. And isn’t the points leader.”

Palou responded by winning Long Beach to give him three wins through five races this year and reclaim the top spot in the championship standings.

“It’s incredible, actually amazing,” said rival driver Will Power, a two-time IndyCar champion and Indianapolis 500 winner. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about the last week or so because once again, he’s gone out and won three out of five races. I mean (Kyle) Kirkwood's average finish is like three-point-something and he’s not leading the championship, which is insane.

"So it’s something I’m absolutely, like, how is he doing that week in, week out? Well, it’s one, he’s qualifying well. Two is he executes in the race and three is the pit stops, you know, top notch, there’s no mistakes in there. And he’s fast. So that’s what it takes when you’re driving out there.”

His 22 career victories through 103 starts ranks fifth in 121 years of IndyCar history. Sebastien Bourdais won 31 times in that span in the diluted Champ Car era, A.J. Foyt won 30, Mario Andretti 27 and Ralph DePalma 26.

Palou’s four titles already match Andretti and Bourdais, and in the post-World War II era, Palou’s 61 top-five finishes in his 103 starts trails only Andretti, who had 64.

Dario Franchitti, a four-time IndyCar champion and three-time Indy 500 winner, is now a driver coach and consultant for Ganassi. He believes there hasn’t been a driver this dominant in the series since Alex Zanardi, who won 12 races and back-to-back titles for Ganassi in 1997 and 1998.

“Winning one championship is one thing, but then the subsequent ones, it gets progressively more difficult,” Franchitti said. "Just watching what he's done, and at this early stage in his career, it's something very special. And the level of domination, that's the icing on the cake.

“You feel sorry for the others. I've said to him a number of times, ‘I would have hated racing against you.’ He is the complete package.”

At Long Beach last month, rival driver Pato O'Ward conceded his McLaren team has not closed the gap at all on Palou and the No. 10 Ganassi team.

“The guy goes into every weekend being able to win. Honestly, it's impressive to see,” O'Ward said. “The gap is as big as its been and we're working hard to try to be at the level he is of being able to win every race, but we don't have that.”

Connor Daly believes the domination is a combination of Palou's flawless performances and the strength of his race team.

“Alex is very good, but that team when they’re called upon, they don’t make mistakes and that is what is so important about this game,” Daly said. “Everything has to be, everyone has to be on the same page and he is, like without a doubt, one of the best drivers in the world right now.”

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Game 1 of a Western Conference semifinal series between San Antonio and Minnesota — which ousted Denver — will be Monday night in Texas.

It'll be the third series between the franchises, after the Spurs beat the Timberwolves in both 1999 and 2001. Both of those were first-round, best-of-five matchups where San Antonio prevailed in four games.

New York is through to Round 2 as well, after a 51-point rout in Atlanta eliminated the Hawks.

The Knicks await the Philadelphia-Boston winner; that series is going to Game 7, after the 76ers staved off elimination yet again with a win on Thursday night. The Timberwolves are about to enter a showdown of French centers — Rudy Gobert for Minnesota, Victor Wembanyama for the Spurs.

On Friday, Detroit (trailing 3-2) plays at Orlando, Cleveland (up 3-2) goes to Toronto and the Los Angeles Lakers (up 3-2 after losing closeout chances in Games 4 and 5) head to Houston.

Friday's schedule

— Game 6, Detroit at Orlando, 7 p.m. EDT (Prime)

Series: Orlando, 3-2.

Odds: Detroit by 3.5.

Eighth-seeded Orlando let a 3-1 lead slip away against top-seeded Detroit in Round 1 in 2003. The Magic get another chance Friday night to ensure that such a fate won’t happen again this time.

— Game 6, Cleveland at Toronto, 7:30 p.m. EDT (Prime)

Series: Cleveland, 3-2.

Odds: Cleveland by 3.5.

The Raptors pushed Cleveland to the limit in Game 5 even with Brandon Ingram (heel) limited to one point in 11 minutes. The Cavaliers went 18 of 36 from 3-point range to win Game 5 at home.

— Game 6, LA Lakers at Houston, 9:30 p.m. EDT (Prime)

Series: Lakers, 3-2.

Odds: Houston by 3.5.

The Lakers are 0-2 in closeout chances in this series, and a Rockets team that isn’t lacking for swagger suddenly looks to be brimming with confidence. Lakers do not seem to be panicked, yet.

Saturday's schedule

— Game 7, Philadelphia at Boston, 7:30 p.m. EDT (NBC/Peacock)

Series: Tied, 3-3.

Odds: Boston by 7.5.

The Celtics are 27-10 all-time in Game 7s, the 76ers are 6-12 in such games and are 0-4 in them since 2001. It'll be the ninth Game 7 between these two franchises, with Boston going 6-2 in the previous ones.

Thursday recaps

— Knicks 140, Hawks 89 to win series 4-2. Inside NY's numbers, and Atlanta's collapse.

— 76ers 106, Celtics 93 to even series at 3-3. George goes from ‘rock bottom’ to Game 7.

— Timberwolves 110, Nuggets 98 to win series 4-2. Nikola Jokic wants to stay in Denver.

Awards watch

A breakdown of this season's NBA awards:

— Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year: DeAndre Jordan, New Orleans.

— Hustle Award: Moussa Diabaté, Charlotte.

— Defensive Player of the Year: Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio.

— Clutch Player of the Year: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City.

— Sixth Man of the Year: Keldon Johnson, San Antonio.

— Sportsmanship Award: Derrick White, Boston.

— Most Improved Player: Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Atlanta.

— Rookie of the Year: Cooper Flagg, Dallas.

— Executive of the Year: Brad Stevens, Boston.

Among the announcements still to come:

— Most Valuable Player: Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama or Denver's Nikola Jokic.

— Coach of the Year: Detroit's J.B. Bickerstaff, San Antonio's Mitch Johnson or Boston's Joe Mazzulla.

Betting odds

Defending champion Oklahoma City (-130) is favored to win the NBA title, oddsmakers say.

The Thunder are followed by San Antonio (+425), Boston (+600), Cleveland (+1300), New York (+1800), the Los Angeles Lakers (+2500) and Detroit (+3500). Philadelphia (+12500) is next, followed by Minnesota (+20000).

Orlando, even with a 3-2 series lead on Detroit, entered Friday at +25000. The only teams that entered Friday with longer odds than the Magic were Houston (+50000) and Toronto (+100000).

Key dates

— Sunday, Monday and/or Tuesday: Conference semifinals begin.

— May 10: NBA draft lottery.

— May 10-17: NBA draft combine.

— May 17 or 19: Eastern Conference finals begin on ESPN and ABC.

— May 18 or 20: Western Conference finals begin on NBC and Peacock.

— June 3: Game 1, NBA Finals on ABC. (Other finals dates: June 5, June 8, June 10, June 13, June 16 and June 19).

— June 23: Round 1, NBA draft

— June 24: Round 2, NBA draft

Quote of the day

“If we were in Serbia, we would all get fired." — Denver's Nikola Jokic, after the Nuggets were eliminated from the playoffs by short-handed Minnesota.

Stats of the day

— Boston led by five on Thursday, then lost by 13. Denver led by five on Thursday, then lost by 12. Atlanta led by four on Thursday ... then lost by 51.

— The Knicks are the first reigning NBA Cup champion to win a playoff series. The Los Angeles Lakers (the 2023 Cup champs) and the Milwaukee Bucks (the 2024 Cup champs) both lost in Round 1 of those season's playoffs.

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

One of the world's most sprawling and populated urban areas, at 3,000 square miles (about 7,800 square kilometers) and some 22 million people, the Mexican capital and surrounding cities were built atop an ancient lake bed. Many downtown streets were once canals, a tradition that continues in the rural fringes.

Extensive groundwater pumping and urban development have dramatically shrunk the aquifer, meaning that Mexico City has been sinking for more than a century, leaving many monuments and older buildings — like the Metropolitan Cathedral, where construction began in 1573 — visibly tilted to the side. The contracting aquifer has also contributed to a chronic water crisis that is only expected to worsen.

“It damages part of the critical infrastructure of Mexico City, such as the subway, the drainage system, the water, the potable water system, housing and streets,” said Enrique Cabral, a researcher studying geophysics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “It’s a very big problem.”

Mexico City is sinking so fast that the subsidence can be spotted from space.

In some parts it is happening at an average rate of 0.78 inches (2 centimeters) a month, according to NASA’s newly released report, such as at the main airport and the iconic monument commonly known as the Angel of Independence.

Overall that means a yearly subsidence rate of about 9.5 inches (24 centimeters). Over the course of less than a century, the drop has been more than 39 feet (12 meters), according to Cabral.

“We have one of the fastest velocities of land subsidence in the whole world,” he said.

The NASA estimates are based on measurements taken between October 2025 and January 2026 by a powerful satellite known as NISAR, which can track real-time changes on the Earth’s surface and is a joint initiative between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization.

NISAR scientist Paul Rosen said that by capturing details of the Earth from space, the project is also “telling us something about what’s actually happening below the surface.”

“It’s basically documentation of all of these changes within a city,” Rosen said. He added: “You can see the full magnitude of the problem.”

With time the team hopes to be able to zoom in even more on specific areas and someday get measurements on a building-by-building basis.

More broadly, researchers hope to apply the technology around the world to track things like natural disasters, changes in fault lines, the effects of climate change in regions like Antarctica and more.

Rosen said it could be used to bolster alert systems, letting scientists alert governments to the need for evacuations in cases of volcano eruptions, for example.

For Mexico City the technology amounts to a big advance in studying the subsidence issue and mitigating its worst effects, according to Cabral.

For decades the government has largely ignored the problem other than stabilizing foundations under monuments like the cathedral. But following recent flare-ups of the water crisis, Cabral said, officials have begun to fund more research.

Imagery from the NISAR satellite and the data that comes with it will be key for scientists and officials as they plan on how to address the problem.

“To do long-term mitigation of the situation,” Cabral said, “the first step is to just understand.”

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

It was already decided when the scuffle took place. OG Anunoby extended the Knicks' lead to 50 points with a pair of free throws and 4:39 remaining in the first half.

Robinson boxed out Daniels and things got heated, with an official even taking a tumble as many people tried to calm them down. The Hawks' Onyeka Okongwu and the Knicks' Jalen Brunson held Robinson back as the fight inched toward fans sitting courtside.

“It’s tough because when you’re up that big, stuff happens," Knicks coach Mike Brown said after New York's 140-89 series-clinching win. “If somebody feels like something that shouldn’t happen to them happened, it’s hard to keep your composure in that moment.”

Nickeil Alexander-Walker and several coaches pulled Daniels away, including Hawks head coach Quin Snyder.

It was easy to understand why the Hawks were frustrated. Atlanta's 83-36 deficit was the largest at halftime in NBA playoff history.

“I couldn’t see the details of the situation, who did what to whom," Snyder said. “I know that both teams were competing and they were having their way with us on many, many levels — as evidenced by the scoreboard.”

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

Instead, she gave the Indiana Fever and fans a scare Thursday night.

