Huxtable capped an outstanding high school career by leading Blacksburg to a state championship and an undefeated season. The attacking midfielder scored 31 goals and added nine assists as a senior, finishing his career with 72 goals and 35 assists.

The Roanoke College signee played a key role throughout Blacksburg’s postseason run. He scored the game-winning goal in the Region 4D quarterfinals and added another goal in the regional championship to help the Bruins advance to the state tournament. In the state quarterfinals, Huxtable recorded three goals and one assist. He followed with a goal and an assist in the state semifinals before scoring Blacksburg’s first goal in the state championship match.

Huxtable’s individual accolades include three first-team all-region selections, two River Ridge District Player of the Year awards and two first-team all-state honors. He also served as a team captain during his junior and senior seasons.

Blumenthal guided Blacksburg to a perfect 25-0 record and the program’s 14th state championship this season. The Bruins secured the Class 4 title with a 4-1 victory over Loudoun County High School after finishing as state runners-up in 2025.

Over 33 seasons as head coach, Blumenthal has compiled a career record of 637-56-25, establishing one of the most successful programs in Virginia high school soccer history. A member of the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame, he has led the Bruins to 13 state championships and 10 state runner-up finishes.

Among the highlights of Blumenthal’s tenure was an 87-match unbeaten streak that ended in the 2001 state championship game. Blacksburg also won 64 consecutive matches from 1998 through 2001.

In addition to his success at Blacksburg, Blumenthal served as an assistant men’s soccer coach at Roanoke College from 2007 to 2023 and again from 2024 to 2026. He also was an assistant coach for the Maroons’ women’s soccer program from 2001 to 2003.

State champion Blacksburg was well represented on the Class 4 All-State team, placing four players on the first team. Senior midfielder and Class 4 Player of the Year Craig Huxtable was joined by fellow senior midfielder Keanan Kopp, senior defender Ethan Eschenmann and senior goalkeeper Nathan Pratt. EC Glass also earned all-state recognition as sophomore defender Ebubenna Ogbu was selected to the second team. Additionally, Hilltoppers junior forward Cooper Napior received first-team all-state honors after helping lead Glass to another successful season.

Moldenhauer helped lead Nelson County to its first state championship in program history, finishing the season with 23 goals and 25 assists. The senior center attacking midfielder played a pivotal role throughout the Governors’ unbeaten campaign, including scoring two goals in a 3-0 state semifinal victory over Clarke County, which was seeking its fourth consecutive trip to the state championship game.

A versatile player capable of playing multiple positions, Moldenhauer was often tasked with defending opponents’ top attacking threats while also serving as the focal point of Nelson County’s offense. She concluded her high school career with 78 goals and 61 assists and earned Dogwood District and Region 2C Player of the Year honors. Moldenhauer will continue her soccer career at Western Colorado University, where she is expected to play as a winger.

Ferren guided Nelson County to a perfect 23-0 record and the Class 2 state championship. The Governors captured the title by playing defending champion Glenvar to a scoreless draw before securing a 3-2 victory in penalty kicks.

During eight years with the program across seven played seasons, with one season canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ferren transformed Nelson County into a district and regional contender. Over the past four seasons, the Governors compiled a 57-17-2 record, winning Dogwood District championships in 2024 and 2026, the Region 2C title in 2026 and the school’s first VHSL girls soccer state championship.

Ferren owns an overall coaching record of 72-41-7 and has been recognized twice as Dogwood District Coach of the Year in 2024 and 2026. He also earned Region 2C Coach of the Year honors in 2026.

State champion Nelson County placed a Class 2-best four players on the all-state team, led by Player of the Year Clara Moldenhauer and first-team defender Mary Joe Allen. For state runner-up Glenvar, freshman forward Gabby Barba, junior midfielder Sawyer Wilson, sophomore defender Ryan Jones and junior goalkeeper Maddie Frackelton earned first-team honors, while junior midfielder Annie George was selected to the second team. Chatham also was represented on the first team by sophomore forward Leighton Johnston.

McKenna Wendel was reported missing March 13 and last seen alive in her hometown of Sioux Falls early on March 14. Her body was found outside Brookings, an hour's drive north of Sioux Falls, on March 19.

Wendel's uncle, Mark Milk, 51, also of Sioux Falls, now faces five counts related to her death. Milk was almost three decades into a life term on a manslaughter conviction when Noem commuted his sentence in 2023.

Wendel was raised by her grandparents, loved animals and had a “vibrant personality and a zest for life,” according to her obituary. She and her grandparents were Rosebud Sioux Tribe members and attended powwows often.

“She loved the singing and the beautiful sounds of the drums,” her obituary read.

Details about Wendel's death remained thin as authorities who announced the charges in a Sioux City, Iowa, news conference Thursday kept close what they knew to protect their investigation.

Authorities have said an autopsy was done, but the findings have not been released. The cause and manner of Wendel's death would not be released yet per Justice Department policy, said Leif Olson, U.S. attorney for northern Iowa.

Milk faces five counts including possession with intent to deliver cocaine that caused Wendel's death. He is also charged with transportation of a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, according to court documents.

Jon Rogness, 38, of Brookings faces conspiracy and accessory charges in an alleged attempt to cover up the crimes. The counts against the men were the “most serious, readily provable” charges and all originated in Iowa, Olson said.

“This is a horrific case,” FBI special agent Gene Kowel said. “There are no cases that we investigate that are more heart-wrenching and more tragic than the ones that involve children or the death of a child.”

Court records showed no lawyers listed for Milk and Rogness, and no relatives could immediately be located through phone records and social media to speak on their behalf.

In February 2023, Noem commuted Milk’s life sentence for a manslaughter conviction in an October 1993 stabbing death. Milk, then 19, had been involved in several altercations in the city of Winner that ended with the death of Shawn Peneaux, according to records.

Milk was in jail on unrelated allegations of driving under the influence and eluding police when Wendel's body was found. His name came up in public discussion about the case from the start. But prosecutors, who finished their investigation in late May, did not formally link him to Wendel's death until filing charges Wednesday.

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley said in a late March news conference the decision to commute Milk's life sentence was strictly Noem's.

“It is fairly often that you see law enforcement oppose commutations," Jackley remarked without commenting further on Noem's decision.

The commutation documents were sealed and even he had not seen them, he noted.

The Associated Press left a message Thursday for Noem on seeking comment through NovaRed Mining, a Canadian firm she recently joined in a “strategic advisory role."

A Republican, Noem, 54, was South Dakota's lone congressperson from 2011 to 2019 and governor from 2019 to 2025. She was Homeland Security secretary before being fired in March by President Donald Trump amid criticism of her handling of the administration’s immigration crackdown and disaster response.

Trump praised Noem's leadership and said he was making her special envoy for “The Shield of the Americas." The new organization of Western Hemisphere nations is focused on supporting democracy and security in the region.

___

Gruver reported from Fort Collins, Colorado, and Billeaud from Phoenix, Arizona.

A few minutes later, everyone knew the answer. There was Scheffler jumping up and down in a bunker situated 150 yards shy of the green — and 10 feet lower than the fairway — to catch a glimpse of the flag on the putting surface ahead.

What resulted was a rare bogey 6 for the world's No. 1 player on one of those rare par 5s in pro golf that wasn't remotely reachable in two — thanks to it being uphill and dead into a 25 mph wind. The 16th played at 0.355 strokes over par midway through the first round, fifth-hardest hole on the course.

Welcome to Shinnecock.

“You had to be hitting a great shot if you wanted to avoid a punishment,” Scheffler said after walking off the windswept golf course at 2-over par, a reasonable four shots behind early leader Sam Stevens but feeling beaten up. “I think ‘good’ would put you in some tough spots.”

Scheffler, who needs this tournament to complete the career Grand Slam, found plenty of those tough spots in his 10th straight round at the U.S. Open in which he has failed to break par. It began in the morning but bled well into the afternoon — a 5 1/2-hour grind through the wind that started late because of a two-hour fog delay. One of his playing partners, defending champion J.J. Spaun, fared even worse. Spaun shot 77.

Scheffler made double bogey on No. 8 after teeing off into the rough, hitting his second into a bunker some 40 yards from the hole, then three-putting.

He hit a wedge from 110 yards to the middle of the 13th green, but the ball spun and rolled off the front. That led to a bogey; blame it on the soft conditions the USGA has been trying to hang on to in wake of the wind forecast.

“Overall, yeah, it was a really challenging day,” Scheffler said. “If you told me when I was staring at my par putt on 9 that I would post 2-over today, I would definitely have taken it at the time.”

He made that putt, a 6-footer, to make the turn at 3 over. He sank a 9-footer for a sand save on No. 18 to walk away with his 72. Three of his four birdies came on the back nine.

“I feel like this course can change pretty rapidly from day to day,” he said. “I think that’s also part of the challenge of the tournament is adjusting to those conditions.”

Some 90 minutes after the round, Scheffler was still on the driving range, having an animated conversation with his coach, Randy Smith, while the wind picked up for the second wave of players, many of whom would be on the course at twilight.

As much as his swing, Scheffler knows this tournament will come down to who can untangle the conditions, then deal with them the best. He walked off the course in a tie for 75th place — not out of it, but still looking for answers.

“I think it’s a little easier sometimes in a U.S. Open,” Scheffler said, “because it’s happening to everybody.”

___

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

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced the charges at a news conference where he called Mencia “one of California’s biggest tax scofflaws.”

The 58-year-old stand-up comic was charged with six felony counts of failure to file personal income tax with the intent to evade taxes — one each for the years 2019 to 2024 — and six similar counts for corporate taxes.

Mencia owes more than $300,000 in state taxes on income totaling $8.7 million, Hochman said.

He has not entered a plea, and emails sent to his attorney seeking comment was not immediately answered.

Mencia was arrested at his Los Angeles home at about 7 a.m., authorities said. He remained in custody Thursday afternoon and was being held on $250,000 bail. He is expected to make his first court appearance on Monday. If he’s convicted of all counts he could get more than 11 years in prison, along with paying the tax bills and interest that will almost double the total.

The charges are the first filed under the new district attorney's new Business Tax Fraud Unit that was established in May by Hochman, a former longtime prosecutor of tax cases.

Mencia regularly paid taxes before 2019, Hochman said. He was sent 78 notices from the state about his delinquent bills, with no response. The charges deal only with state taxes. Hochman said the IRS has not informed his office of Mencia's federal tax status.

Born Ned Arnel Holness in Honduras and raised in East Los Angeles, Mencia began doing stand-up in LA clubs in the late 1980s. By the early 2000s, he became one of the most popular comics in the U.S. and also did some acting in film and television. He had his own TV series, “Mind of Mencia,” combining stand-up with sketches on Comedy Central from 2005 to 2008.

Hochman pointed out at the news conference that on the show in 2007, Mencia said, “Maybe I'm different, but I think taxes are a good thing.”

His comedy most often dealt with race, class and Latino culture. His career took a downward turn as he was hit with accusations from many fellow comedians of joke theft, which he always denied, from other comics. Joe Rogan, then best known as a stand-up comic, confronted him on a club stage on the issue in a video that went viral in 2007. Mencia had long discussions on Marc Maron's podcast on the alleged plagiarism, acknowledging that he may have absorbed others' material but denying outright theft.

He still does regular stand-up shows, touring clubs and small theaters. He's scheduled to do a series of dates in Southern California this week and Las Vegas next week.

The proposed constitutional amendment, which was approved by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger earlier this year, will appear on the Nov. 3, 2026, ballot as a statewide referendum.

If approved, the amendment would remove language added to the Virginia Constitution in 2006 that bans same-sex marriage and replace it with language affirming that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender or race. It would also require all legally valid marriages to be treated equally under the law.

Supporters launched the Virginians for Marriage Equality campaign this week, saying the measure is needed to protect marriage rights in Virginia even though same-sex marriage is currently legal under federal law.

The current constitutional provision, known as the Marshall-Newman Amendment, was approved by 57% of Virginia voters in November 2006 and took effect Jan. 1, 2007. It states that “only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions.”

The amendment goes further, prohibiting Virginia and local governments from creating or recognizing legal relationships that “approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage” and bars recognition of any other union, partnership or legal status carrying the rights, benefits or obligations of marriage.

The provision became unenforceable in 2014 after federal courts struck down Virginia’s marriage ban. A year later, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

However, advocates note the language remains in Virginia’s constitution.

“Our concern is that if the Supreme Court were to go back and revisit Obergefell v. Hodges, which was the landmark decision that granted marriage equality nationwide, that if they were to go back and weaken that, overturn it, that Virginia’s ban in our constitution would immediately go into effect,” said Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia and a member of the Virginians for Marriage Equality campaign committee.

The campaign formally launched in Richmond with elected officials, faith leaders, advocates and families from across Virginia. Organizers say they plan to spend the next several months encouraging conversations with voters ahead of Election Day.

“We believe that this is really a campaign about our shared values as Virginians and those values are freedom and fairness,” Rahaman said.

The amendment would ask voters whether the Virginia Constitution should be changed to remove the same-sex marriage ban, affirm that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender or race, and require all lawful marriages to be treated equally under state law.

For many supporters, the issue is personal.

Rahaman, who has been married to her wife for three years, said marriage provides both legal protections and a public recognition of commitment.

“It was so amazing to be surrounded by our friends and families and the people closest to us and share that just momentous occasion of committing to each other and making a promise to take care of each other,” she said.

Roanoke Mayor Joe Cobb, who has been with his husband James for 25 years and married since 2017, said he remembers the disappointment many LGBTQ+ Virginians felt when voters approved the constitutional ban in 2006.

“Here we are 20 years later on the cusp of having that dreadful amendment removed from the Constitution. And I couldn’t be more excited about the progress we’ve made,” Cobb said.

He argued that language prohibiting same-sex marriage no longer belongs in Virginia’s governing document.

“Anytime you have language in a constitution that is prohibitive when the greater law is not, it needs to be removed,” Cobb said.

Supporters say the campaign is focused on protecting families and ensuring future generations retain the freedom to marry.

“So let’s stop trying to limit what love can do and let’s start trying to celebrate the magnitude of what love is capable of,” Cobb said.

Virginia voters will decide the amendment during the Nov. 3 general election. If approved, it would permanently remove the same-sex marriage ban from the Virginia Constitution and replace it with explicit protections for marriage equality.

The death of Kohen Wiley is the latest in a series of troubling encounters with police that have outraged community members in recent years. It has led to protests and calls for greater police accountability in the town of 8,000, with some civil rights activists pointing to Kohen's death as another example of a Black life lost over something of nominal value — in this case, allegedly stolen diapers.

“We are treating items on a shelf as more valuable than a child,” Bernice King, the daughter of civil right icon Martin Luther King, Jr., said in a statement posted to Instagram on Wednesday. “That is not just bad policing; it is a moral collapse.”

Differing accounts of what happened

There are still many unanswered questions about the shooting and what led up to it.

Senatobia police responded to the shoplifting call at a local Walmart on Sunday, where they found two women and a child leaving the store, getting into a car and driving away. According to a statement released by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation: “Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one. An officer then discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene.”

Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, said her son and her friend, who was driving, were hit by gunfire. In a video posted on social media Wednesday by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, Wiley said her friend was not driving toward the officers because they were “all on the right side and she was driving towards the left.”

She also disputes the shoplifting claim, saying in the video that she believes her friend paid for the diapers she was carrying.

Policing expert Ian Adams, who teaches criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, said regardless of the circumstances, the officer should not have fired at the car.

“Modern policing knows that shooting into a moving vehicle is a very bad idea and one to be avoided at almost all costs,′ Adams said. For one thing, ”vehicles have other occupants, which is obviously a concern here in the current case.”

Shooting revives racial justice concerns

Kohen was Black, as are his mother and her friend, and the circumstances leading to Kohen's death quickly drew comparisons to another Black mother shot during a response to a shoplifting accusation.

In 2023, Ta’Kiya Young, who was pregnant, was shot by police in a Columbus, Ohio, suburb, after they attempted to apprehend her. Police said Young, who was also the mother of two young sons, got into her car and accelerated in the direction of the officer who fired at her through the windshield. Both Young and her unborn daughter were killed.

The officer in that case was acquitted of criminal charges and found justified in his use of force by a review board.

The two deaths join a long list of other instances of Black Americans dying in interactions with police after accusations of petty criminal offenses. That list includes the murder of George Floyd in 2020, who was killed after police responded to a call that he used a fake $20 bill at a Minneapolis grocery store.

For some racial justice advocates, such cases serve as a constant reminder of the consequences of systemic racism in law enforcement.

“In the name of ‘law and order,’ a child was killed and family was shattered over items that could be restocked, written off, and replaced,” King wrote on Instagram. “Our charge is clear: until the sacredness of human life is the starting point of every police encounter, we must demand changes in training and work unrelentingly to reform policies around police accountability."

Tensions in Senatobia

Marquell Bridges, the president and founder of an advocacy group called the Building Bridges Coalition and who has been helping the Wiley family, said Kohen's death was “just the breaking point” after years of problematic interactions between Black residents and police.

Bridges pointed to an encounter last year in which an officer threatened Breshari Faulkner with a Taser, pulled her from her car onto the ground and arrested her during a confrontation over a handicapped parking space in the same Walmart lot where Kohen was shot.

Two years earlier, in 2023, a Senatobia officer was fired for his role in arresting a 10-year-old Black boy who had urinated in a different parking lot. The boy’s family settled a federal lawsuit with the city earlier this year.

“There is a culture there that they are above the law – just because they wear a uniform,” said civil rights attorney Carlos Moore, who has represented the 10-year-old boy and others accusing the department of misconduct.

Police did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press. The mayor and city aldermen also did not respond to messages.

About 40% of the city’s population of approximately 8,300 is Black, according to 2020 Census data. Police did not respond to questions about the racial makeup of the department, but the mayor and a majority of the Board of Alderman members are white. The city has elected only three Black aldermen since it became a municipality in 1860, according to the Tate Record, a local newspaper.

A toy lawnmower that blows bubbles

The officer who shot Kohen and the woman driving the car he was in has been placed on administrative leave, a standard practice, while the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation looks into what happened. They have promised to release video of the shooting once the investigation is complete.

Kohen's grandmother, Veronica Roberson, was there when Kohen was born and babysat him often. She described him as a happy little baby with “the prettiest smile you could ever imagine.”

She said he was a sweet child and: “He just loved on me, and I loved on him. We loved each other.”

One of his favorite toys was a little lawnmower that would blow bubbles when pushed. Roberson would sit outside with him while he played with it. “He really thought he was mowing my yard,” she said, laughing a little at the memory. “That baby was my world."

___

Loller reported from Nashville, Tennessee. Jack Brook contributed from New Orleans. Aaron Morrison contributed from New York City.

With 894 confirmed cases so far, the current outbreak is three times worse than a previous outbreak in Uganda in 2000, which had 281 cases at the same point, said Dr. Wessam Mankoula, a medical epidemiologist at Africa CDC.

The latest number of cases is believed to be higher because the outbreak was confirmed on May 15, weeks after it was suspected to have begun. The number of cases has increased 38% since last week and is now in 32 health zones across eastern Congo, said Mankoula.

The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, which has no approved vaccines or treatments and was not tested for in the early days. The more common Zaire virus, for which there is a vaccine, was responsible for most of Congo’s past 16 outbreaks of the disease.

So far 74 patients have recovered from the disease across eastern Congo and Uganda. Experimental treatments like monoclonal antibodies are being developed for Bundibugyo.

The outbreak is concentrated in Congo’s eastern province of Ituri, which accounts for more than 90% of the cases. Cases have also been recorded in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces and have spread across the border to Uganda, where 19 confirmed cases have been reported and two people have died.

Contact tracing remains an issue due to the area's remoteness and ongoing insecurity in Ituri province, Dr. Mankoula said.

“For those 800 confirmed cases, we should have between 17,000 to 35,000 contacts that should be in our contact list,” said Mankoula. Currently only around 4,000 contacts have been tracked and are being evaluated, less than 15%.

“We are still far from controlling the situation of this outbreak,” said Mankoula.

Nearly a million people have been displaced by years of conflict in Ituri, according to the U.N. humanitarian office, making contact tracing difficult as people flee attacks or move frequently in the vast province with dense forests, poor roads and remote villages that can take days to reach.

Tracing is also difficult among the thousands of miners who regularly move among remote sites in the mineral-rich region.

Of the over $900 million pledged to fight the outbreak, only $90 million has been released to help fight the outbreak, further complicating the ongoing crisis, according to Mankoula.

Africa CDC estimates it needs 540 personnel to fight the outbreak and so far they only have 84.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed those new pledges will be fast tracked, and we’ll be following up with different member states and different partners about their commitment to turn those pledges into actual money released to their affected countries or partners,” said Mankoula.

This afternoon as pop up showers and storms move int the region, a few could be strong to severe. Be sure to stay weather aware and download our Weather Authority Mobile App for those weather alerts to be sent directly to your phone.

The threats this afternoon include damaging wind gusts and small hail. Our wind gusts will peak around 10 AM - 4 PM. We have the potential with a few of these storms to see wind gusts reaching up to 60 MPH.

The severe risk today stretches for the entirety of the viewing area. Most of the area is included in the Slight Risk, with southern Southside and NRV in the Marginal Risk zone.

Futurecast shows exactly how isolated these storms will be this afternoon, but this evening we will have the better chance for widespread showers. Don’t forget the umbrella as you are stepping outside. You’ll need it for later in the day!

We settle things down tomorrow morning, with only a few showers remaining around 7 AM Friday. For the remainder of the day Friday we stay dry and continue the trend all day Saturday, it will be a great day if you have any outdoor Father’s Day weekend plans!