Clark crumpled to the ground early in the third quarter when Dallas forward Alanna Smith collided with her leg on a shot attempt, and then limped toward the bench as she walked off the injury during a replay review that resulted in a Flagrant 1 call. The two-time All-Star then made two free throws before departing and watching the rest of the game from the bench.

“I feel good. I just landed on my kneecap really hard,” Clark said after scoring 21 points in a 95-80 loss to the Wings. “I know there's a committee of people that really wanted them (the refs) to start calling things, and I thought they did a great job of that. Honestly, I thought the refs were great, and it's preseason so you're probably going to see more fouls called. I expect that number to drop. But I think overall, it's going to improve the product.”

Initially, it looked as if little had changed since Clark last suited up in Gainbridge Fieldhouse on July 13, when the Fever beat Dallas.

The pregame autograph line snaked through the seats, the No. 22 jerseys and Clark T-shirts were as fashionable Thursday night as they were during her record-breaking rookie season, and, naturally, Clark was greeted with the usual loud cheers during player introductions.

Sure, it was only a preseason game, but it did feature the league's last two Rookie of the Year award winners — Clark and Paige Bueckers. Yet Fever fans had been yearning for this moment since Clark went down July 15 with a right groin injury that forced her to miss the All-Star Game and the All-Star weekend festivities in Indianapolis, as well as Indiana's final 22 regular-season games and its incredible run to the WNBA semifinals.

The long absence only made Thursday's game an even bigger deal.

“This is the first (Fever) game I've been to — ever,” said Nikki Niccun, dressed in a No. 22 jersey. “I've seen every one on TV, but this is the first time in person. I know it's a preseason game, but I'm excited."

Clark first returned to the court for Team USA in the FIBA Women's World Cup qualifying games in early March, then helped the Fever open the preseason with a 109-91 victory at New York despite a 2-for-10 shooting performance.

This time, Clark looked more like herself. She scored 14 of her 21 points in the first quarter, had four assists, three turnovers and two rebounds while going 4 of 6 from the field and 11 of 13 at the free throw line in 16 minutes.

“We had planned for her to come out about that time anyway," coach Stephanie White said. “It was just an extra precaution getting her out in that moment, but the plan was for her to start the third quarter and then get her out quickly.”

White also held out All-Star center Aliyah Boston for the second straight game because of a lower leg injury. All-Star guard Kelsey Mitchell finished with 10 points in 17 minutes.

Not everyone came to see Clark, though.

A smattering of fans also showed up in Bueckers jerseys, and she dazzled the crowd by scoring 20 points in 20 minutes on 8-of-12 shooting. Rookie Azzi Fudd, the No. 1 overall draft pick, added four points in 16 minutes as the Wings used a 22-5 second quarter run to seize control with a 53-26 lead. They never trailed again.

Whether that's an indication one of last season's 10-win teams could be headed for major improvement remains to be seen.

And though there were plenty of empty seats Thursday night, a rarity when Clark takes the stage, longtime Clark admirers welcomed the chance to get an early look at what they anticipate will be a big season.

“They're going to bounce back,” Niccun said. “We're going to be all right.”

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

The tax accountant said he “got the same high” on those platforms that he got from gambling. “That was how I relapsed — with Kalshi and Polymarket. I lost a bunch of money.”

The rapid growth of prediction markets has sparked a high-stakes debate that is playing out in courts and legislatures all over the country. Operators of those companies believe they should be regulated like the stock exchange because of federal law and their customer-to-customer structure, while sportsbooks and state officials think they should be supervised the same way as sports gambling platforms.

While that argument continues with no sign of resolution, the clinicians who treat gambling disorders are more concerned about what they are seeing with their patients. In their spaces, when it comes to sports gambling and prediction markets, the end result is virtually the same.

Two gambling addicts who spoke to The Associated Press — the soccer coach and tax accountant — say they had relapses on prediction markets after they took legal action to protect themselves from the allure of sports betting. They are being identified by their occupations because of the sensitivity of their situations. Their stories reflect what experts say they see with some of their clients.

“There may be real differences in how these products are defined or regulated, but in the therapy room, we are often seeing the same cycle of anticipation, action and reaction play out again and again,” said Dr. Cynthia Grant, the vice president of clinical for Birches Health, which operates a national network of providers for treating gambling addiction.

“I sometimes think of it like different doors into the same room. The label on the door may change, but once someone’s inside, the experience can feel very familiar.”

The road from sportsbooks to prediction markets

Sportsbooks and prediction markets offer a lot of similar options. Wagers on games, individual performances and other possibilities. But the format is different.

Sportsbooks have in-house experts who set odds that dictate payouts for winning bets. It's the house versus the gamblers. Traders on predictions markets swap contracts of yes-or-no questions, and profits and losses are dictated by the market. Win a “yes” holding on an event contract where most of the market guessed “no,” and the payout is bigger. Prediction markets generally make money through fees on contracts.

For addicts, they are two paths to the same result.

The soccer coach who spoke to the AP started gambling when he was 16. Small bets against friends in his New York neighborhood, everything from cards to basketball and tennis. When he turned 18, he started going to casinos and making bets at sportsbooks. Amid mounting losses, he turned to prediction markets.

“I would be in all this debt and get a paycheck for $2,000 on a Friday and it would be gone by Saturday or Sunday,” said the coach, 21. “I wouldn’t have money to fill up my gas tank.”

He was struggling with loans and maxed-out credit cards while working and going to college before he stepped away in January to confront his addiction problems, which also included smoking marijuana.

He joined Gamblers Anonymous, and he was told he had to stop associating with people who gamble.

“For a younger crowd, that’s difficult because it’s everywhere,” the coach said. “My friends from childhood — most of them all gamble."

The coach and the tax accountant had formally self-excluded from sportsbooks before they started trading on prediction markets. Self-exclusion programs provide an opportunity for gamblers to ban themselves from gambling facilities and betting apps. They are offered in many states as part of gambling regulations, but there is no widely adopted national system.

The landscape for self-exclusion programs becomes even more fragmented when predictions markets are included. Kalshi started a voluntary opt-out program when it launched a customer protection hub in March 2025, and it's one of several platforms — including Polymarket — collaborating on a national self-exclusion program for prediction markets. But it's not clear if that program would ever overlap with the systems used by state gambling regulators.

The accountant, 33, said his gambling problems started after New York launched legalized mobile sports betting in January 2022. He had “a boatload of debt” in August 2023 when he told his then-fiancée about what was going on with him.

She married him anyway. Looking to save money after the wedding, they moved into a rental house owned by his parents. He self-excluded from sportsbooks. Then, after the couple lost their first pregnancy, the accountant started day-trading before signing up for Kalshi.

“Prediction markets are the same thing packaged in a different way,” the accountant said. “It’s a dangerous loophole. ... How can you do all that and say you’re not a sportsbook?”

Tennis was his go-to sport — he liked the speed of the matches — before he went to rehab in Virginia last year.

He had a relapse in December when he downloaded Polymarket and made a free $10 wager. He was confronted by his wife, who had his email connected to her phone and reached out to his sponsor.

While there has been no substantive research into the effect of prediction markets on sports gambling addiction, the experiences of the coach and the accountant are not uncommon for treatment experts.

“You’re seeing a lot of the same behaviors, whether it’s a prediction market or it’s gambling,” said Jody Bechtold, the CEO of The Better Institute, a Pennsylvania practice that works with people impacted by gambling disorders. “You’re seeing, you know, wagering more and more. Chasing losses, so ‘Oh, today was a bad day, I have to work tomorrow at the prediction markets to get my money back.’ ... The lies, the secrecy, and that it’s impacting everyday life.”

Kalshi spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana highlighted its programs for responsible trading — such as trading breaks and self-limits — and said it's working on other measures to further facilitate healthy trading behavior.

Compared to casinos, Diana said, Kalshi is “fairer, more transparent, and less predatory.”

"There is no house that wins when customers lose,” she said. "This means that Kalshi doesn’t hook losers and penalize winners.”

A message was left seeking comment from Polymarket.

Event contracts are increasingly popular on prediction markets

Sports have become a major category for prediction markets. Kalshi had more than $2 billion in total trading volume on this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, according to Diana. Michigan’s 69-63 victory over Connecticut in the championship had $10.6 million in volume on Polymarket.

The U.S. market for sports-focused event contracts could grow to approximately $1.1 trillion in annual volume, according to a Bank of America report.

“A year ago, if you said prediction markets, I mean I don’t know what that is, I don’t see it,” said Dr. Timothy Fong, the co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program. “Now we’re starting to see it more and more in our patients that come into the clinic. And it’s usually not one, it’s multiple platforms they’re betting on, right? ... When you have something that’s available, that’s accessible, that’s anonymous, is super easy to use, multiple times in a day, of course that’s going to raise the risk of addiction for any human on Earth.”

There are multiple ongoing lawsuits involving states and prediction markets, and the ramifications of the legal dispute are being felt on a variety of levels.

Marlene Warner, the CEO of the Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health — a private nonprofit health organization that provides educational programs on gambling along with other services — said the situation with prediction markets “feels a bit like the wild, wild west right now.”

“We’re very used to like going to our state regulator or, you know, seeing a process go through where all of a sudden now you’re like, ‘OK, a piece of legislation has outlined what is appropriate for a licensed sports betting operator to do,’" Warner said. “And then you see the regulation come into place. And so you can track it. But right now, nobody knows kind of what the limits are.”

In most states with legal sports gambling, it is limited to ages 21 and older, while prediction markets are open for 18- to 20-year-olds with some exceptions. Prediction markets also have a presence in states where sports betting is illegal, including Texas and California.

“I don’t know enough frankly, we don’t know enough, nothing’s been studied about them, I can’t tell you whether they’re more less or exactly the same in terms of risk level,” Warner said. “But what I do know is they're in a very gray, unregulated space and that alone makes it difficult.”

Prediction markets fall under the jurisdiction of the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has a regulation that prohibits an event contract “that involves, relates to, or references terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or an activity that is unlawful under any state or federal law.”

CFTC chairman Michael Selig is backing prediction markets in their legal proceedings against several states, asserting the commission's “exclusive jurisdiction over these markets.”

While that argument continues, the soccer coach and tax accountant are rebuilding their lives — while doing their best to stay vigilant with their addictions.

“You have to face this stuff or it just keeps getting worse,” the coach said.

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

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Last weekend Fisher took the stage in a former Presbyterian church that he bought for a song and converted into a performance space and recording studio he calls Ragamuffin Hall, in the rural Pennsylvania community of McCoysville.

Fisher performed two sold-out concerts with Ben and Rose Stoltzfus, a married couple whose Amish background and church choir harmonies have drawn millions of YouTube clicks. It was a sort of warmup for shows they're playing together in the coming months at much larger theaters in Pennsylvania and Indiana.

“Ragamuffin Hall,” Fisher said, "is supposed to be a place where those weird things that'll get you ostracized everywhere else, we're like, 'Oh, no, that's a gift. And here's how you use it.'”

Fisher's parents were both raised in Amish families but his father joined a Mennonite congregation as a young adult. Among the Mennonite churches Fisher attended as a boy, musical instruments were rarely used.

Nonetheless, his father was a fan of Johnny Cash and didn't look too closely at what was on Fisher's MP3 player. When Fisher's brother came home from a camping trip with a mix CD featuring Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers and the Beach Boys, it changed his life.

“It blew my mind, right?” Fisher, now 31, recalled. He started learning keyboards and then guitar, bass and drums before adding music production — “mostly because I was dead set on making a living with music.”

“My buddies would be like, ‘Hey, I wrote a song for my girlfriend. Can you do a track?' And I’m like, sure.”

Recording in a converted church

He moved to Tennessee as a young adult and for three years immersed himself in the songwriting industry — the Oak Ridge Boys even recorded one of his tunes. But the road life didn't suit him — particularly bar gigs.

“There's drinking and carrying on,” Fisher said. “It's just not me. I'm not a prude, but I just don't enjoy that scene.”

Fisher considers his wife and three children his main priority and he remains a faithful Mennonite — his pastor once asked him why he didn’t just start a cabinetry business and launch a prison ministry. Yet his music production work eventually grew to the point three years ago that he could stop working as a carpenter.

In 2022, Fisher learned an old brick church several miles from his home was up for sale. After he laid out his vision for making it into a music incubator, they sold it to him below market value.

Musicians now regularly find their way to Ragamuffin Hall, mostly to record “clean country music" and rootsy bluegrass with a heavy dose of gospel. The acts he's recorded include an Amish man who played steel guitar with his son's band, a musician who drove for hours from Missouri and an Amish band from Ohio.

Last Saturday, he sprinkled his own songs between tunes made popular by Waylon Jennings, Alison Krauss and Don Williams. After a short set by Fisher's five-piece band, they stayed on stage to back up Ben and Rose. Fisher used an electric guitar fashioned from a beam recovered during his renovations of a church stairwell.

The overwhelmingly white matinee crowd consisted mostly of older people and included several of the musicians' family members. Downstairs, Ragamuffin Hall T-shirts were for sale alongside $3 homemade whoopie pies, a regionally ubiquitous Pennsylvania Dutch dessert.

A paradigm shift on stage

The insular culture and unadorned lives of conservative Anabaptist people aren't often associated with music, but Amish sacred music dates back half a millennium. Their 900-page hymnal — the “Ausbund” — was composed in part by Anabaptist prisoners in 16th century Germany and is still used today.

Fisher’s Amish roots and ability to speak Pennsylvania Dutch, the Old Order Amish dialect, has helped build rapport with likeminded musicians.

But Amish church music is almost always group singing only, without instruments or soloists. And the community generally discourages public performances and other “acts of pride.”

“There's a lot of great talent in that community that goes undeveloped because," Fisher said — using a Pennsylvania German phrase — "that's just, ‘we don’t do that,' you know.”

That's the sort of pushback he received in February after uploading a rollicking, live version of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” to YouTube. Fisher felt compelled to respond.

“I'm a believer, I'm a man of faith, and I'm not ashamed of that,” he replied in a video message. “But I do play a lot of different kinds of music, just like, you know, if you're a shed builder you build sheds for all kinds of people, not just churches and schools.”

Elam Stoltzfus, director of the Nicholas Stoltzfus Homestead in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, said it was “one of the shocks of my life” to attend a charity fundraiser last year at a farm where Ben and Rose performed. (Stoltzfus is a common name among the Amish.) There were bright lights, a video screen, barbecued chicken and vendors selling T-shirts, CDs and books.

Stoltzfus, whose family left the Old Order in the mid-1960s when he was 10, said the gathering was packed with Mennonite and Amish people. They weren’t dancing, but they did clap.

“I was thrilled to see this happen, because I knew this was a paradigm shift," he said. “When I was a teenager, it would never have happened.”

Legions of fans on social media

Amos Raber, of Goshen, Indiana, also grew up in a “horse and buggy” Amish family and considered himself Amish until he turned 22. Nowadays, he supports his family with concert performances and revenues garnered from what he says are millions of clicks a month on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and Facebook.

In recent decades, Raber said, he's seen Amish youth increasingly come together with guitars to sing. But they can still run up against prohibitions on public performances.

“Most times, if you see someone who's really Amish doing that kind of thing, they're probably not going to be Amish long,” Raber said. Since they began recording and performing music, Ben and Rose have left their Amish church and joined a different Christian congregation. They declined comment for this story.

LeRoy Stoltzfus, a singer-songwriter living near Lancaster, was 13 when his family left the Amish church. He said changes in the Lancaster Amish settlement in recent years have made it easier for people to leave without losing contact with families and friends, a process called “shunning” that has long fascinated outsiders.

After years of playing guitar as a church worship leader and after spending four years at a Colorado Bible college, he's now making a living as a musician, stitching together concerts with online ad revenue and recordings for a fan base that includes many Amish and formerly Amish people.

“Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a star,” LeRoy Stoltzfus said. “But the older I got, I realized it wasn't about me — it was about putting out music and helping people.”

‘I would have laughed at you’

Justin Hiltner, a Nashville-based banjo player and songwriter who serves as managing editor of the roots music blog “The Bluegrass Situation,” said after delving into the music he was impressed with its quality. He said he also got the sense that Ben and Rose and Conrad Fisher and the others are building a musical community.

“This is clearly not just insular music that’s just facing other Amish folks or other Mennonite folks,” Hiltner said. “Clearly it’s ‘broken containment’ here.”

Hiltner called the music -- and Fisher’s videos -- “really compelling.”

“To kind of an outsider, this is the performance of American essentialism, the rural American ideal, right?” said Hiltner. “I did hear a level of talent that’s very clearly pushing and pulling these folks towards bringing their music to a wider audience.”

Religiously conservative musicians can market their recordings through a network of bookstores across the U.S. and Canada. At one of them, Ken’s Educational Joys in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, racks of CDs are sold alongside a floor-to-ceiling selection of Bibles.

Proprietor Lydell Zimmerman said his biggest music sellers are a cappella recordings, but he's noticed Ben and Rose have drawn a real following.

“I think their presence as an Amish couple singing online is what brought people’s attention to them,” Zimmerman said.

Ben and Rose came to Fisher's studio when Ben's brother, a friend of Fisher's from Lancaster, booked a session there.

He realized right away Ben and Rose had talent. Tapping into Fisher’s production skills, they've amassed more than 30 million views for their videos on YouTube. Eventually he proposed some live shows and the couple agreed.

“I started recording when I was 14,” Fisher said. “If you would have told me two years ago that what's going to put me on the map or boost my business in a big way, it's going to be an Old Order Amish couple, I would have laughed at you.”

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

All-night sessions. Hours of dead zones with no action on the floor. Legislation being written on the fly, behind closed doors. Sudden votes scheduled. Spectacular failures. And, as happened this week, stunning turnarounds in which the House actually passes bills.

"Sometimes it’s an ugly process, sometimes it’s a long process," Johnson said after House passage of a bipartisan bill to fund much of the Department of Homeland Security, ending the longest agency shutdown in history. "But we got it done."

Republicans, who face an uphill climb this election year to keep hold of their paper-thin House majority, appear at times as if they are still learning on the job, years after having returned to power in 2022, while they are also about to ask voters in November to rehire them for another term.

This week's starts and stops — for example, five hours of delay as Johnson huddled behind closed doors to salvage his agenda, then a sudden vote tally near 11 p.m. — would typically have been the kind of situation that shocked the political and procedural senses. Now, it's just another Wednesday.

Or two weeks ago, when a routine House Rules Committee hearing ended up becoming a midnight forum to debut a just-produced 14-page bill to revise a surveillance bill, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, before it was rushed to the floor for a 2 a.m. vote. It failed.

“House Republicans have shown again that they can’t govern,” said Rep. Ted Lieu of California, part of Democratic leadership.

“They routinely pass bills to the Senate that are way too extreme, then it ends up that we have all these floor session days where we’re just doing nothing,” he said.

House GOP's slim majority makes leader's job challenging

Johnson, who took over for the ousted Kevin McCarthy more than two years ago, is presiding over one of the slimmest House majorities in modern times, leaving him no room to spare if he's trying to pass legislation on party line votes, without Democrats.

The speaker is juggling not only President Donald Trump's priorities but also those of the various factions that make up his majority, from the conservative House Freedom Caucus to what remains of the GOP's more pragmatic conservatives.

And Johnson’s own future is always in question, after Republicans chased other speakers, including McCarthy, John Boehner and Newt Gingrich, to early exits.

Last year Johnson, of Louisiana, led passage of the party's signature achievement, a big bill of tax breaks and safety net cuts, which Trump signed into law. At the time, he quipped about the difficulty of getting it over the finish line.

“I do so deeply desire to have just a normal Congress,” the speaker said in July.

“But it doesn’t happen anymore," he said. “Our way is to plow through and get it done."

What's ahead as House GOP tries to stay in power

Ahead of the fall elections, Johnson and other Republican lawmakers have discussed an agenda that includes the promise of another GOP-only budget package like the tax cuts bill that they could push through the House and the Senate, without Democratic votes.

Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, said Thursday that he expects “the centerpiece” of that package "will be supporting our troops" with more than $100 billion in funding for the war against Iran as well as money to replenish defense munitions and other Pentagon-related needs.

Despite the turbulent week in the House, Arrington said what they're calling budget reconciliation 3.0 should be the “next order of business.”

Yet GOP lawmakers may decide it's better to skip the hard work of legislating, and the dramatic upheavals that tend to come with it, and hit the campaign trail to win over voters instead.

Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., the chairman of the House GOP's campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, acknowledged that trying to pass legislation with such a tight majority "can be rough. It's ugly."

“I'd be fine with letting us go home and campaign,” Hudson said. “But we've got a lot of important work still to do.”

Some of Johnson's most ardent sparring partners, those most conservative Republican lawmakers, turned their blame for the messy process not on Johnson's leadership but on their own GOP allies across the Capitol in the Senate, who often dismiss the House's work.

“Yeah, sometimes, it gets a little tense,” said Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas. “But we’re still getting stuff done. We’re sending it over to the Senate. So we look forward to them doing their job.”

This weekend, Roanoke will see the 46th annual Community School’s Strawberry Festival. Volunteers will serve up thousands of homemade strawberry desserts, including its signature shortcake.

Event organizers say it draws up to 20,000 people. It also relies heavily on volunteers to put everything together each year.

“Our volunteers are washing slicing and capping 2,000 pounds of strawberries for the weekends festival, and I have to say, they are looking good and plump and they smell delicious.”

Kitty Hopkins, marketing and communications director at Community Schools

The festival benefits the Community School in Roanoke and is the organization’s only fundraiser of the year.

The festival will take place on Friday, May 1, from 11 a..m. to 6 p.m., and on Saturday, May 2, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Elmwood Park. You can find more information on the festival here.

In a humorous video posted Thursday on his Instagram account, Banksy showed snippets of how the sculpture was put up in the dead of night. The sculpture appeared to have been erected in the early hours of Wednesday on a plinth on a traffic island in Waterloo Place, near Buckingham Palace.

Before the artist's post, locals and tourists gathered to inspect the statue on the assumption it was Banksy's work because his signature was scrawled at the base of the plinth.