Romanch Mahajan, 18, died after he got off of the four-wheeled carriage as its horse sprinted through the park without the driver.

He is believed to be the first person to die in a horse carriage accident since they were introduced in Central Park more than 150 years ago, according to the labor union representing the industry, and the Central Park Conservancy, which manages the 843-acre (341-hectare) park.

The conservancy was among those arguing Thursday that the carriage industry should be suspended until more protections can be put in place. Mahajan’s death was the eighth horse-related incident in the park over the past 13 months, the group said.

“The record is undeniable: crashes, runaways, horse deaths, injuries, and now a devastating loss of human life,” said Edita Birnkrant, head of the animal welfare group New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets.

Animal rights activists have long complained that the carriage horses are overworked, can get easily spooked on city streets and live in inadequate stables while their drivers regularly flaunt city rules.

The conservancy has argued that the carriages are a public safety hazard in the increasingly crowded park, noting that other U.S. cities, including Chicago and San Antonio, have also recently done away with the nostalgic rides.

But carriage industry leaders said the fatal crash underscores the need for better protections, not outright elimination of the quaint attraction that harkens back to a romanticized, bygone New York.

“We’re absolutely gutted and stunned by this tragedy,” said Alexander Kemp, a vice president with the Transport Workers Union Local 100, the labor union representing carriage drivers and owners. “We have shuttered the stables and ceased operations today while we have extensive internal discussions of safety protocols and how they can be improved.”

Horse carriages weren’t running Thursday and it was not immediately clear when the rides, which cost about $72 for the first 20 minutes, would resume.

The owner of the carriage involved in the fatal crash also suspended the driver indefinitely, and has plans to retire the horse from the business, according to the union. The driver had dismounted to take a photograph of his passengers, which they are not supposed to do.

Celebrating a high school graduation turned tragic

Mahajan had been on a family trip celebrating his recent high school graduation when the family decided to take a relaxing ride on one of the park’s often photographed, richly decorated carriages.

His father, Deepak Mahajan, told The New York Times that the family had arrived from India on Monday, the same day Romanch learned he had been accepted to a university in Jaipur.

They had spent the trip visiting many of the city’s popular tourist attractions, including the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge.

The carriage driver hopped off to take a photograph of the family near a fountain when the horse suddenly bolted.

Romanch’s mother fell out of the carriage, and the teen jumped out in an attempt to save her, according to his father.

“He was screaming, ‘Mom!’” Deepak Mahajan recounted to the Times.

But Romanch hit his head on the ground before the carriage clipped another horse-drawn vehicle and eventually toppled over. The father, his wife and younger son escaped with minor injuries.

“This incident should be taken very seriously,” Mahajan said. “It took my son’s dream away.”

Carriage owners and drivers fear end to livelihood

New York City leaders vowed to work swiftly to end the industry in the wake of Romanch's death.

City Council Speaker Julie Menin said the legislative body would hold a hearing next month on a long-simmering bill that would ban horse carriages and help drivers transition into new jobs.

Last year, the park conservancy revived debate over the carriages when, for the first time, it threw its support behind what’s known as Ryder’s Law.

“The time to act is now,” she wrote on the social platform X.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani also reiterated his support for ending the industry, saying he’d work with the council, the industry and animal welfare advocates to “deliver a just transition that protects workers while ending horse-drawn carriages in Central Park once and for all.”

Other recent mayors have made similar pronouncements. Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed to shut down the industry “on Day One" in office, only to come up against years of council opposition. Mayor Eric Adams, Mamdani’s predecessor, came out against the industry near the end of his lone, scandal-ridden term.

Onur Altintas, who owns four horses and a carriage operating in Central Park, was among those worried about an end to their livelihood. He said the industry provides hundreds of jobs to drivers, stable hands, farriers, and others in horse-related trades.

“We are sad about what happened. Nobody wants that. But it’s not like this is happening every day,” said Altintas. “Car crashes and plane crashes are happening every single day. One horse makes an accident, and the world is destroyed? Come on.”

The longtime owner and driver said the industry needs better regulations to make it safer. He said “90%” of horse-related accidents could be avoided simply by installing hitching posts throughout the park so drivers could safely tether and secure their horses, including at popular tourist photo stops.

The Transport Workers Union on Thursday said legislation recently introduced into the council would do just that.

“Drivers can’t leave their carriage. They have to be on it all the time,” Altintas said. “But it’s impossible. We have to go to the restroom. We have to eat. We have to do things.”

____

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.

“Damn, New York, we really did it,” Brunson, the finals MVP, said at a celebration at City Hall. “Somehow, someway, I knew we were going to find a way to get this done.”

Moments later, Mayor Zohran Mamdani presented keys to the city to the Knicks' players, coaches, owners and staff. Wearing a team jersey under his suit jacket, Mamdani said he and other fans “waited because we knew deep down in our sick, suffering hearts” the Knicks would someday win.

Blue and orange confetti swirled through the air during the parade. Massive cheers of “Let’s go, Knicks!” and “Knicks in five!” kept erupting.

And OG Anunoby, who scored the go-ahead basket in Game 4 of the finals on a tip-in with 1.2 seconds left, left his parade float to interact with fans, holding the NBA Cup in-season championship trophy in one hand and a bottle of Patron tequila in the other.

Director Spike Lee, perhaps the team’s most iconic fan, was on a float with Brunson, savoring the moment. “I’ve never been to a parade — ever — and I’m glad it’s this one,” Lee said.

The MVP’s mom, Sandra Brunson, wore a shirt with photos of Jalen and husband Rick, who played for the Knicks and is an assistant on coach Mike Brown's staff. She echoed her son’s words, saying, “It was all worth it.”

Karl-Anthony Towns hoisted the Eastern Conference championship trophy and a cigar on top of a parade bus while Mamdani danced. Later, Towns approached a group of kids with the NBA trophy to let them get their hands on it, bringing joyful screams.

Knicks fans turn out in force

Several blocks from the parade route, fans stood shoulder to shoulder — sometimes on each other’s shoulders — or climbed traffic lights and sanitation trucks. Far away on the Brooklyn Bridge, people gathered just to hear the loudspeakers.

“I had to be here today,” said Shareefa Wallace, 34, who got up at 3 a.m. to make her way from suburban Long Island. She grew up in the city going to Knicks games, and she sported the souvenir jersey of a legend from that era, Patrick Ewing.

Owner James Dolan thanked fans for waiting more than a half-century. Brown encouraged fans to keep their energy going “because this championship is about you guys.”

‘The New York vibe’

Nearby bars and delis filled with fans, some wishing they’d arrived at dawn. But many seemed at peace with only experiencing the parade from a distance.

“We just want to be with the New York energy and the New York vibe,” said Jean Strong, who came to the parade from Harlem with his nephew and sister.

Terrell Emerson, a chef who grew up in Queens, said he drove from Maryland with his daughter Madison — named in honor of the Knicks' home arena, Madison Square Garden.

Beaming, Madison held a handwritten sign announcing she’d skipped her fifth-grade graduation to be there.

Stars and Knicks legends

Knicks great Walt “Clyde” Frazier — a member of the ’70s champion teams — led the parade in a stylish convertible, wearing his NBA title rings. Frazier had late teammates and coaches on his mind.

“They would be amazed at what has happened to the Knicks and how they’ve really captivated the city this year,” Frazier said. “This has exceeded any expectations I ever thought that we’d have.”

Timothée Chalamet, Ben Stiller, Jon Stewart, Mariska Hargitay, Tracy Morgan and other celebrities joined the party, while Knicks play-by-play announcer Mike Breen emceed the City Hall ceremony.

Alicia Keys, the singer who collaborated with Jay-Z on the 2009 hit “Empire State of Mind,” performed a medley that mixed her song with the classic “New York, New York.”

A parade decades in the making

The mere fact that the parade is happening is historic in itself. Although the Knicks won the championship twice in the 1970s, the city didn’t host a parade for them either time. Then-Mayor John Lindsay had cut down on ticker-tape extravaganzas for financial and other reasons. Instead, he held a 1970 reception at the mayoral mansion and a jam-packed ceremony in 1973 outside City Hall.

This time, the city went all out. A police officer could be seen holding a sign reading, “This is really happening.”

And a massive security operation

Officials said 10,000 police officers were deployed to secure the event, which follows ebullient but sometimes chaotic street celebrations and some violence during the Knicks' title run, including a five-game final against San Antonio.

Police said 10 people in the area around the parade were arrested and three others were issued summonses, on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to felony assault. The Fire Department said it took 30 people to hospitals and treated 31 others at the scene for ailments that included heat-related emergencies, asthma and minor injuries.

Before the parade, a small group of people were crushed against a barrier near Fulton Street, a key subway hub, pinned between a swelling crowd and a group of police officers shoving the barrier.

Some 650 sanitation workers were assigned to clean up what could be tens of thousands of pounds (kilograms) of debris, if recent history is any guide.

Why does New York throw ticker-tape parades?

Ticker-tape parades derive their name from the narrow strips of paper used by telegraph-era “stock ticker” machines. New York brokerage firm workers tossed the paper from office windows during parades in the late 19th century, adding a swirling spectacle.

Over the years, especially up to the mid-1960s, the city rolled out ticker-tape parades for visiting foreign leaders, historic anniversaries and feats in aviation, war, sports, music, space travel and more.

The Knicks' parade was the 210th, coming after a bash for the WNBA's New York Liberty in 2024.

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Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz and Julie Walker in New York and AP Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney in Southampton, New York, contributed.

Michelline Hall, chief programming officer at the Academy Center of the Arts, described the significance of the day.

“Juneteenth is the commemoration of when the last folks who were still enslaved post the Civil War found out about their freedom in Texas,” Hall said.

Music, food, history mark the weekend

Organizers are blending celebration with education throughout the weekend. Attendees can expect family-friendly performances, block parties featuring local food, and workshops that explore local Black history — all designed to be accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds.

The Legacy Museum and the Lynchburg Juneteenth Coalition are also hosting sessions focused on voter engagement and community leadership, making civic participation a central theme of the weekend.

Passing stories to the next generation

Organizers say Juneteenth is about more than a single day on the calendar. The events are built around three core ideas — remembering the past, strengthening community and encouraging civic engagement. That means children learning local stories, neighbors connecting with one another, and programs that empower residents to get involved in community decisions.

Hall encouraged families with young children to use the holiday as a teaching moment.

“If you have smaller children, let them watch an animation about what is the history of Juneteenth and why it’s important today, and what is the impact and implications of all of us being free mean,” Hall said.

How to find events

Events are taking place at several locations across Lynchburg, with times and addresses varying by venue. Residents can visit the Lynchburg Juneteenth Coalition or Legacy Museum websites for the full schedule, registration details and accessibility information.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, said Wednesday night that petitioners have collected more than the roughly 875,000 signatures needed to place the proposed tax before voters. It will qualify June 25 unless proponents pull the measure.