The statue is situated close to those of King Edward VII, who reigned between 1901 and 1910, and legendary nurse Florence Nightingale, as well as the Crimean War Memorial.

Statues are not what Banksy is primarily known for. He is far more famous for his spray-painting on buildings, with his first creations appearing in the early 1990s in his hometown of Bristol in southwest England. He has since gone global and his paintings and installations have sold for millions of dollars at auction. His street art is often targeted by thieves and vandals.

Banksy, who has never publicly revealed his identity, is part of a tradition of street artists who viewed the undercover act of posting their art in public as a subversive form of expression.

The move follows an April 13 meeting of the Buildings and Grounds Committee of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors, which approved the acquisition of more than 100 acres in Kapuskasing, Ontario, currently owned by Johns Hopkins University.

This land purchase will support the SuperDARN (Super Dual Auroral Radar Network) project, a long-running international research collaboration that includes Virginia Tech, among other institutions. The project focuses on studying the Earth’s space environment, such as radiation exposure risks for high-altitude travelers and disruptions caused by space weather. Radars supporting this research are located in 10 countries, including a site on the Johns Hopkins property in Canada.

In the United States, the National Science Foundation is the primary funding source for this research, and Virginia Tech has received grants for the project since 2008.

Johns Hopkins University no longer operates the radar on its Canadian property and is seeking to transfer ownership of the land to Virginia Tech. An appraisal conducted on December 11, 2024, estimated the property’s market value at 115,000 Canadian dollars, or about 84,000 U.S. dollars.

Watson was found guilty of two counts of election fraud and one count of illegally voting. He was charged more than two years after the election in question. In December 2025, Watson announced his resignation from the council; his full statement is available here.

Watson received a two-year prison sentence for each of the three felony convictions, with the sentences to run concurrently. However, all six years were suspended. He will serve two years of unsupervised probation.

Under Virginia law, each felony election fraud charge could have carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, while the illegal voting charge carried a maximum of five years.

John Fishwick, Watson’s attorney, said in a statement that, “While we remain disappointed in the jury’s verdict, we respect the Court’s sentencing decision, and Mr. Watson will continue to evaluate his legal options.”

This week, the university received a $10 million gift from alumna Jane Parke Batten, who graduated in 1958, to support the Hollins Opportunity for Promise through Education (HOPE) program. The donation will help HOPE Scholars through the Class of 2032.

“This is a defining moment for Hollins and for the future of the HOPE Scholarship program,” said President Mary Dana Hinton. “Jane’s extraordinary generosity ensures that talented students can access a Hollins education and fully engage in the opportunities that prepare them to lead. This investment affirms both our mission and our momentum.”

Launched in 2021, the HOPE Scholarship was established to expand access for students with financial need. It initially focused on the Roanoke Valley, but in 2024, the program was expanded to include Pell-eligible students across the country.

The program covers tuition, on-campus housing, meals and required fees. It also includes success coaching, mentorship and opportunities for leadership development, such as global study, internships and undergraduate research.

The first cohort of regional HOPE Scholars will graduate this spring. The incoming fall 2026 cohort has an average GPA.

“This investment sends a powerful signal of confidence in HOPE and in the strategic direction of Hollins,” Hinton said. “It allows us to support students now while building a strong foundation for the program and Hollins’ future.”

For more information about the HOPE Scholarship program, visit hollins.edu/hope

“Condiments are a very common source of excess calories. Whether you make a nice big garden salad and then you add a store-bought bottle dressing, that’s a creamy dressing, that’s very heavy and dense in calories. Adding a lot of extra cheese or cheese-based, dairy-based condiments like cream cheese and sour cream can add up a lot of calories too,” said Julia Zumpano, RD, registered dietitian at Cleveland Clinic.

Zumpano said calories can also quickly add up with soda, smoothies, pre-packaged snacks and custom coffee drinks.

Granola, cooking oils, trail mix and nut butters can also be deceiving.

She said while these foods can be high in calories, that doesn’t mean you need to cut them out completely.

Instead, she recommends practicing moderation and paying attention to serving sizes.

You could also adjust some of the ingredients to make them healthier, such as with salad dressing.

“I love to recommend homemade dressings. That’s normally what I use. Sometimes, even in a bind, I’ll just drizzle extra virgin olive oil with my favorite seasoning on top. So, I might use an Italian blend seasoning, or I use everything but the bagel seasoning often, and that’s usually my go to. If you want to just throw some lemon juice on there or a balsamic, or a red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar. That’s a way of dressing a salad,” she suggested.

Zumpano said an easy way to see how many calories you’re consuming is to use a calorie tracker.

There are free versions online and for download on your phone.

According to VSP, the safety initiative will span the counties of Allegany, Bath, Botetourt, Franklin, Henry, Highland and Roanoke along 220.

Route 220 is one of the busiest and most accident-prone corridors in Virginia, according to officials.

The Virginia State Police, Alleghany Sheriff’s Office, Bath County Sheriff’s Office, Botetourt County Sheriff’s Office, Roanoke County Police, Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, Henry County Sheriff’s Office, Highland County Sheriff’s Office, Boones Mill Police Department, Rocky Mount Police Department, and the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles will be participating in a combined 24-hour project on May 1, 2026.

VSP said officers will focus on speeding, distracted driving, impaired driving and seatbelt violations. The goal is to reduce crashes and increase driver awareness along one of the region’s busiest corridors.

“When you’re on Route 220, every decision behind the wheel matters. Slow down, stay alert, and help us keep this roadway safe,” said Lieutenant Eric King, “Our agencies stand united in prioritizing safety along Route 220. This operation reflects our commitment to proactive enforcement and community protection.”

Motorists are urged to drive responsibly, avoid distractions, and follow the posted speed limits along Route 220.

Veterans can register for the complimentary visit through May 10 and can bring up to three additional people. They will have until June 30 to visit with free park admission. Veterans can also receive 50% off a single-day ticket for up to six guests. These offers include U.S. active-duty military members.

Through its Waves of Honor program, the U.S. military members are offered special pricing and promotions throughout the year. In total, more than 10 million people, active-duty military members, veterans, and their families, have received free admission through the program.

Eligible U.S. military veterans can register for complimentary single-day tickets for themselves and up to three people by May 10 at www.WavesofHonor.com.

After registering, all tickets must be redeemed by June 30. Service members and their direct dependents must have a valid active military ID to participate.

The quick action after weeks of political blame brought an abrupt end to the months-long standoff that began after Trump’s deadly immigration crackdown in Minneapolis launched a reckoning on Capitol Hill over the funding for the president’s agenda.

DHS has been without routine funds since Feb. 14, causing hardship for workers, though many of the immigration enforcement operations were able to keep running with separate funding sources. The White House had warned that temporary funding Trump had tapped to pay Transportation Security Administration and other agency personnel would “soon run out.” Some employees risked missed paychecks in May.

“It is about damn time,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, who proposed the bipartisan bill more than 70 days ago.

The House swiftly voted by voice earlier Thursday, without a formal roll call, to pass the measure.

The movement in Congress comes as DHS is under intense scrutiny after Trump ousted Kristi Noem as the department’s leader, installing Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin in the middle of the shutdown. The agency counts some 260,000 employees, across TSA, the Coast Guard, FEMA and other operations.

Many workers have endured repeated turmoil with potential furloughs and pay lapses as the congressional stalemate dragged on. This shutdown came on the heels of last year’s governmentwide closure, which itself had set a record at 43 days. Countless employees have struggled with bills or simply quit their jobs.

Trump’s deportation strategy fueled the dispute

In the aftermath of the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both U.S. citizens, by federal agents during protests against the immigration actions in Minneapolis, Democrats refused to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol without changes to those operations.

At the same time, Republicans would not go along with a plan pushed by Democrats to fund TSA and the other parts of DHS without the money for ICE and Border Patrol. They insisted that immigration operations must not be zeroed out.

After the shutdown intensified, with hourslong lines at airport security screening, the Senate unanimously approved the bipartisan package without the immigration-related funds in a middle-of-the-night vote a month ago. Then the bill languished in the House.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., himself had called the legislation a “joke.”

To break the impasse, Republican leaders in both the House and Senate decided to tackle the immigration enforcement funding on their own through what is called budget reconciliation, a cumbersome weekslong process ahead.

By beginning that path with a separate vote late Wednesday night, adopting a GOP budget resolution to eventually provide $70 billion for immigration and deportation operations for the remainder of Trump’s term in 2029, Johnson was able to unlock the broader bipartisan bill for the rest of DHS.

Johnson acknowledged Thursday that while he had trashed the bipartisan bill before, the new budget process ensure that the immigration enforcement money eventually will flow “with no crazy Democrat reforms.”

“We threw a fit,” the speaker said. “We had to.”

But not all Republicans were pleased. During the quick floor action Thursday, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said isolating the immigration-related money on a separate track is “offensive to the men and women who serve in ICE and Border Patrol, and are serving this country every single day.”

White House warned paychecks were at risk, again

The White House had urged Congress this week to act, warning that the money Trump tapped to temporarily pay TSA and other workers through executive actions was drying up.

Immigration enforcement workers have largely been paid through the flush of new cash — some $170 billion — that Congress approved as part of Trump’s tax cuts bill last year. Others, including at the TSA, have had to rely on Trump’s intervention through executive action to ensure their paychecks. Most of its employees are considered essential and have remained on the job.

But with salaries topping a combined $1.6 billion every two weeks, Mullin said recently that the money was dwindling.

On Thursday, he said in a social media post that the shutdown “NEVER should have happened.”

More than 1,000 TSA officers have quit since the shutdown began, according to Airlines for America, the U.S. airlines trade group that on Wednesday called on Congress to fully fund the Cabinet department.

Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said while workers are “pleased that Congress finally stepped up to do their jobs and fund DHS, it is unacceptable that it took them this long to do so.”

He said “federal employees are not political pawns. They are not leverage. They are Americans -– and they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”

Complicated budget strategy ahead

The go-it-alone strategy under the budget resolution process is the same that was used last year to approve Trump’s tax cuts bill, which all Democrats opposed.

With the budget resolution now adopted by the House and Senate, lawmakers will next draft the actual $70 billion ICE and Border Patrol funding bill, with voting expected in May.

Trump has said he wants it on his desk by June 1.

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Associated Press writer Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

As of Friday, May 1, the average price for regular gasoline in Virginia is $4.149 per gallon, according to AAA. Diesel is averaging about $5.62 per gallon, while premium gasoline sits at $4.969.

Looking closer at our region, AAA reports that drivers in Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and Radford are still paying the most for regular gas, with an average of $4.07 per gallon. Premium is averaging $4.87, and diesel is at $5.55. AAA says drivers in Lynchburg will find the least expensive gas in the area. The average price there for regular gas is $4.030 per gallon, but you’ll pay more for premium gas: $4.834 per gallon.

Statewide, the highest prices are in Washington, D.C., where regular gas averages $4.233 per gallon.

To find out where the lowest fuel prices are near you, visit GasBuddy’s website.