“Now that California’s historic Billionaire Tax has surpassed the state’s signature requirement, we’re one step closer to saving the hospitals and emergency rooms that we all rely on,” said Debru Carthan, a spokesperson for the group backing the tax.

The proposal, supported by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time, 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, mainly to fund the state’s Medicaid system with some money going to food assistance and education programs.

States have been debating how to respond to the major tax breaks and spending cuts legislation President Donald Trump signed last year. The proposal has already divided Democrats and major labor unions and triggered an expensive campaign to defeat it. The proposed tax is backed by prominent progressives including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The measure has faced staunch pushback from Silicon Valley tech moguls as well as Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and prominent players in Sacramento. They include the California Medical Association and California School Boards Association, which helped launch a committee this week to oppose it. Newsom also opposed a ballot measure in 2022 to increase taxes on the wealthy, which would have funded programs that help people buy electric cars or install more chargers. Voters rejected it.

Critics say the measure would decrease state revenue over time by pushing the ultrawealthy to leave, taking the money they would contribute in income taxes with them. That would deal a huge blow to a state that relies on its top 1% of earners for nearly half its personal income tax revenue.

“This flawed measure is the wrong approach for California’s small businesses and working families,” said Roger Salazar, a spokesperson for Golden State Promise, a political committee fighting the tax.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the proposal would generate tens of billions of dollars in the first few years, but that income tax revenues could subsequently decline by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Since the proposal was announced in October, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated $82 million to a political committee called Building a Better California that backs a variety of initiatives designed to blunt the billionaire tax proposal. It has raised more than $118 million, counting Brin’s contributions, from fewer than a dozen donors.

State lawmakers passed budget bills this week that aim to raise revenue in other ways, including by extending a tax on healthcare providers. Newsom and legislative leaders agree to this approach, Senate President pro Tempore Monique Limón said.

“The budget, as approved by the Legislature and now being negotiated with the Governor, does not include the billionaire’s tax,” the Democrat said in a statement. “Instead, it reflects additional revenues to address our long-term structural deficit.”

Severe weather also pummeled parts of the Midwest, where a separate line of strong storms knocked down structures and left tens of thousands of residents without power.

Arthur was the first tropical storm of the season in the Atlantic basin, and although it quickly downgraded within a day of forming, the lingering system created dangerous conditions in Louisiana and Mississippi. In one rural Louisiana parish, more than 2 feet of rain fell in 48 hours and most of that soaking came Thursday, said Donald Jones, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Lake Charles.

It flooded at least 200 homes in Avoyelles Parish, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northwest of the state capital, Louisiana state Rep. Daryl Deshotel said.

“Even by this region’s standards, that’s catastrophic rain,” Jones said.

The National Guard and state wildlife officials were working with rescue crews, officials said. No deaths have been reported.

One tornado had been confirmed in Avoyelles Parish, along with three others near New Orleans, Jones said.

Coni Dubois said several inches of water flooded her home overnight in Houma, southwest of New Orleans, but others in the community had worse damage. She’s lived through many hurricanes and other storms, but never witnessed thunder and lightning like this.

“It was unbelievable, it literally sounded like hell broke open,” Dubois said. “I thought for sure we had a tornado on top of us. The lightning and the thunder was so consistent, the whole house was lit up like daylight for about 20 minutes.”

Arthur weakened into a low-pressure area along the upper Texas coast Wednesday night. Rain fell at rates of up to 3 inches (8 centimeters) per hour in parts of Louisiana and Mississippi on Thursday, prompting flash flooding, tornado warnings and widespread power outages. The region had already been soaked by heavy rain earlier in the week.

Amid relentless rainfall in central Louisiana, Cody Coco said he rescued stranded workers — waist deep in water —- at a cypress sawmill operation he runs near his home in Avoyelles Parish. He said the water has continued to rise all throughout the day.

Coco, 40, said he also used a boat to rescue the four pigs he kept in a pen. Video he shared on his Facebook page shows the hogs swimming out of their enclosure in a torrent of murky water. Coco says they are now safe on higher ground.

“If I’d left them in the pen, they’d have drowned,” Coco said. “They were happy to see me.”

New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno posted a video on Facebook describing relatively minor damage and cleanup efforts. Ahead of the storm, police prepared boats and set up barricades in flood-prone areas. They also opened sandbag distribution sites across Louisiana.

Just across the Mississippi River in Avondale, a tornado wrecked four homes, Jefferson Parish spokeswoman Rachel Strassel said. Two people were hospitalized with minor injuries and later released.

The Midwest, meanwhile, was also dealing with damage after a strong line of storms.

More than 130,000 homes and businesses were without power Thursday afternoon in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, according to poweroutage.us.

A tornado was reported Wednesday evening near Effingham, Illinois, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Springfield. Several people suffered minor injuries, officials said.

Firefighters responded to damaged homes, collapsed structures, car crashes, downed power lines, gas leaks and blocked roads, Effingham Fire Chief Brant Yochum said.

Marla Washburn and her husband, Todd, hunkered down in their basement as a suspected tornado tore through their neighborhood about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north in Blue Mound. They could hear debris smacking into their house and a school across the street lost its roof, which came crashing onto their home.

“The whole house shook," Washburn said in a phone interview, adding that the neighborhood looks like Armageddon.

“You don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but we’re OK," she said. “You look at it and you go, ‘I don’t even know where to start to clean up.’”

The sticking point remains tax breaks for data centers.

But Senate leaders are now saying a budget deal is within reach and could come as soon as Thursday or Friday.

“The real loser in all of this is the Virginia taxpayer,” Senator David Suetterlein (R) said.

Suetterlein says the months-long budget stalemate continues to center on data centers.

“I think there’s something fundamentally wrong about offering huge tax relief to the largest corporations, and none to working Virginians,” he said.

At the heart of the debate are tax breaks for data centers. Currently, the incentives are worth nearly two billion dollars a year.

“We oppose the data center exemption, and we believe there should be tax relief for working Virginians,” Suetterlein said.

This isn’t a straight party-line issue. Democratic Representative Sam Rasoul also opposes the data center tax breaks.

“Many of them were developed with the promise that if they come here they would get these tax breaks. So, I can see both sides, but the reality is the price tag is way bigger than we ever thought,” Rasoul said.

But Rasoul says a compromise may be on the horizon.

“The House and Senate could agree to some kind of fee that they would be paying to pay their fair share, based upon the amount of electricity they’re using, so hopefully that will be the deal that’s struck here very shortly,” he said.

Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore, Democrat Louise Lucas, echoing optimism about a possible deal Thursday afternoon on the social media platform X.

Saying in part, “We will get a budget deal done, hopefully today but definitely by tomorrow! There will not be a shutdown!”

But Suetterlein says it shouldn’t have gone on this long to begin with.

“It’s a disaster. It’s very bad that it’s gone this long. This is not good when we’re trying to get folks to invest in Virginia,” he said.

Suetterlein tells me the Senate returns on Monday, while Rasoul tells us he’s hopeful for the House to return around the same time.

Election officials are encouraging residents to take advantage of the expanded voting period, which runs through Aug. 1, though turnout in primary elections has historically lagged behind general elections.

“It’s a privilege, it’s a right, it’s an honor, and it’s your duty to vote,” said Jane Hackenburg, who recently cast a ballot during early voting in Martinsville.

For Hackenburg and her husband, David, voting is often more complicated than simply visiting a polling place. The couple has spent much of the past decade living in China and typically votes absentee from overseas.

“We moved to China in 2012 and lived there a lot of our time,” Jane Hackenburg said. “You have to print the stuff and then fill it out and then put it in a special envelope and then special package it to get here. And it’s kind of expensive.”

The couple said they were excited to be back in Virginia during the early voting period and able to cast ballots in person for the first time in more than 10 years.

“It was so exciting today when I found out that we would be here during that window, because we’re back here visiting our son,” Jane Hackenburg said.

Living overseas has also given the Hackenburgs a unique perspective on the democratic process. Jane Hackenburg said friends in China have been fascinated by the opportunity Americans have to participate directly in elections.

“When I handed it to them, they were touching it like they couldn’t believe it,” he said of showing friends his ballot. “They’re like, ‘You get to do this?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah. It’s a privilege.’”

Local election officials say they hope more voters will take part in this year’s primary.

“We always want to see a very, very high turnout,” Martinsville Director of Elections Sara Workman said. “But unfortunately, our primaries are not very, very big as far as turnout.”

Virginia voters must be registered by July 24 to participate in the Aug. 4 primary election. Voters casting ballots in person must also provide an acceptable form of identification, such as a driver’s license, voter registration card, passport, employee ID, student ID, utility bill or bank statement. Voters without an acceptable ID may still vote by signing an ID confirmation statement.

Because Virginia has an open primary system, voters do not register by political party and may choose which party’s primary ballot they wish to cast. However, voters may only participate in one party’s primary for a given office.

In Martinsville, for example, voters may choose between voting in the Democratic primary for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District or the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat. Voters are not required to be registered with either party to participate.

In addition to weekday voting, local registrar offices will be open for required Saturday voting days before the close of early voting on Aug. 1. Election Day is Aug. 4, when polls will be open statewide from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m.

You can find your polling place and hours of operation here.

Merlin Lu admitted to a TV station this week that he was responsible for the recent cross burning in Grant Park. But he insisted that he was protesting President Donald Trump and Christian nationalists and was not using the cross as a historical symbol of hate against Black people.

Lu appeared in court Thursday on four felonies and four misdemeanors, including a hate crime, property damage and burning a cross to intimidate. A judge denied a request by prosecutors to keep him detained.

Defense attorney Alexander Michael told the judge that Lu was exercising free speech in a “foolish manner.” He also disputed that it could be a hate crime against certain Christians.

On June 9, in the middle of the day, Lu created a cross with two pieces of wood, wrapped it in toilet paper, doused it with kerosene and started a fire, Cook County prosecutors said in a court filing. The fire left burn marks on the trunk and limbs of a tree.

Lu told WMAQ-TV before his arrest that his intent was not to intimidate Black people. He said he was protesting the “ruling class” and Christian nationalists who support Trump, and attached a red hat to symbolize the MAGA hat favored by the president's allies.

“I did know about this historical relevance beforehand. But I didn’t know the severity, how racially motivated it may seem from what I did,” Lu said of a burning cross. “Cause my protest has nothing to do with race, nothing to do with gender.”

Someone put a large, multicolored, glass fiber heart with the word, “resilient,” in the place where the burning cross stood in the park.

Lu's LinkedIn page says he has attended college in Indiana and Chicago and was studying chemistry.

The retraction came just a day after Mangione’s lawyers told Judge Gregory Carro that they planned to pursue a defense involving claims that the 28-year-old Ivy League graduate was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the Dec. 4, 2024, killing.

A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for Mangione’s lawyers. The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the state case, declined to comment.