Since the U.S. and Israel launched a joint war against Iran on Feb. 28, the cost of crude oil, the main ingredient in gasoline, has spiked and swung rapidly. That’s because the conflict has caused deep supply chain disruptions and cuts from major oil producers across the Middle East.

Many Americans remember the American Revolution as the American colonies fighting for their independence from the British Empire.

However, there were other conflicts during the revolutions as well. Here in Virginia, the Cherokee wars of 1776 saw battles between the Cherokee Native Americans and settlers in the region.

Much of Southwest Virginia was held by the Cherokee tribe, but settlers were starting to infiltrate land the natives claimed as their own.

“Even though they’re not making their towns here so much, they’re viewing the arrival of settlement filling up the New River Valley and beyond as a threat because it’s getting closer and closer to where their towns are, and they do still claim this land,” historian Walter Bailey said.

Rising tensions led to raids by the Cherokee, but this didn’t stop Virginians from expanding and building forts across the New River Valley and what would eventually be Tennessee.

The Cherokee were compelled to sign a peace treaty, but a faction led by Cherokee Chief Dragging Canoe decided to try to put an end to the expansion by making raids on forts and other settlements.

Bailey says that the Cherokee tribe was supported by British loyalists in the colonies. While the Cherokee remained loyal to the British, they didn’t get the same treatment.

“They remained allied to the British side, but they didn’t get, like, say, British troops or even Loyalist troops to join them to defend their homelands,” Bailey said.

After several battles, a brain trust of governors took action, bringing together an army led by William Christian of Christiansburg.

Christian’s offensive forced the Cherokee to surrender and sign a treaty.

“In a treaty that was dictated pretty much in the summer of 1777, called the Avery Treaty, William Christian, William Preston, and Evan Shelby, along with North Carolina commissioners, meet with most of the Cherokee leaders, not Dragging Canoe, but most of them, and they force them to give all this up,” Bailey said.

This treaty opened the door to American expansion, spearheaded by explorers like Daniel Boone.

Literally shaping the way our country looks to this day.

“Part of what was dictated to the Cherokee in the Avery Treaty was a clear path to the Cumberland Gap, an unobstructed access to a new Virginia County that was also established in 1776 from Fincastle County,” Bailey said.

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

It’s that delicate balance that leads to April’s Education Impact Award honoree.

[NOMINATE YOUR FAVORITE EDUCATOR HERE]

Jamie Nichols has been teaching math at William Byrd Middle School since 2012. By definition, math doesn’t always inspire excitement or thoughts of being “enjoyable,” but Nichols has seemingly cracked the code when it comes to engaging her students.

“I always hate that whenever you say you teach math, they’re like, ehhh--- ‘I hate that.’ But I just try to engage, like we play games. I will try to make a theme of the sports season, like we turn it into a baseball game, hockey, golf, just a little bit of everything to keep them engaged,” Nichols said.

Whether serving as a math teacher, a track coach or a mentor to other teachers, Nichols is a leader in the William Byrd community.

But it might be her relationships with her middle school students during a key time in their lives that make her more than just “an answer,” but rather “the solution.”

“She is all in about being a Terrier, and she just knows these kids, whether it’s through her coaching or through her teaching, because as you said, middle school is the absolute critical point for our students, and she just loves this age group,” said William Byrd Middle School Principal Katherine Hutchison.

Short of paying for your food, there isn’t much math happening in a lunchroom, but that didn’t stop us from turning the cafeteria into a hall of honor for April’s Education Impact Award honoree.

“Obviously, she makes it fun, but she also embodies what life is beyond math class, right? The critical thinking, the problem-solving, the celebrating successes, and helping them believe in themselves that will carry them through to adulthood,” said Blue Eagle Credit Union Senior Brand Specialist Laurissa Thompson.

“They drive you crazy, but then there are little things that they show that they are good kids at heart that make you want to come back,” Nichols said.

Nichols is also the head girls track coach at William Byrd Middle School and coordinates community service projects, such as school food drives, involving her team in these efforts.

Ousted in six games by the Minnesota Timberwolves in their first-round series, the Nuggets trudged into the offseason with plenty of questions to answer about their ability to remain a true title contender in the stacked Western Conference. For the first time in four years, the Nuggets failed to make it to May.

“We just lost in the first round, so I think we are far away,” said Jokic, who had 28 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds in the 110-98 loss to the Timberwolves on Thursday night.

Four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert deftly neutralized Jokic during the series, even dominating him at times with his long arms, relentless effort and superb positioning.

Jokic found some rhythm and spark in the last two games, but his sidekick Jamal Murray had a rough series. The first-time All-Star, who played in 75 games during the regular season for his most in eight years, was similarly smothered by Timberwolves villain Jaden McDaniels. Murray went just 4 for 17 from the floor and with a game-worst minus-18 rating.

“When I get the looks that I need, they don’t go down,” Murray said. “So that’s the frustrating part, not showing up when my team needed me the most tonight. I feel like if I would’ve played a little bit better we would’ve had that game.”

Missing forwards Aaron Gordon to a calf injury for three of the six games and Peyton Watson for the whole series to a hamstring strain sure didn't help. Cameron Johnson made a late push from the 3-point line, pitching in 27 points in Game 5, but there wasn't enough production beyond Jokic and Murray in this series for the Nuggets to advance, even against a Timberwolves team that was severely short-handed in the backcourt. And their pick-and-roll synergy was largely absent too.

“They were missing a bunch of guys tonight, and they still won. So did we need them? Definitely, but if they are not here, we cannot think, ‘If, if, if, if,’” Jokic said.

After leading the league in offensive rating during the regular season and being held under 100 points only twice, the Nuggets failed to hit triple digits against the feisty Timberwolves three times in the series.

“It’s a miss-or-make league. We couldn’t make any shots," Jokic said. “I’m confident in my and Jamal's two-man game.”

Jokic, who will enter his 12th season in the league in 2026-27, can sign another maximum contract extension this summer. He didn't hesitate when asked about his interest in reupping his commitment.

“I still want to be Nuggets forever,” he said.

Coach David Adelman doesn't have the same security, after finishing his first full year on the job. Might changes be in the works in Denver?

“That’s not my decision,” Jokic said. "Definitely, if we were in Serbia, we would all be fired.”

But in all seriousness, the Joker doubled down on his support of Adelman.

“It’s not his fault we couldn’t rebound. It’s not his fault we couldn’t catch the ball very well. There is nothing to blame David Adelman. It was all us,” Jokic said.

The Nuggets closed the regular season on a 12-game winning streak.

“Very disappointing end to the season. I'm the head coach. I take responsibility for things that didn't go well here,” Adelman said.

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

“They are a part of who we are and our sense of belonging here,” said Paul Ward, founder of the Capital Kiwi Project, a charitable trust. “But they’ve been gone from these hills for well over a century and we decided as Wellingtonians that wasn’t right.”

On a hill wreathed in mist above the dark sea that runs between New Zealand’s North and South Islands, Ward and others crossed rugged farmland late on Tuesday night, carrying seven crates in silence by dim red torchlight. Inside each one nestled a kiwi, including the 250th bird relocated to Wellington since the Capital Kiwi Project began.

Birds receive a quiet welcome to new homes

The kiwi gives New Zealanders the name by which they’re often known. It’s a shy and odd-looking bird with underdeveloped wings and a whiskery face.

Spiritually significant for many New Zealanders, the kiwi’s image appears everywhere, including on the tail of the country’s air force planes — curious for a bird with no tail which can’t fly.

It’s thought that there were 12 million of the birds roaming the landscape before humans arrived in New Zealand. Today only about 70,000 kiwi are left across the country, with the population dropping 2% each year.

In the hills where Wellington’s kiwi now live and breed, the only late-night sound on Tuesday was the whoosh of wind turbines. Ward and his friends set their crates down in pairs, slid them open and gently tilted the boxes.

Some in the small group of hushed onlookers were tearful. One man chanted a karakia, a Māori prayer.

From each crate, a long, curved beak eventually protruded as kiwi took their first tentative steps into the shadowed landscape, then sped to a run and disappeared into the darkness.

Kiwi make their first Parliament visit

One place kiwi had never set foot until this week was inside New Zealand’s Parliament. Hours before Wellington’s seven newest residents were transported to their hillside home, they were carried into Parliament’s grand banquet hall by handlers for a celebration of the 250th kiwi's arrival in the city.

Lawmakers and schoolchildren alike expressed whispered delight at seeing the timid, nocturnal birds up close, many for the first time, as conservation workers cradled the large birds like human babies, with their gnarled feet outstretched.

“This animal has given us as a people so much in terms of our sense of identity,” Ward told The Associated Press. “We want to challenge our civic leaders, our politicians and say this is a relationship we need to honor.”

Rare birds move from sanctuaries to urban life

New Zealand is home to some of the world’s strangest and rarest bird species. Some have only survived because of against-all-odds conservation programs, at times with uncertain funding.

Initiatives decades ago saw all surviving birds of some species moved onto offshore, predator-free islands or into sanctuaries where they could be carefully monitored and protected, but where few New Zealanders would ever see one.

Ward and his group had a different dream: that New Zealand’s iconic national bird could flourish alongside people in a bustling capital city, where human encroachment and introduced predators had wiped out the kiwi before.

“Where people are is also the places where we can bring them back because we’ve got the means to do that guardianship,” Ward said.

Thousands of traps protect capital’s kiwi

Although unmanaged kiwi populations are shrinking, their numbers have thrived in carefully managed wild bird sanctuaries — so much, in fact, that some of these protected areas have run out of room for them.

That’s prompted their relocation to places like Wellington, where groups such as Ward’s rally residents to embrace their new neighbors. Kiwi have been spotted by late night mountain bikers and on backyard security camera footage in the capital, he said.

“They’re living and calling and being encountered on the hills surrounding our city,” Ward said.

That's taken work. Over the past decade, efforts between landowners, the local Māori tribe and the Capital Kiwi Project have produced a sprawling, 24,000-hectare tract of land where kiwi can roam.

It’s dotted with more than 5,000 traps for stoats, the main predator of kiwi chicks. So far, the Wellington population has a 90% chick survival rate.

New Zealand aims to become predator free

The kiwi initiative is part of New Zealand’s quest to rid the island nation of introduced predators, including feral cats, possums, rats and stoats, by the year 2050. Since a previous government established the target in 2016 its chances of success have been debated, but community groups have taken up the work in earnest.

Parts of Wellington are now entirely free of mammalian predators apart from household pets, and native birds flourish. Volunteers monitor suburbs with military precision for the appearance of a single rat.

“When I think of endangered species globally, for the most part you can’t do much other than campaign or donate money,” said Michelle Impey, chief executive of Save the Kiwi. “But we have this incredible movement throughout the country where everyday people are taking it on under their own steam to do what they can to protect a threatened species.”

Cutter Gauthier had a goal and an assist, Ryan Poehling scored the opening goal and Lukas Dostal made 25 saves in a standout performance for the upstart Ducks, who stormed to their first playoff series victory since 2017 in front of a frenzied sellout crowd.

“It was obviously just an awesome feeling to make the playoffs for all of us,” Terry said. “We knew that this series was there for us if we played the right way. Obviously, they made a push, but I'm just proud of the guys. I thought we played maturely, played hard.”