Mangione's lawyers had faced a deadline Thursday to provide prosecutors with information to support the emotional disturbance claim. Also Thursday, a transcript of a secret hearing held on the matter on June 3 was made public after Carro ordered it unsealed.

If Mangione were to have gone through with the extreme emotional disturbance defense, he would have effectively been admitting that he killed Thompson but did so because of mitigating circumstances. It wouldn’t have absolved him of responsibility, but could have led to less time in prison.

If a jury accepts the defense, it is obligated to convict a defendant of manslaughter, which is punishable by up to 25 years in prison, instead of murder, which carries a potential life sentence.

In a letter to Carro on Thursday, Mangione lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo said the defense “respectfully withdraws” its notice under New York's psychiatric defense statute.

Mangione, 28, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges. His state trial is scheduled to start Sept. 8. His federal trial, which involves stalking charges, is set to begin on Oct. 13.

At Wednesday's hearing, Friedman Agnifilo protested Carro’s decision to unseal materials related to his psychiatric defense, saying it will be “prejudicial to his defense to the exact same facts” in his federal case, where an extreme emotional disturbance defense isn’t allowed.

An emotional disturbance defense is not the same as a not guilty by reason of insanity defense, which would allow a defendant to go to a psychiatric facility instead of prison.

Thompson, 50, was killed as he walked to a Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

At a hearing last month, Carro ruled that a gun and notebook that prosecutors say link Mangione to the killing can be used as evidence against him.

The gun, a 3D-printed pistol, matches the one used to kill Thompson, prosecutors said. The notebook describes wanting to “wack” a health insurance executive and rebelling against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel.”

The amateur draft for players residing in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico would be cut from 20 rounds to 12 beginning in 2027 under the proposal Major League Baseball made during a bargaining session with the players' association. An identical 12-round draft would be started for international prospects, a proposal the union has rejected in the past.

Starting in 2028, a prospect for the amateur draft would have to be at least 20 years old by the Sept. 1 of his signing year and two years removed from the graduating year of his high school class — a restriction that also would eliminate players who completed their first year of junior college.

The amateur draft started in 1965, high schoolers have been eligible along with college players who are in or have just finished their junior years.

Raising signing ages would likely lead to players being older when they become eligible for free agency, which currently requires six years of major league service.

MLB cited increased revenue in college baseball as reasoning. In addition, MLB said 75% of high schoolers signed from 2012-19 did not reach the major leagues.

“Expanded scholarships, NIL opportunities, revenue sharing and significant investments in facilities and player development have made college baseball an increasingly important pathway that is producing major league-ready talent at an accelerated rate," MLB said in a statement. “By creating a draft system centered around college-aged players and making most college players eligible one year earlier, more players will benefit from both a college education and an elite development environment while reaching professional baseball — and ultimately the major leagues — more quickly.”

The players' association claimed the plan would decrease compensation by $1 billion over five years, including $400 million from this year to 2027.

“MLB made another set of proposals that are flat-out bad for baseball, ones that would cripple the next generation of players and damage the future of our game,” the union said in a statement.

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips supported keeping more prospects in college longer. He said in a statement that improvements in facilities, technology and scholarships “are creating more opportunities for student-athletes and providing additional pathways to develop at the collegiate level before taking the next step to the professional ranks.”

MLB said it will not seek to reduce the 120 minor league teams in the top four levels when it negotiates new professional development licenses in 2030 to replace expiring 10-year deals. It would cap bonuses for undrafted players at $10,000 — Middle Tennessee two-way player Trace Phillips was bypassed in the draft last July and signed with Tampa Bay for $629,200.

For international amateurs, the age to sign would be raised to 18 on the Sept. 1 of their signing year, up from 17.

“The game's greatest stars are precocious talents. We always want to have a great window for them,” said Scott Boras, baseball's most high-profile agent. “International markets recognize this, as well. When you bar a labor force from opportunity in America, it is not an American concept.”

Each separate draft would have $200 million in signing pools in 2027. There would be hard caps for each draft.

Teams would be able to trade draft picks but a club couldn't trade its first-round pick in consecutive drafts. A team couldn't acquire more than three additional selections among the first three rounds. In addition, MLB proposed requiring up to 10 prospects to attend the draft, and each would get a $50,000 draft attendance bonus.

Spending on signing bonuses for players eligible for the 2025 amateur draft have totaled $401.81 million and signing bonus pools for 2026 increased by 2.5%.

Each team would have the same amount to spend under the proposal rather than the current system which gives higher pools to teams with poorer records in the previous year. Pittsburgh is at just over $19 million this year and the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers at slightly under $4 million. Teams currently can go over their pools and often do as much as 5%.

Teams have spent $196.38 million on signing bonuses for international amateurs in 2026. The current signing period runs from Jan. 15 to Dec. 15 each year, but the initial international draft would be no earlier than September 2027 and no later than March 2028.

MLB proposed eliminating competitive balance round picks that began in 2023 and cutting the draft lottery that started in 2023 from the top six picks to four.

Bargaining began May 13 and the sides exchanged initial proposals two weeks later as management proposed a salary cap for the first time since 1994, which resulted in a 7 1/2-month strike and the first cancellation of the World Series in 90 years.

Baseball's five-year collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1 and management is expected to immediately impose a lockout, as it did in December 2021. An agreement was reached on the 99th day of the lockout, preserving a slightly delayed 162-game schedule.

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

The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a lower court judge wrongly interpreted Philadelphia's contract claims involving Independence National Historical Park, saying the city merely having standing to sue did not mean its arguments had merit. The panel also praised the plans for the replacement installation, writing that they were “full of historical context,” despite objections from historians and city officials that the content appears whitewashed.

The ruling comes a week after a Massachusetts federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore sites changed under an executive order calling for the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks to not display elements that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” The federal government has asked for a stay on that ruling while it appeals.

It was unclear how the Massachusetts ruling would affect the restoration or replacement of the panels at the President's House Site. About half the large panels at the outdoor exhibit had been restored before a February pause in the work.

Messages to spokespeople for the Department of Interior and the National Park Service were not returned.

In a statement on Instagram late Thursday, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker vowed to pursue legal avenues to reverse the decision.

“We cannot and WILL not rest until the full story of American history – including the existence of Slavery at the President’s House here in Philadelphia – is told, for our Nation and the World to see,” she wrote.

Dawn Chavous, a volunteer for Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, one of the advocacy groups that helped develop the site in the 2000s, said they are disappointed with the decision but are speaking to their attorneys and considering options.

“For decades, ATAC has worked to ensure that the stories of the enslaved African descendants who lived and labored at the President’s House are not erased, overlooked, or misrepresented,” the group said in an emailed statement. “That commitment remains unwavering. We believe that historical truth matters, and we will continue to advocate for the protection, preservation, and accurate interpretation of this important chapter of American history.”

The city of Philadelphia sued in January after the National Park Service, in response to President Donald Trump's executive order, removed the explanatory panels from the President’s House Site, where George and Martha Washington lived with nine of their slaves in the 1790s, when Philadelphia was briefly the nation’s capital.

The city had worked in tandem with the federal government, historians and private partners to create the exhibit in the early 2000s — as part of a longstanding cooperation agreement over the downtown historical park — and contributed $1.5 million toward its creation.

The city argued that the federal government must consult with the city before making changes to the President's House Site. Justice Department lawyers argued the administration alone can decide what stories are told at National Park Service properties.

In its ruling Thursday, the appeals panel said the maintenance portion of the contract between the city and the federal government could not be interpreted to mean the site would remain as it was when it was completed.

“The duty to ‘maintain’ is better understood as a general management obligation that accompanies ownership, not a promise that the exhibits will forever remain in place regardless of the owner’s wishes,” the opinion said.

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Casey contributed from Boston.

“You guys were after me,” he told reporters. “I was the hunted. And now I’m the hunter."

The incident, recalled in “Regime Change,” New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's new book on the first year of Trump's second term, encapsulates how different Trump's return to the White House in 2025 has been from his first term.

The book spells out a thesis that Trump himself believes: Had he not lost the 2020 election, he would not be as powerful in his second term as he is now — emboldening him to trample norms, dismantle established institutions and push the limits of presidential power.

Trump still falsely claims to have won in 2020. But a second term coming then might have been marred by pushback from members of his own administration, the coronavirus pandemic and the runaway inflation it caused, as well as an antagonistic Congress controlled by Democrats. He hasn't faced those issues this time.

Here are some takeaways from the book:

Vance or Rubio in 2028? Trump will loom large in the choice

The authors recount how Trump frequently quizzed aides about whether Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be better to succeed him.

Some donors promoted Rubio and some aides thought the secretary and the president had better personal chemistry than Trump and Vance. But Trump also indicated that he was impressed by Vance’s intellect and abilities during television interviews — particularly tough ones, the book says.

Trump is also said to be impressed by the background of Rubio, who is the son of Cuban immigrants. The book describes how, after Trump redecorated the Oval Office to fill it with gold flourishes, someone asked the president about the likelihood that the next president would undo all that he had done. Trump retorted: “Cubans love gold.”

But, Haberman and Swan write, Rubio and Vance are also friends. An example they offer is Rubio texting Vance after the 2024 Republican vice presidential nominee's comments about “ childless cat ladies ” became a scandal. Rubio offered to campaign with Vance to show his support.

As those two men jostle for position before 2028, it’s possible Trump won’t soon yield the spotlight to them.

The president frequently talks about the two and a half years left in his term, a timeline that carries him right up to Inauguration Day 2029 — suggesting that he's unlikely to let the Republicans running in the presidential race overshadow him.

A case in point occurred during an Oval Office meeting with Trump, Vance and Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, leader of the House Democrats. As Haberman and Swan recount, the president showed off “Trump 2028” baseball caps, prompting Jeffries to gesture at Vance and ask, “How does he feel about that?” Trump responded “Ah, he’s fine. He doesn’t care,” adding, “We’re giving him a little more training.”

Vance, speaking up for himself, offered, “No comment.”

Panic inside the White House over the Epstein files release

Haberman and Swan detail the deep level of alarm over the administration’s handling of the release of files from the investigation into disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. That included White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles convening a crisis response meeting in the Situation Room and Vance suggesting enlisting friendly interviewer Tucker Carlson to sit down with Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

That revelation has now raised questions about whether the reporters got audio recordings of what was said in a secure area of the White House, which would be a security concern.

Trump redecorated while the first lady was away

The book details how the president and first lady are the first first couple to sleep in separate bedrooms since Richard and Pat Nixon, though Bill and Hillary Clinton slept apart briefly when his affair with Monica Lewinsky became public. First lady Melania Trump sleeps in the White House’s traditional master bedroom of the Executive Residence — Room 219 — while the president sleeps in Room 220, next to second-floor space known as the Yellow Oval.

The president fitted his bedroom with gold and other flourishes, carrying in some objects himself from the corridor where his wife had selected the decor during the first term, the book said. Because the first lady wasn’t in Washington much during the start of the second term, she wasn't there to stop the president from rearranging things.

Among the items moved was a gold-leaf-framed mirror that had been part of the first lady’s redesign of the second-floor Queen’s Bedroom. But that actually ended up outside, on the Colonnade outside the Oval Office, where it is used to facilitate selfies.

The first lady had also overseen first-term Rose Garden renovations and objected to Trump wanting to pave over the area for his patio space reminiscent of his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. The president relented, and the surrounding grass was covered, but not the roses. She lost a larger battle, the authors write, as the East Wing was demolished to make room for the $400 million ballroom her husband is building.

Trump long had a Venezuela fixation

The president began his second term talking frequently about seizing Greenland and making Canada the 51st state, but was privately more focused on Venezuela — even suggesting it could become a state where he'd be allowed to appoint the governor.

Initially, Trump allowed special envoy Ric Grenell to negotiate with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, but he was eventually sidelined as Rubio made the case that Maduro would string along the administration for years, in an attempt to wait until Trump was out of power in 2029, Haberman and Swan write.

Rubio told White House officials that Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was corrupt but serious and could most likely keep Venezuela together. Rubio spoke with Rodriguez on the night U.S. forces stormed into Venezuela and deposed its president. He told her she had to bring stability to her country and prevent mass migration and violence. Rodriguez remains head of Venezuela after Maduro's ouster.

Trump also told the authors during a March 2026 interview that he had a “love affair” with Venezuela that began with his years of owning the Miss Universe pageant and the beautiful women representing that country in it. That wasn’t enough to improve his opinion of Ukraine, though, which Trump said he didn't like, except for its women who kept winning Miss Universe, the book says.

Trump said he was talking to a historian. It was Gary Player's caddy

Haberman and Swan conclude with the president telling them about a historian introduced to him by golfer Gary Player who described the president as the most powerful man the planet had ever known — surpassing even Alexander the Great, William the Conqueror and Napoleon.

Trump, who promoted the anecdote himself on social media Thursday, was unable to recall the historian's name during that interview. However, a White House staffer later revealed to the authors who the golf legend actually had been talking about. It was Player's longtime caddy.

The letter from the Illinois senator, the top Democrat on the Senate's aviation subcommittee, adds to questions and concerns over Trump's proposed 250-foot (76-meter) arch for the nation's capital. Pushed by Trump to commemorate the country's 250th anniversary, it would be more than twice as tall as the Lincoln Memorial.

Duckworth wrote that the FAA’s initial review of the arch appears to have been expedited and raised questions about whether the president or his White House aides are “already improperly pressuring FAA to prioritize rubberstamping Trump’s vanity arch over public safety.”

Officials are looking to complete the towering edifice within three years, possibly requiring 20 hours of work per day and cranes up to 320 feet (106 meters) tall, according to a National Park Service preliminary report, which Duckworth cited in her letter to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford.

The agency said it would respond directly to Duckworth.

The arch's close proximity to the complex airspace of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, where a U.S. Army helicopter collided with a commercial jet last year, killing 67 people, was a key concern for Duckworth.

The crash “underscores the consequences of inadequate coordination and the need for extreme caution when evaluating any new obstruction in this environment,” she wrote. The FAA must be “firm in rejecting any improper or irresponsible pressure" from Trump on the matter.

In a previous statement, the FAA said that a preliminary feasibility study found “no adverse impacts to operations” at the nearby airport. The top of the structure, however, would need to be lit with red obstruction lights, which it called “a common safety tool.”

The agency said a full study in coordination with the park service would come next.

Duckworth added another concern in her letter, that the arch would interrupt the historic sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, and thereby “offensively desecrate the hallowed symbolism.”

But that did not stop the community from gathering to honor the veterans who have defended our freedoms.

Historical displays set up throughout the event highlighted the role veterans played from the nation’s founding to today.

The 29th Infantry Division Band provided patriotic music while the American Legion Post 16 presented the colors.

Retired Colonel John Miller delivered remarks as the event’s keynote speaker.

Although the tentative peace deal between the U.S. and Iran and the resumption of oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz are pushing energy prices downward, the cost of gas is still much higher than before the war began on Feb. 28.

According to motor club AAA, a gallon of regular gasoline averaged $3.999 on Thursday. It was the first time since late March that prices were that low. And the drop aligns with easing crude oil costs overall, with markets expressing optimism in recent weeks about the prospect of a peace deal.

Even with prices dropping, American drivers are collectively paying about $1 more per gallon than they were before the war, and gas is 25% more expensive than it was this time last year. That has caused many households to tighten their budgets and rethink how they want to spend their money.

More expensive bills beyond gas

Research has shown that short-term swings in the cost of gas leads consumers to adjust their driving and wider spending, with some even pulling back on core necessities such as groceries when gas prices get high, said Dylan Brewer, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Economics.

If costs continue to fall in the coming weeks, he said, more people may be able to “loosen their belts a little bit.” Businesses that rely on gas and diesel to transport their goods will also benefit, but it could take a few months for that to trickle through the supply chain, Brewer added.

Gas isn't the only thing that's gotten more expensive during the war. Groceries, airline tickets and even condoms and shoes cost more amid global supply chain disruptions. Even if oil and other core necessities such as fertilizer begin flowing from the Middle East again, experts warn that the high costs will likely persist long after the fighting ends.

“Product prices across the United States are projected to keep climbing for the rest of 2026," Pat Penfield, a professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University, said Thursday.

Penfield pointed to depleted inventories and supply chain problems caused by the war, noting that farmers, for example, had to pay more for fertilizer and other supplies this spring, which will “ripple through to increased food prices by autumn.” At the gas pump, meanwhile, limited refinery capacity in the U.S. “remains a significant bottleneck” toward bringing down prices further, he said.

What prices at the pump look like nationwide

Steep fuel costs have already pushed U.S. inflation to its highest level in three years. And many consumers are still paying much more than $4 per gallon to fill their tanks.

That price is a national average, with costs varying between states due to factors like proximity to supply and differing tax rates. In California on Thursday, the average price for regular gas was about $5.64, according to AAA. Next costliest was Hawaii, at $5.57. Meanwhile, prices in Indiana and Texas sat at about $3.40 and $3.49 a gallon, respectively.

Recent relief for fuel prices arrived with a drop in costs for crude oil, the main ingredient in gasoline.

Brent crude, the international standard, sat under $80 per barrel Thursday. And U.S. benchmark crude tumbled to below $76 per barrel. That's still a little higher than the roughly $70 price tag before the war, but far below the $100-plus price from just a few weeks ago.

Why oil costs are falling

Prices fell overnight Wednesday into Thursday after President Donald Trump signed the tentative agreement with Iran. It calls for Tehran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and, in a significant concession from Washington, waives U.S.-backed sanctions on the country, immediately allowing Iran to sell its oil freely.

Major ship owners have also begun moving vessels through the Strait of Hormuz since the memorandum of understanding was signed Wednesday, according to maritime data from Lloyd’s List Intelligence, although some reported that only more limited side routes were open. And U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the U.S. Navy has lifted its own blockade to allow some transit to and from Iranian ports.

Still, it could take weeks or months for traffic to return to prewar levels. Before the war, the strait carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil. And Gulf oil producers that throttled back production will need time to get the oil moving again.

Some ship captains may take their time to determine if the passage is safe. The agreement between the U.S. and Iran calls for a permanent end to hostilities and starts a 60-day negotiating clock to reach a final deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear program, though Trump left the door open to resume attacks.

Refineries also typically pay for crude oil a month or more in advance, so even after oil prices drop, they won’t immediately be processing cheaper products. Energy shocks have been even starker in places that rely more heavily on imports from the Middle East — notably countries across Asia and Africa.

The memorandum of understanding signed by President Donald Trump started a 60-day negotiating clock to reach a final deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear program. While Trump allies noted the agreement is not final, the lifting of economic sanctions on Iran’s sale of oil and the plan for a $300 billion fund to rebuild Iran and its economy were met with criticism from Republican leaders and conservative influencers, including some close Trump supporters.

“President Trump has pursued peace through strength. I hope the intermediaries working on this deal are not undermining that objective,” said Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has urged Trump to keep up the pressure on Iran and last month warned against striking a bad deal.

“The $300 billion fund for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran — though not funded by U.S. taxpayers — would make Iran’s payoff under President Obama’s 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison,” Wicker said, referring to the Democratic administration's Iran agreement that Trump withdrew from during his first term.

The criticism from within Trump’s own party — though hardly unanimous — comes as he is trying to bring an end to the unpopular war fewer than five months from midterm elections, where Republicans are facing headwinds in their effort to hold their narrow majorities.

Trump calls his critics ‘fools’

Wicker’s points were backed by a number of his colleagues, many of whom supported the war when it began.

“History demonstrates giving billions of dollars to the theocratic lunatics who want to kill you is an exceptionally bad idea," said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a staunch supporter of the war. “And so I hope we don’t do that.”

Trump on Truth Social called his critics “fools” and said the $300 billion payment to Iran by the United States is “fake news.” The interim pact promises a $300 billion fund for postwar reconstruction. It’s not clear where that money will come from — but Trump said, as Wicker noted, the U.S. would not contribute.

“All there is for the U.S. is Success, Lower Oil Prices, and Victory,” he posted.

Some senators question financial provisions

As the memorandum was released to Congress on Thursday, several Republican senators said it left them with questions, many of them about its financial provisions.

Majority Leader John Thune and South Dakota colleague Sen. Mike Rounds were seeking clarity on how financial incentives to Iran and conditions barring funding terrorism would be enforced, because “right now, a lot of money's going to go to Iran,” Rounds said.

To be sure, there were Republicans more closely aligned with Trump's America First policies in the Senate and elsewhere who were giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Sen. Roger Marshall stressed the point in the memorandum that supporters say gives the U.S. the upper hand. In a social media post, the Kansas Republican said one of the most important provisions “lays out a key commitment that strengthens regional security and ensures that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.”

Louisiana GOP Senate candidate John Fleming, who has focused on Trump's most loyal supporters ahead of a June 27 Republican primary runoff, said that means Trump has suggested that the U.S. will strike Iran again if it does not live up to the agreement.

“The criticism may be worthy if there isn't follow-through,” Fleming said. “He's using the speak-softly-and-carry-a-big-stick in offering them plenty of help, but at the same time he's got that stick ready if they don't live up to their agreements."

MAGA voices send a warning

Still, some of Trump's strongest supporters in conservative media have warned against the agreement.

Conservative radio host Mark Levin suggested a strategic rethinking to hold off on an agreement with Iran until after the midterms.

“We should consider slow-walking the enemy, building up our munitions, our oil reserves, get the price of gasoline down, get through the midterms, then knock them out,” he said in a social media post. Instead, the U.S. seemed to be “rushing to a deal, building up their oil industry” and agreeing to governments “transferring billions to them.”