After ending a seven-year postseason absence by knocking out the powerhouse Oilers, Anaheim will face the winner of the Vegas Golden Knights’ series with the Utah Mammoth. Vegas leads 3-2 heading to Salt Lake City on Friday night.

Connor Murphy and Vasily Podkolzin scored as Edmonton followed up its worst regular season since 2021 by going out in the first round for the first time since that season.

“We were an average team all year, you know?” said NHL scoring champion McDavid, who was held pointless in three of the series' six games. “An average team with high expectations, you’re going to be disappointed. ... They played very fast, and we weren’t very fast. We’ve been searching for consistency all year, and obviously we didn’t find it here in the playoffs.”

After winning nine playoff series, playing 81 postseason games and reaching two Stanley Cup Finals in the past four years, McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the Oilers finally appeared to run out of energy and health. They had a disastrous defensive performance against the Ducks, who scored three goals in the first period of Game 6.

“They know how to play the right way, and at the end of the day, I think they were just better than us,” Draisaitl said. “We never really found what you need to find at this time of year, especially to go all the way. In my opinion, just not good enough.”

Even with 14 players making their postseason debuts, the Ducks admirably handled the pressure while winning four of the last five games against the seasoned Oilers. Carlsson had an outstanding Game 6 to cap the 21-year-old center’s strong debut playoff series, while emerging star defenseman Jackson LaCombe scored nine points and led the Ducks’ defensive efforts against McDavid and Draisaitl.

“For sure it was our best game of the series,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “Could have been our best game of the year. A lot of things went well tonight.”

In Game 6, Anaheim also got its best effort of the series from Dostal, who had the NHL’s second-worst save percentage in the postseason after getting pulled from Game 5. The Czech Olympian was sharp all night, highlighted by a breakaway stop on Zach Hyman.

Backed by a raucous crowd that included Angels slugger Mike Trout, the Ducks scored first in Game 6 for the first time in the entire series when John Carlson’s shot hit Poehling and trickled in for his fourth goal of the series.

Carlsson then set up Kreider off the rush, ending the longtime Rangers star’s 17-game goal drought with his first playoff goal for the Ducks — on his 35th birthday, no less.

Murphy answered for Edmonton 1:31 later, but Gauthier got his fourth playoff goal on a power play when his one-timer arced in off Darnell Nurse’s stick.

Late in a tense second period, Carlsson took the puck from Evan Bouchard and fed Terry for a 4-1 lead.

Edmonton scored early in the third when Kasperi Kapanen’s wide shot deflected in off Podkolzin’s leg, but McDavid and Draisaitl couldn’t get it any closer. The Oilers pulled Ingram with 3:57 left, but Carlsson scored into an empty net.

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

With their top three guards missing because of injuries, the Timberwolves went big with Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle and Naz Reid fueling a 64-40 advantage in points in the paint and an 50-33 edge in rebounding.

“This is what you don’t really teach. This is about will. It’s about heart, and that’s how we were able to overcome this great challenge,” said Gobert, who had 10 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists.

Minnesota, the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference, will start the second round at San Antonio on Monday. The second-seeded Spurs beat Portland in five games in their first-round series.

Nikola Jokic had 28 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds to lead the Nuggets, but sidekick Jamal Murray struggled to get free from McDaniels and finished with just 12 points on 4-for-17 shooting. Cameron Johnson scored 27 points to lead Denver's 10-for-27 night from deep, but Jokic and the 3-pointers simply weren't enough to keep up with a fiercely motivated Timberwolves team.

“I’m just happy it’s over, happy we were able to come out on top,” McDaniels said. “Stuff was said. I’m just happy we were all able to prove our point, get the win, and move on to the next round.”

With Ayo Dosunmu joining Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo on the inactive list, the Timberwolves were missing a big chunk of their ability to create shots.

Winning this game was going to require extra doses of defense and energy, and they brought both. Shannon added an element of pure speed that the Nuggets couldn’t stop when he found space toward the basket. McDaniels, embracing the villain role, was a monster on both ends of the floor. The Timberwolves fed off the roaring crowd at every turn and consistently made up for their missing offense with hustle and desire.

Shannon’s three-point play with 1:43 left gave the Timberwolves a six-point lead, and McDaniels followed with the dagger shot — his signature mid-range pull-up was a swish from 19 feet to make it a seven-point game with 1:06 to play. Then he intercepted a harried pass by Jokic to get the ball back and start a parade to the line.

Since beating the Timberwolves in five games in the first round and cruising to the NBA championship in the 2023, the Nuggets haven’t found the production or spunk they’ve needed to supplement the three-time MVP Jokic. They extended the series with a decisive win in Game 5 on Monday, but Minnesota’s defense delivered again this postseason in neutralizing Jokic and rendering Murray an afterthought.

McDaniels tirelessly chased him around the perimeter. The four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year award winner Gobert kept giving Jokic a hard time in the paint with his long arms and superb anticipation.

McDaniels tossed even more spice into this well-developed rivalry early in the series with his blanket “bad defenders” jab at the Nuggets, and none of the Timberwolves have made any secret of distaste for their opponent. Then their motivation soared off the charts when DiVincenzo went down in the opening minute of Game 4, and their franchise player Edwards followed him on the injured list. During a stoppage in the fourth quarter, DiVincenzo was shown with a big smile as he sat with his foot propped up in a cast behind the bench.

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

A man wearing a gray-white hoodie, gloves and a mask entered a branch of U.S. Bank in Berea and shot a male and female employee, said Trooper Scottie Pennington, a spokesperson for the Kentucky State Police.

“They're our people that work in our community, and they’re no longer with us,” Pennington told reporters. “At this time we do have some leads, and we’re trying our best to bring this evil person to justice.”

Law enforcement officials were going door to door in search of information and surveillance video, as well as using helicopters, drones and dogs, Pennington said. Local and state police along with the FBI and other federal agencies were involved.

It was not clear whether the suspect fled in a vehicle, on foot or was picked up, the spokesperson said. He declined to say whether the suspect left the bank with anything.

State police posted a photo of the suspect on social media and asked people to call if they recognize him or have information.

“If you see something strange and you don’t feel right about it — you know, your dogs are acting weird — call us,” Pennington said. He urged residents to be vigilant and to keep their porch lights on and phones charged.

Area schools went into lockdown for a while until campuses were deemed safe. Students were not allowed to go home on buses and had to be picked up by their parents, Pennington said.

U.S. Bank said it was working closely with law enforcement and committed to supporting the victims' families and bank colleagues.

“We’re deeply saddened by the tragic event that took the lives of two of our employees at our Berea, Kentucky branch earlier today,” the company said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to the families of the victims, our colleagues and the entire Berea community.”

Berea is about 36 miles (58 kilometers) south of Lexington.

Paul has been unable to spend unsupervised time with her son since an April 7 hearing, when Third District Court Commissioner Russell Minas said Paul had a history of volatile behavior directed at her former partner, Dakota Mortensen, while kids were present.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of domestic violence. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the national domestic violence hotline: 1-800-799-7233 in the U.S.

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Minas on Thursday described the pair's dynamic as “very toxic” before granting Paul and Mortensen's dueling requests for protective orders against each other. He found that “there’s been violence that occurred both ways between these parties” and urged them to figure out how to function as co-parents to their son, Ever.

“I'm hoping that you're not people who just thrive on the drama and the conflict,” Minas said. “You've got to put your child first and shield the child from this conflict.”

Paul, Mortensen and their families were present in court, but no other cast members from the Hulu reality show attended.

Attorneys offer competing descriptions of fights

Attorneys for Paul and Mortensen offered competing versions of fights between the pair, with each suggesting the other party was the aggressor.

Paul's attorney Eric Swinyard told the court commissioner that Mortensen is much larger and stronger than Paul — and that when she was faced with physical intimidation from Mortensen during an argument, she responded the same way a lot of people would.

“He said, ‘Hit me,’ and she did,” Swinyard said.

One fight between the two came while Paul was dealing with recent miscarriages, and she felt that Mortensen had been blowing her off while their son was sick.

When Paul lost her footing and fell to the ground, Mortensen kicked her several times in the leg, Swinyard alleged. He submitted to the court photos of her bruises.

Mortensen's attorney Brent Salazar-Hall said his client was a victim of abuse from Paul, but that she kept luring him back with text messages inviting him over for intimacy.

During one argument, Paul and Mortensen were in a truck and she tried to interfere with his driving by squeezing his face, Salazar-Hall said. In response, Mortensen shoved her away, he said.

Paul's lawyers said Mortensen slammed her head into the vehicle's dashboard, causing bruises.

Mortensen had Paul’s initials tattooed on the inside of his lip, which Paul’s attorney pointed to as an example of his possessive nature. Mortensen’s lawyer disagreed with that characterization and said many of the men on the TV show got lip tattoos of their partners’ names in a humorous scene that has not yet aired.

“There seems to be a continuing attraction that they have for each other, whether it’s physical, whether it’s the thrill between the two of them of making themselves celebrities,” Minas said.

“The problem is that the two of them can’t be together in the same place at the same time before it starts to turn violent,” he added.

Violations of the protective orders could result in criminal charges.

Leaked video of fight is one point of contention

Eleven fights between the exes were under examination in their protective order requests. A recently leaked video of one fight from 2023 prompted ABC to make the unprecedented move last month of shelving an already-filmed season of “The Bachelorette” starring Paul. Hulu also paused production of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and resumed filming last week.

In the video, Paul appeared to punch, kick and throw chairs at Mortensen while her daughter from another relationship watched and cried.

Swinyard alleged that Mortensen leaked that video to the press to ruin Paul’s reality TV career just before her season of “The Bachelorette” was supposed to air.

“Our point with the video is he’s not just trying to come after her for custody. He’s not just trying to seek a protective order. He wants to literally destroy her,” Swinyard said.

Salazar-Hall said Mortensen denies leaking the video.

Just after the fight, Paul was charged with aggravated assault and other offenses, including domestic violence in the presence of a child. The police body camera footage of her arrest was featured in the first season of the Hulu series.

Paul pleaded guilty to an assault charge, which will be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor if she stays out of legal trouble for a three-year probationary period that ends in August. The other counts were dismissed.

Earlier this month, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office declined to file new charges against Paul in recent fights with Mortensen. Any new charges would have violated Paul's probation from the 2023 assault.

Custody of their child is at stake

Minas said he would make custody recommendations by May 11. Mortensen has custody in the meantime.

Paul had majority custody of their son before the April 7 hearing.

A protective order in Utah can restrict or eliminate a parent’s ability to see their child. When both parents have protective orders against each other, the court relies heavily on the recommendations of an attorney appointed to investigate the child's best interests.

Paul and Mortensen's son had a court-appointed attorney present at Thursday’s hearing to help the commissioner determine the safest arrangement for the boy.

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Associated Press journalist Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, posted the video on social media amid questions over whose bullet struck a Secret Service officer as Cole Tomas Allen ran through security with a long gun toward the hotel ballroom packed with journalists, administration officials and others.