Right-wing social media influencer Laura Loomer, who has long supported Trump while also promoting conspiracy theories, was more pointed in her criticism.

“Who is giving the President tainted, pro-Islamic intel?” she posted on X.

What all the critics shared is an abiding distrust of the Iranian regime, no matter their relationship to Trump.

“It does smack of the kind of appeasement," said former Vice President Mike Pence, whose relationship with Trump was fractured after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. “Bottom line. I don’t trust the Iranians.”

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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

The warnings were followed by sweeping airstrikes, which Israel said targeted the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group.

What Kaour found back in Tyre shattered his hopes. His dream family apartment overlooking the Mediterranean Sea was a heap of rubble and shattered glass.

His return came after the announcement of an agreement between the United States and Iran to end the war in the Middle East. The deal also calls for an end to the war in Lebanon, where Israel has been fighting Hezbollah, but it's unclear what that means in practice.

Israel and Hezbollah are not parties to the agreement. Iran insists Israel must withdraw from the large swath of southern Lebanon it is occupying, but the wording of the interim deal doesn’t explicitly require that and only ensures Lebanon’s “territorial integrity.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel’s military will stay in a “security zone” of southern Lebanon as long as "Israel’s security needs require it.”

Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri — a Hezbollah ally — said Thursday that the group was committed to the ceasefire, “provided that Israel adheres to it fully and comprehensively.” Hezbollah has said that it's committed to resisting any occupation by Israel. Fighting between the two sides, which was still underway in some parts of southern Lebanon, could derail the deal.

Many hope the US-Iran deal signals better times

For residents in the south of crisis-battered Lebanon, hopes of better times are mixed with skepticism after many ceasefire announcements previously failed to halt fighting.

Kaour lives in Germany but spends most of the summer in Tyre. Last month, when an Israeli strike hit their street without warning, he was abroad with his family.

When he returned, he saw his building, with a popular sweets shop and an electronics store on the ground floor, was still standing, unlike surrounding structures that were leveled to the ground.

But walls and windows had been blasted out. He was relieved his family had not been there, he said.

“I’m hopeful for peace, and God willing this is the end of the war, and everyone can go back to their homes," he said. “We are living abroad, but our minds are here in our country.”

Outside, the street filled with people trying to clear the rubble.

Kaour's neighbor one floor above, Samih Haidar, had also just returned and found his door bolted by wooden boards.

He tried to kick them down but failed, then anxiously waited as two men who had been clearing rubble on another floor came and unscrewed the bolts.

Through a gap, Haidar climbed in. He didn't know what to expect. He had rented the apartment out to a family displaced from another area in the south, people who came to him through a friend.

His anxiety turned into shock: broken furniture, shattered glass, rubble and a burned out kitchen that had caught fire after the strike. He slowly walked through each room, quietly filming with his phone. He doesn't know what became of the tenants — displaced from Tyre like scores of others, he presumed.

“We want things to work out and live in safety, so there can be stability for us and everyone else,” Haidar said.

An isolated enclave hopes for reprieve

Farther south, the Christian village of Ain Ebel is one of a few enclaves in Lebanon's border area where residents have remained during the war. Christian villages, where Hezbollah has little presence, have been largely spared the destruction of neighboring Shiite villages. But they have their own problems.

The village is cut off from the rest of Lebanon by fighting and Israeli checkpoints, relying on aid convoys that require extensive coordination to get through. One such convoy, organized by the Order of Malta, a Catholic lay religious order, arrived Thursday bearing emergency livestock feed and supplies for farmers.

Cattle farmer Boutros Maroun said people in Ain Ebel are exhausted.

“We don’t care about America and Iran, we want the Lebanese people to live comfortably and happily," he said. "Every two years there’s a new war, and we can no longer take it.”

The convoy was delayed in returning to Beirut because of explosives found on the road, which had to be cleared by U.N. peacekeepers.

Fighting pierces a tenuous ceasefire

The fighting subsided but did not stop Thursday. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported several Israeli drone strikes, including one on a car in the town of Kfar Tebnit that killed one person and critically wounded another. Hezbollah later said in a statement that its fighters clashed with Israeli troops trying to advance on the town. Israel did not comment.

To the north, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) away, displaced families huddled along the waterfront in Beirut. Most of them have been sleeping in tents for months, living in limbo. For others, it's a bench or a mattress on the ground.

Many said they're not convinced that the U.S.-Iran deal will hold or that they will be able to return to their homes — if they still exist. In the border area close to Israel, many Lebanese villages have been almost completely demolished.

“I haven’t felt relieved at all,” said Mohammed Ashmar, displaced from the border village of Deir Seryan, holding a cup of coffee and sitting near his tent on the waterfront. “Until I get back to my home ... I won’t be convinced of anything.”

The Israel-Hezbollah war has displaced more than 1 million people in Lebanon, and killed more than 3,900, according to Lebanese officials. About 30 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon, and two civilians have been killed in northern Israel, according to Netanyahu’s office.

Speaking during a visit by foreign dignitaries on Thursday, Lebanon’s Social Affairs Minister Haneen Sayed said the country faces urgent humanitarian needs but also the daunting task of planning for the return of displaced families and reconstruction of the destroyed areas.

“The Lebanese people deserve peace," she said. “They deserve to return safely to their homes, rebuild their communities, and look to the future with confidence and hope.”

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Associated Press journalists Fadi Tawil in Beirut and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report. Hussein reported from Ain Ebel, Lebanon.

Rubén Vargas scored in the 84th minute for the Swiss shortly after Tarik Muharemovic was sent off for a dangerous tackle, leaving Bosnia with 10 men. Manzambi scored again in the 90th on a pass from Vargas, and captain Granit Xhaka converted from the penalty spot with the final kick of the game in stoppage time.

Ermin Mahmic scored in second-half injury time for Bosnia, which still has a legitimate chance of reaching the knockout stage of only its second World Cup after hanging with higher-ranked Switzerland deep into the second half.

Switzerland followed up its disappointing 1-1 draw with Qatar last week by largely dominating play against the momentum-laden Dragons, who were unbeaten in their last nine competitive matches.

But the Swiss couldn’t break through until a moment of brilliance from Manzambi, a 20-year-old Geneva native who plays for German club Freiburg — and then Muharemovic’s red card changed the match.

Manzambi scored three minutes after coming on for standout winger Dan Ndoye. Manzambi jumped and connected perfectly on Amar Memic's attempted clearing header, setting off a wild celebration in the nervous Swiss section of SoFi Stadium.

Bosnia was backed by a raucous cheering section with tens of thousands of fans in the crowd of 70,026 celebrating their nation’s second World Cup appearance. The Dragons had less possession and fewer chances, yet every good moment was greeted by roars.

Four minutes after Muharemovic was sent off for taking down striker Breel Embolo one step outside the penalty area, Embolo got the ball from Manzambi and slipped a pass across the front to Vargas for a no-doubt goal. Xhaka then found Vargas in deep for another pass to Manzambi, who finished with aplomb.

Mahmic’s vicious goal in traffic salvaged some good feeling for Bosnia, which drew with co-host Canada last week.

Captain Edin Dzeko started and played 63 minutes for Bosnia, becoming the fourth outfield player to start at a World Cup in his 40s — a group joined by Luka Modric and Cristiano Ronaldo on Wednesday.

Switzerland opened play last week by giving up the tying goal to Qatar in the fourth minute of second-half injury time, prompting immediate concern about the group favorite.

Bosnia impressively held Canada to a draw in Toronto, continuing a strong run by coach Sergej Barbarez’s team. The Dragons qualified in theatrical fashion by stunning Wales and Italy in qualifying playoffs.

Switzerland dominated possession in the first half, but struggled in the final third while Bosnia cagily hung in. The Swiss upped their attack after halftime, with Ndoye doing most of the work — including a spectacular bicycle kick that forced Nikola Vasilj to make an alert save over the bar.

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AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/FIFA-World-Cup

Churchill Downs Inc., which runs the Kentucky Derby to open the Triple Crown, announced in April it was buying the branding rights to the second leg, as well as the race for fillies the precedes it by a day, from 1/ST Racing with the intent of licensing it back to Maryland annually to stage the races.

"The Preakness Stakes is more than just a race: It is a cornerstone of Maryland’s history, culture, and economy," Moore said in a statement. "This decision secures a vital asset for our state, allows Maryland to shape its horse racing destiny, and by leveraging the Preakness’s iconic status and partnering with industry experts to enhance the fan experience, preserve Maryland’s position as a key power player in the Triple Crown for generations to come.”

Moore said no general fund tax dollars would be used, with the $85 million cost instead being funded by a tax-exempt revenue bond issuance, which would be paid back by money generated by the race through ticketing, wagering and sponsorships. The state expected the fee paid to Churchill Downs Inc. would escalate over time.

Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association President Katharine M. Voss called the decision a defining moment for Maryland racing.

"Ownership ensures that the decisions shaping the future of the Preakness are made in the interest of Maryland," Greater Baltimore Committee President and CEO Mark Anthony Thomas said.

It is Maryland's latest investment in the industry, in the middle of a massive reconstruction project at Pimlico Race Course, the traditional home of the Preakness and the Black-Eyed Susan in Baltimore. The races moved down the road to Laurel Park this year on a one-time-only basis while Pimlico work is being done.

“We plan to be back there next year,” Maryland Jockey Club president and general manager Bill Knauf told The Associated Press in an interview last month. The expectation is for the full grandstand to be ready by May 2028.

The Maryland Jockey Club is the nonprofit organization set to take over for 1/ST Racing, which is transferring control to the state. The plan is for year-round racing to take place at Pimlico.

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

The decision announced Thursday marks the third such fake elector case filed by states to be dismissed, though the Democratic attorney general is vowing to bring it back to a grand jury in hopes of securing another indictment.

The legal maneuver is aimed at getting around a Friday deadline for starting new grand jury proceedings after Mayes lost an appeal earlier this month. The appeal was filed after defense attorneys argued successfully that the original grand jury hadn’t been shown the relevant parts of a law that governs how presidential contests are certified.

“This case is complex and will require substantial presentation of evidence and time to accommodate defendants’ request to testify and present evidence,” prosecutors wrote, explaining the new presentation of the case to a grand jury won’t happen by the deadline. Mark L. Williams, an attorney for Giuliani, said his client and the others charged in the case did nothing wrong and were only exercising their rights to free speech and to petition the government.

“This action was brought to punish Mr. Giuliani and the other Republican defendants for exercising their constitutional rights,” Williams said. “It’s appropriate that it’s being dismissed.”

Kelli Ward, the state GOP’s chair during the 2020 election season and one of the 18 defendants in the case, wrote on social media that Mayes had damaged the reputations and finances of those charged and “certainly seems unwilling to admit her overreach & put this behind us. She wants to keep persecuting her political opponents.”

Mayes’ office has declined to comment on Ward’s criticism.