Prosecutors had previously claimed the agent was shot in the bullet-resistant vest during the melee, but had not confirmed it was Allen who shot the agent. Pirro, however, said Thursday that there is no evidence that the officer was hit by friendly fire.

The video appears to show Allen run through a magnetometer and point his weapon at the agent, who fired back five times, according to authorities. It's not clear from the video at what moment Allen's weapon fires.

Allen was injured but was not shot during the Saturday night attack at the Washington Hilton, which disrupted one of the highest-profile annual events in the nation’s capital.

Allen agreed earlier Thursday to remain jailed while he awaits trial. He did not enter a plea during his brief appearance in federal court.

Secret Service Director Sean Curran defended the agency's security plan for the event and said he would not change it. He said in a Fox News interview that the attack was stopped within seconds at the outermost perimeter of a multi-layered security bubble around the president. The distance from the magnetometers to the podium where Trump was seated was 355 feet, with two sets of stairs, a doorway and many more armed Secret Service officers in between, he said.

"The site was set up perfectly," Curran said.

The nearly six-minute video released by Pirro shows Allen walking back and forth down a hallway the day before the attack, and briefly checking out the hotel gym. Footage from the security checkpoint shows about a dozen federal officers taking down magnetometers and casually standing around when the gunman emerges from a doorway and starts sprinting toward them. The gunman quickly reaches the officers before most of them appear to notice him.

Only one officer visible in the video appears to have drawn his gun before the gunman passed; Pirro said he's the one who was shot and returned fire.

In court papers pressing for Allen's continued detention, prosecutors wrote Wednesday that Allen took a picture of himself in his hotel room just minutes before the incident, and that he was outfitted with an ammunition bag, a shoulder gun holster and a sheathed knife. In a message that authorities say sheds light on his motive, Allen referred to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin” and alluded obliquely to grievances over a range of Trump administration actions.

Allen’s lawyers agreed during the brief hearing before U.S. Magistrate Moxila Upadhyaya to keep their client behind bars for now after initially arguing in court papers that Allen should be released.

In a court filing Wednesday, the defense wrote that the government’s case is “based upon inferences drawn about Mr. Allen’s intent that raise more questions than answers" and noted that Allen’s writings never mentioned Trump by name. The defense left the door open to pressing in the future for Allen’s release before trial.

“The government’s evidence of the charged offense — the attempted assassination of the president — is thus built entirely upon speculation, even under the most generous reading of its theory,” defense lawyers wrote.

Allen was charged on Monday with that crime, as well as two additional firearms counts, including discharging a weapon during a crime of violence. He faces up to life in prison if convicted of the assassination count alone.

Allen, 31, is from Torrance, California. He worked as a part-time tutor for a test preparation company and is an amateur video game developer.

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Associated Press writer Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed.

They performed for a sold-out crowd that summer at Citi Field in Queens — a baseball stadium with room for nearly 42,000 fans — but their fiery set was cut short by Mother Nature: A torrential downpour and fearsome lightning made for unsafe and appropriately ominous conditions.

It was fortuitous in some ways; the next two years for the band would be tumultuous. It was also in 2024 that front man Dave Grohl announced he fathered a child outside his marriage. And then in 2025, the band parted ways with drummer Josh Freese after just one tour, hiring Ilan Rubin to replace him two months later.

Things have since turned around. Last week the band released its 12th full-length studio album, “Your Favorite Toy,” an energetic collection of tracks with an aggressive, fast-paced punk style, distorted vocals and occasional overly compressed production, as The Associated Press' Dennis Waszak Jr. wrote in his review. Those songs felt at home Thursday night at the much smaller Irving Plaza in Manhattan, a sold-out space with a capacity of just around 1,000, where the larger-than-life rock band brought a sonic immediacy to the intimate venue.

A secret show for a lucky few

Foo Fighters announced two surprise shows Wednesday: one at Irving Plaza on Thursday and another at the Starland Ballroom on Saturday in New Jersey. Tickets were priced at $30, limited to two per purchaser and available only on a first-come, first-served basis at 10 a.m. Thursday at each venue.

Some fans camped overnight. Others lined up long before 10 a.m. The lucky few able to grab tickets to the Irving Plaza show night wore vintage Foo Fighters merchandise into the venue and bought new designs. They swapped stories about the last time they saw the band and theorized about how they would perform on such a small stage.

When the Foo Fighters emerged, it was six minutes after 8 p.m. “How ya doing?” energetic front man Dave Grohl said in greeting the crowd, promising a lot of new tracks and some “old school.”

And the band delivered: 2002's “All My Life” and “Times Like These” were next to late '90s hits like “Monkey Wrench” and “My Hero,” and week-old songs “Spit Shine” and “My Favorite Toy.”

“Sometimes I ask the audience if they love rock ‘n’ roll music,” Grohl told the crowd. “I'm not gonna ask you all because I know you love rock ‘n’ roll music.”

Even if the location was stripped down, the band had no interest in a minimized show. There were no pyrotechnics or fireworks or fanfare, sure, but surprises abounded: “Window,” a new song, got its live debut. The band opened a five-song encore with “A320,” its contribution to the oft-overlooked 1998 “Godzilla” soundtrack.

At one moment a concertgoer shouted, “Taylor Hawkins forever!” in memory of the band's late drummer. Grohl instinctively responded, “That's right!”

“For those who've never seen us before,” Grohl said two and a half hours into the set, “next time we'll try to make it feel like this.”

Of course next time is likely to be in a venue 40 times the size of Irving Plaza. It gave the still-buzzing crowd something to think about as they exited into a rainy April night.

He scribbles in a notebook, leaning back in an office chair while dressed in ill-fitting khakis and a baseball cap. His left foot rests on the one portion of a desk not covered with clutter — piles of notebooks, a newspaper, printed reports and a lanyard hanging from a stray photograph. What could be a calendar hangs askew on the wall behind him. The drab blue carpet has seen better days.

Hermes is fascinated by things that evoke a time gone by or are about to pass into history. She has photographed the last Morse code station operating in North America and department store photo booths. Lately, she's spent a lot of time in newsrooms like Haley's Rutland Herald.

The Brooklyn-based photographer has. brought her camera into some 50 newsrooms across the United States, many in smaller towns and cities, to document places and lives endangered by the industry's collapse over the past few decades. Already one of the newspapers she's photographed, in Alameda, Calif., has shut down.

And she's nowhere near done.

Photographer didn't expect it to turn into a passion project

Even as someone who spent time in newsrooms herself professionally — Hermes worked for several years at the Christian Science Monitor — she didn't anticipate it turning into such a passion project.

“I love these spaces,” she says. “I love spending time with these people. The more time I spent in newsrooms and hearing about their difficulties of life, it took on a different agenda. I couldn't have spent so much of my free time on this if I didn't enjoy it.”

Her photos dispel the notion that journalism is a prestigious job populated by elitists — certainly not at the local level. Here are working people in shabby surroundings, places that would make an office designer shudder. Post-it notes hang from a computer monitor. Pens, notebooks, boxes of paper are thrown into a bookshelf next to a half-empty bottle of whiskey. A carpet stain is left untended. A bottle of antacid pills sits on top of a microwave.

An empty metal organizer sits behind a sign saying, “stories to be written,” the product of a long-forgotten efficiency drive.

The New Yorker’s Zach Helfand captures it: “News people tend to pay their surroundings little mind. There’s too much to do and always a deadline looming. What you see hanging around these rooms isn’t designed but improvised, and more revealing.”

It's not just newsrooms in danger of becoming obsolete. How often do you see newspapers anymore, particularly with news outlets shutting their printing presses and going digital? Yet they're everywhere in Hermes' photographs. Stuffed into cubbies, yellowing with age. A jumble of them in the back of a van. Stacked in piles — some toppled over, others on the verge. Some need to be stepped around.

Still more are in newspaper “morgues,” the term becoming more appropriate by the day. Cut-out articles are stuffed into cardboard files, the destination for research before the day most information could be found with a few computer strokes.

The history of a community is in these morgues, however. And when they're gone, so are many of the memories contained within.

A belief in a civic duty — with maybe some fun

“This is really a love letter to local journalism,” Hermes says. “It's not a ‘gotcha’ piece.”

She's attracted to the “true believers” who stick with the line of work, putting up with the anger and ridicule of civic leaders who don't like their judgments questioned, and the business realities that have driven many of their friends into different lines of work.

“The rewards are diminishing in doing this job,” she says. “You have to really believe in the fundamental civic service that you are providing. Otherwise, why else would you do it? It's a really difficult job.”

Her work is available to see on her website, and she hopes one day to collect her newsroom photos in a book. She feels she's gone beyond capturing images and into an advocacy role; she wants to do exhibitions in some of the communities that she's visited to remind people about the importance of local journalism.

Hermes’ goal is to photograph 100 newsrooms: “I feel like I learn something new in every newsroom I visit."

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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

But now they're looking at the possibility of losing up to four U.S. House seats in the midterms because of a new congressional map passed this week by the Republican-controlled legislature.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said redistricting will reflect Florida's population growth and political leanings. Democrats called it a power grab by Trump, who has been urging Republicans to redraw maps across the country.

The changes use both “packing and cracking,” the principal tools of gerrymandering. Packing involves concentrating like-minded voters into fewer districts, or into a single district, to minimize their overall impact across multiple districts. Cracking involves spreading like-minded voters across more districts, making it harder for them to influence any single district’s election.

Under the new lines, there are 24 districts where Trump won in 2024 by double digits, according to analysts from both parties. If Republicans win all of them, it will be a gain of four seats.

Although there will almost certainly be legal challenges to the map, here’s a look at how the new boundaries affect Florida’s current Democratic-controlled districts.

Cracking in Tampa Bay area could mean no Democratic seats

Pinellas and Hillsborough counties were, not that long ago, regarded as two of the most populous swing counties in U.S. politics. Voters in and around Tampa and St. Petersburg served as a bellwether in presidential contests.

Currently, the core metro area is split between the right-leaning district represented by Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and the left-leaning district represented by Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor. The new map splits that into three districts, all of which tilt Republican, and Castor's seat now includes more conservative rural areas.

She called the new designs “blatantly illegal” because of Florida’s state constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering. But she said, “No matter how new districts are drawn, I will keep fighting for Tampa Bay families.”

Luna, a top Democratic target in November, picked up more Republican-leaning precincts, but Democrats in Washington said they could still win the seat given Trump’s lagging popularity.

Packing in Orlando turns two Democratic districts into one

Right now, Democrats Darren Soto and Maxwell Frost have adjoining districts in and around Orlando, with Frost’s concentrated in the city and Soto’s covering Kissimmee and extending south and east over much of Osceola County.

Now, the Orlando metro core will become a single district that is all but guaranteed to go Democratic. Meanwhile, other parts of Orlando will become part of a separate district that's more sprawling and more Republican.

Frost blasted the design for pairing city residents with voters who live a two-hour drive away. “That’s how hard DeSantis map-makers had to work to dilute the impact of voters in Orange County and make this district red,” he said on social media.

Soto, who is Puerto Rican and represents many Puerto Ricans now, lashed out at the governor.

“DeSantis declared war against Florida’s 1.3M Puerto Ricans,” he wrote on social media. “We are American citizens, our people served and died for this country, and we vote.”

Heavily Black district erased to reorder south Florida seats

The new map singles out a heavily Black south Florida district that had been represented by Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick before her recent resignation during a House ethics inquiry into her use of campaign funds. The district was drawn originally to comply with Voting Rights Act provisions that the U.S. Supreme Court effectively gutted on Wednesday.

DeSantis described the district as an egregious race-based gerrymander, with most of it located inland while two arms stretched toward coastal Democratic areas.

Now the district will essentially be erased, spread out across multiple districts.

Frankel’s and Moskowitz’s districts scrambled in Palm Beach, Broward counties

Reps. Lois Frankel and Jared Moskowitz currently have adjoining districts covering swaths of Palm Beach and Broward counties. Both lean slightly Democratic.

The new map creates a more Democratic district anchored by West Palm Beach, mixing some of Frankel’s voters and those formerly represented by Cherfilus-McCormick. It divides Moskowitz’s current territory across three districts, a more difficult blow for his reelection prospects than Frankel would face.

Parkland, where Moskowitz lives, will be in a more Republican district that reaches across the state to Naples. One of the national Republicans’ top targets even before redistricting, Moskowitz has not said what district he will choose for a reelection bid.

Wasserman-Schultz loses her district and Wilson’s is redrawn

Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a former Democratic National Committee chairwoman, and Frederica Wilson currently represent neighboring districts to the south of Frankel’s and Moskowitz’s pairing.

Wasserman-Schultz has north Broward, including Weston, where she lives, along with Hollywood, Pembroke Pines and part of Miramar. Wilson, who lives in Miami Gardens, represents the second-most Democratic district on the outgoing map, with south Broward and parts of Miami-Dade.

Now, there will be just one concentrated Democratic district in Miami-Dade, with Wilson in position to stay in office there. Between that new Miami-Dade district and Frankel’s Palm Beach County base is a new heavily Democratic Broward district. Wasserman-Schultz does not live in that part of Broward. She will have to decide whether to run there or choose one of the new, more Republican districts that Moskowitz also is considering.

Wasserman-Schultz has called the redraw “a nakedly partisan scheme” that “breaks state law.”

In a possible bright spot for Democrats nationally, the south Florida changes did not substantially bolster Republican Reps. María Elvira Salazar, who lives in Coral Gables, or Carlos Giménez, another Miami-Dade lawmaker. Democrats plan to continue targeting them in this year's midterms.

Minnesota will face Presidents' Trophy winner Colorado in the second round. The Avalanche have not played since sweeping Los Angeles on Sunday.

The Wild won a playoff series for the first time in 10 tries since 2015. They lost to Dallas in the first round in 2016 and 2023.

“I see our fans when we scored our fourth goal, I looked back through the glass and I see someone crying in the stands," said Jesper Wallstedt, who made 22 saves. "I realize how big this is for our fan base. Not just us but there’s so many more people who are with us on this road and this journey. The excitement and joy to get past the first round is huge.”

After Hughes broke a tie midway through the third period, Matt Boldy scored his team-leading fifth and sixth goals of the series into empty nets to seal it. Vladimir Tarasenko also scored.

The fourth line of the Foligno brothers, Marcus and Nick, and Nico Sturm had 15 of Minnesota’s 32 hits.

“If you ask everyone in this team, in this group, and everyone feels something special," said Kirill Kaprizov, who had two goals and seven assists in the series. "We just build all season, and guys who came in for playoff did a great job. When the team wants to go long, long run, it’s all four lines that need to be in the game.”

Hughes, acquired from Vancouver in December in the biggest trade in franchise history, took a shot from the left dot that deflected off the skate of Stars defenseman Ilya Lyubshkin and past goalie Jake Oettinger. Hughes also had an assist.

“Big-time players step up in big-time games, and that is what he did,” fellow defenseman Brock Faber said.

All three Wild goals came at full strength. Minnesota outscored Dallas 17-5 at even strength in the series, including 12-4 at 5-on-5.

“Lots of you are going go to 5-on-5 scoring, but reality is, territory-wise in this series I think was pretty even," Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. " I even give us the territorial advantage, but we didn’t defend well enough.”

Wyatt Johnston and Mavrik Bourque scored for Dallas. Johnston had the league-high 10th power-play goal of the postseason for the Stars. Minnesota had three power-play goals in the series.

Hughes opened the scoring in the first period, and Johnston converted a pass from Mikko Rantanen on the power-play goal to tie it second.

A fortuitous bounce off the end boards went to Bourque, who made a quick move before shifting to his forehand for an easy goal with 3:42 left in the second.

Tarasenko answered 54 seconds later for Minnesota. He tipped a redirected shot to himself, and while falling to his knees, and scored on a backhander for his 50th career postseason goal.

“Vladdy has won two Stanley Cups already," Kaprizov said. "He knows what you need to do in the playoffs.”

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

The Cavaliers jumped to an early 1-0 lead with a solo home run from Brady Kish in the first inning. But it was a short-lived lead as the Eagles dropped four runs in the second inning.

With the win, Franklin County extended its win streak to seven games and improved to a record of 12-2 this season.

Accompanying the announcement was a photo of the 80-year-old leader dressed in a traditional white blouse and skirt and sitting on a bench behind a low table facing unidentified men who wear military and police uniforms. Myanmar’s military information office and state television disclosed the move and shared the photo of her Thursday night, but when and where the photo was taken was not clear.

Suu Kyi was detained Feb. 1, 2021, when the army seized power from her elected government. She has not been seen publicly since then, and the last official photo of her was from a court appearance on May 24, 2021.

Earlier Thursday, authorities had announced Suu Kyi's sentence was being reduced as part of a prisoner amnesty marking a Buddhist holiday, the Full Moon Day of Kason honoring Buddha's birthday. The amnesty covered 1,519 prisoners and cut the sentences for those still in prison by one-sixth.

It's the second recent prisoner amnesty to apply to her

Prisoner amnesties are common in Myanmar for religious holidays and other important events, and the amnesty announced Thursday was the second in recent weeks to apply to Suu Kyi. Nearly two weeks earlier, a separate amnesty freed ousted President Win Myint, a longtime Suu Kyi loyalist who was arrested the same day as her.

The amnesties came after Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was sworn into office as president April 10 following an election that critics say was orchestrated to maintain the military’s tight grip on power.

In his inauguration speech, he said his government would grant amnesties to promote social reconciliation, justice and peace. Actions including the amnesties and Suu Kyi’s transfer are widely seen as an effort to burnish his image.

The message announcing her transfer says she was moved from the main prison in Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw to house arrest, with the action “made to celebrate Buddha Day, to show humanitarian concern, and to demonstrate the state’s benevolence and goodwill.”

It does not specify her exact location but says that by law “she will now serve the remainder of her sentence at a specific home instead of in prison.”

Her prison sentence was seen as an attempt to discredit her

Suu Kyi was originally sentenced to 33 years in prison in late 2022 for several offenses that her supporters and rights groups described as attempts to legitimize the army takeover that removed her from office, as well as to prevent her return to politics.

Thursday's amnesty would bring her sentence down to 18 years, with more than 13 years left to serve, according to the calculation.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres considered Suu Kyi's transfer “a meaningful step toward conditions conducive to a credible political process,” U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said.

Guterres also called for all political prisoners to be released as a fundamental step toward a political process and solution that “must be based on an immediate cessation of violence and a genuine commitment to inclusive dialogue," his spokesperson said.

The human rights advocacy group Burma Campaign UK said the announcements were part of a strategy to project reform while maintaining power.

“Moving Aung San Suu Kyi isn’t about change or reform, it’s about public relations designed to preserve military rule,” Burma Campaign UK’s director Mark Farmaner said. “No-one should be fooled.”

Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for the National Unity Government, the main group coordinating armed opposition to military rule, told The Associated Press on Friday that the move was aimed at diverting the opposition movement.

“It is important that we do not fall for these tricks. We will continue until the revolution achieves its six goals,” said Nay Phone Latt, referring to the group’s political roadmap to end military rule, including ending the military’s involvement in politics and placing all armed forces under the command of an elected civilian government.

Information about Suu Kyi is tightly controlled

Suu Kyi's legal team has not been allowed to meet her in person since December 2022. Reports of declining health, including low blood pressure, dizziness and heart problems in 2024 and 2025 could not be verified.

Kim Aris, her younger son living in London, and Myanmar democracy activists launched an online campaign named “Proof of Life” to demand evidence she is alive and well, following the last mass amnesty on April 17.

“Moving her is not freeing her,” Kim said in a statement posted on Facebook following the announcement of her house arrest. “My request is simple: verified information that my mother is alive, the ability to communicate with her, and to see her free. If she is alive, show verified proof of life.”

The 2021 army takeover triggered massive public resistance that was brutally suppressed, triggering a bloody civil war that has killed thousands of people.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring organization, 22,047 people had been detained for political reasons since the army takeover.

Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s martyred independence hero Gen. Aung San, spent almost 15 years as a political prisoner under house arrest between 1989 and 2010.

Her stand against military rule in Myanmar turned her into a symbol of nonviolent struggle for democracy, and won her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

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Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

The Knicks broke several NBA records by halftime. Their 40-15 lead at the end of the first quarter marked the largest of the shot clock era. Their 47-point halftime lead was the biggest in playoff history.

It was New York’s third straight win after falling to 1-2 in the series following back-to-back one-point losses.

“It speaks volumes on our team that we were able to bounce back from two disappointing losses,” Towns said. “We had to step up to the challenge of being down in the series — super proud of our guys for that.”

New York's 51-point win tied for the sixth-largest margin of victory in NBA postseason history.

Dyson Daniels and Mitchell Robinson were ejected after fighting following a pair of free throws from Anunoby that gave the Knicks a 50-point lead in the second quarter.

The Knicks exceeded 100 points with 8:21 remaining in the third quarter. New York's starters were done for the night with 2:45 remaining in the third.

“It was just a tough position to be in,” Atlanta's Jalen Johnson said. “We dug ourselves a deep hole from the start and it was tough to climb out of that.”

Anunoby scored 26 of his points in the first half. Mikal Bridges finished with 24. Towns, five days after becoming the fourth Knicks player with a playoff triple-double, had 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists.

The Hawks were 12 for 39 from the field in the first half and 4 for 18 from 3-point range. Atlanta had 14 turnovers in the first half.

Johnson led the Hawks with 21 points. Nickeil Alexander-Walker, CJ McCollum and Jonathan Kuminga each had 11 points.

The Knicks will face the winner of the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers series in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

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

Wind speeds will make it feel a bit cooler than the actual air temperatures, with gusts around the 20-30 MPH range. Hold onto your hats!

Right now, we are quite breezy in the wake of Wednesday’s cold front. The breeziest areas on Thursday will be the NRV, Roanoke, and Highlands Zones.

We are at least in good company with the below-average temperatures. Much of the country has cool and calm weather today thanks to the Zonal Flow of the upper atmosphere.

We stay cool during the day today and for the rest of the week! It will not be until next week that temperatures rebound into the 70s and 80s. Have a great day!