Courts have dismissed similar cases in Michigan and Georgia, and a special prosecutor dropped a federal case in late 2024 that charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Those cases ended after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. Cases related to the fake elector scheme remain in Nevada and Wisconsin.

The Nevada charges were dismissed in 2024 after a judge concluded Clark County, the state’s most populous county and home to Las Vegas, was the wrong venue for the case. Later that year, though, the case was refiled in Carson City, Nevada’s capital.

The Arizona case had been stalled for well over a year while Mayes pursued the appeal.

In Arizona, defense lawyers argued the law allowed for multiple slates of electors to be submitted to Congress in case the results were disputed. Federal law was amended in 2022 to specify that any given state could put forward only one slate of electors and that state governors are responsible for signing off.

Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020 by 10,457 votes.

The state attorney general has faced steep challenges in making her case.

It was filed nearly three and a half years after the 2020 election and levels complicated conspiracy charges against the 18 defendants. A dozen dismissal requests filed by defense attorneys have slowed progress in court.

The first judge on the case recused himself in late 2024 after an email surfaced in which he told fellow judges to speak out against attacks on Harris’ campaign for the presidency. The next judge ordered the case to be sent back to a grand jury.

Of the 18 Arizona defendants, two were former Trump aides, five were lawyers working for Trump and 11 were Republicans who submitted a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona.

Three defendants have resolved their cases, including one who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.

The rest pleaded not guilty. Some said they signed the certificate in case Trump won court challenges and a new slate of electors was needed urgently before Congress’ Jan. 6 deadline to tally votes.

The case has factored into Arizona’s attorney general race, where both Republicans vying to challenge Mayes in the Nov. 3 general election have publicly said they would dismiss the charges if they were elected to the post. Mayes is running unopposed in the July 21 primary.

Mike O’Neil, an Arizona pollster and political analyst, said he believes Mayes would face criticism from Democrats if she had decided to abandon the case altogether. “People who are upset about this aren’t the people who would vote for her anyway,” O’Neil said.

About the only familiarity Thursday was the scoring, kept in check by a strong wind that finally shooed away the fog and gave Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and the rest all they could handle.

Sam Stevens overcame a double bogey to start his round — a hole that took him over two hours to play because of the fog — and strung together six birdies that carried him to a 2-under 68, making him one of only six players from the early starters to beat par.

McIlroy saved par on a wild ride along the fourth hole, hit a pitching wedge into 12 feet on the downwind par-5 fifth hole for eagle, closed with two bogeys and was more than happy with a 69, particularly considering it was 11 shots better than the start he had at Shinnecock in 2018.

Also at 69 were Ludvig Aberg and 2023 British Open champion Brian Harman, Max Greyserman and Ben James, the college star in his second week as a pro.

Scheffler, needing a U.S. Open title for the career Grand Slam, had to rely heavily on his short game to salvage a 72.

“The greens haven't been too firm, the fairways haven't been too firm, so I've really felt like it's pretty scorable,” said Stevens, who had only his second sub-70 round in his fourth U.S. Open. “Obviously, it's difficult, but overall it's an awesome place. I think the setup is great right now.”

For one day — half of the opening round — the USGA might have been leader in the clubhouse.

Coming off two Opens at Shinnecock when the course got out of control, the USGA planned to slow the greens to 10 1/2 on the Stimpmeter — rare for any major, much less the U.S. Open — and keep plenty of water on the putting surfaces.

It was all due to the wind, which did not disappoint. The sustained wind approached 25 mph, and gusts were even stronger. And if that wasn't enough, it shifted directions in the middle of the day.

“It was tough around here without wind, and then it was blowing pretty hard — really hard,” Keegan Bradley said after a 70. “The USGA did a great job setting the course up because if the greens were any faster or firmer, we might not be playing right now.”

McIlroy hit wedge to 3 feet on No. 3, his 12th of the day, not the play he envisioned. He was trying to land it four paces short of the pin. It went four paces long and spun back to set up an easy birdie.

“The greens obviously are very receptive with them expecting this wind,” he said.

For all the concern about wind and the course drying out, it turned out to be another weather that got in the way — fog. Thirty minutes after the U.S. Open began, play was stopped and led to a two-hour delay. It was particularly tough on Stevens.

He laid back off the tee at No. 10 and was preparing for his approach when the horn sounded. When he returned, his 6-iron came up short and back down the hill, he chunked his wedge and his U.S. Open began with a double bogey.

“Didn't get to hit my second shot for 2 1/2 hours, or whatever it was,” Stevens said. “Got off to kind of a weird start, but made a birdie on the very next hole. It felt like I settled in after that ... The greens were a bit softer. I felt like you could hit good shots close to the hole, and then made a few nice putts, so overall good.”

McIlroy, whose lone U.S. Open title was 15 years ago on rain-softened Congressional, did some of his best work on the fourth hole. He pulled his tee shot into the knee-high, wispy hay on the left, and his next shot bounced off a cart path some 50 yards away. He hit wedge over where the gallery had been standing and holed an 18-foot putt. He followed that with his eagle — his first at the U.S. Open since 2017 at Erin Hills — until getting tripped up at the end.

“The greens are pretty slow and quite receptive. I think they need to be at this point. It’s a challenging golf course already, and you put 30-mile-an-hour winds on top of it, it tests the best players in the world pretty well,” McIlroy said. “I think they were prudent with the course setup.”

Scheffler fell to 3 over when he missed the fairway in high grass to the right on No. 8, did well to punch out into a bunker, blasted out to 18 feet and three-putted for double bogey. Then, his blind shot to the ninth green came back off the front of the green. He holed a 6-foot putt to save par, and that proved key as he limited the damage with a 34 on the back.

“If you told me when I was staring at my par putt on 9 that I would post 2 over today, I would definitely have taken it at the time,” Scheffler said. “Overall, it was a good battle.”

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

A 22-year-old male suspect, described as armed and dangerous, remained at large Thursday.

The five shootings occurred Tuesday between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m, in a 5-mile stretch of Kansas City, three of them on Interstates 70 and 670 as they cut through downtown. All of the shootings were at least 4 miles away from Arrowhead Stadium, where Argentina won its first match against Algeria.

Two American fans of Argentina's team, arriving for Tuesday's match, told Argentine outlet La Nación that someone in a car came alongside and fired two shots at the Uber they were riding in, hitting the driver in the leg. They said they first thought the sound was a car tire popping until they saw the driver had been hit.

They had to go to the police station to provide statements about what happened. Officers then took them to the stadium in patrol cars, they said. The driver's injuries were not life-threatening, police Capt. Jacob Becchina said.

That shooting and two others on the interstates occurred while cars were traveling east, one of them from neighboring Kansas, police said. The others occurred further east on Truman Road, a major thoroughfare through the city.

Police said three adults and a minor, a teenager, were injured, and all were hospitalized, though only one adult had life-threatening injuries, Becchina said.

About 6:30 p.m., officers responded to a report of a vehicle crashing into a pole along Truman Road, east of the other shootings. The driver was taken to a hospital, and workers there discovered what appeared to be a gunshot wound while treating him. He died of his injuries.

“Victims all indicated they were driving down the highway or roadway when one or more shots were fired into their vehicles,” Becchina said in an email.

Becchina said detectives believe the non-fatal shootings occurred “in close succession,” from west to east, connected by the one suspect.

Police later tracked the suspect to a home in the suburb of Independence, about 2 miles further east of where the fatal shooting victim was found, and a standoff ensued. But when police entered the home about 8 a.m. Wednesday, the suspect was not there.

Officials across the state line in Kansas City, Kansas, also have a warrant out for the suspect over a June 11 incident involving an illegal discharge of a firearm, Nancy Chartrand, the spokesperson for its police department said.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright had urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to act in an effort to help the United States better compete with China for superiority in the fast-growing AI sector.

Tech companies and data center developers welcomed the chance to connect faster to the country’s power supply for the biggest energy users ever built in the United States, including some that consume more electricity than a small city.

Utilities, states and regional grid operators had worried that the Republican administration’s plan would remove their authority to manage the process, but FERC said the order leaves states in control of retail electric rates, terms and conditions. Clean energy advocates have urged regulators not to undermine state-level efforts to require the use of renewable energies.

The commission’s actions come as a backlash grows against data centers over concerns about the massive amounts of energy and water they use and fears about noise and air pollution, water shortages and a loss of open space or farmland.

Unanimous vote and affordability

FERC members voted unanimously to direct six regional grid operators to ensure that AI data centers and other large power users are “able to connect to the transmission system in a timely and orderly manner.”

Laura Swett, an appointee of President Donald Trump who chairs the commission, called the vote “historic” and said it would push the country’s electricity market into the future while respecting states’ rights, protecting reliable electric service and shielding ratepayers from shouldering the costs of connecting big power users to the grid.

“I know that Americans across the country are concerned about affordability, and so are we,” Swett said, referring to the five-member commission. As chair, “I am taking extremely seriously the mission that Congress has entrusted us to ensure that rates are reasonable,” she said.

The vote comes eight months after Wright asked the independent agency to take more control over ensuring that the vast network of massive computing warehouses needed to power AI are connected quickly to high-voltage transmission lines.

Wright hailed the commission's action, saying it would "remove barriers, accelerate development and ensure America has the affordable, reliable and secure energy needed to power a new era of prosperity."

Data centers would pay the full cost of any grid upgrades needed for their connection, under the commission order. But that order can do little to address the tightening energy supplies that are driving up electricity bills in some areas and raising warnings of blackouts as the construction of data centers outpaces the speed of new power plants coming online to serve them.

Robert Montejo, a lawyer who represents data centers, said the most important message from FERC’s action is that AI “has fundamentally changed the electricity landscape. The grid and prior policy were not built for the pace and scale of demand we’re seeing from AI infrastructure, and FERC is signaling that standing still is no longer an option.”

The six regional grid operators under the order serve 200 million Americans, or two-thirds of FERC’s jurisdiction. FERC, meanwhile, invited utilities that handle their regional transmission systems to also participate and analysts said the agency could eventually pressure them, too.

A search for power

Tech giants are scrambling to find enough power for their data centers and report that, in some places, it will take years to connect to the electric grid.

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric utilities, said FERC’s order builds on regional and state processes already underway while “supporting flexibility and innovation.”

Besides power bottlenecks, the tech industry is running into widespread opposition from communities where residents don’t want to live next to or near a data center.

More than 4,000 data centers now operate in the U.S., according to one estimate, with an additional 3,000 planned or under construction.

Trump has tried to deflect public concerns about AI, seeing the fast-evolving technology as crucial for the U.S. to attract foreign investment and maintain its economic and military prowess. He signed an executive order this month establishing a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to a month before their public release.

In December, FERC took an earlier step to help data center operators get electricity quickly, voting to allow tech companies to effectively plug a data center directly into a power plant and Thursday’s order sought to ensure that option is accessible around the country.

Power demands from data centers

FERC told grid operators to respond within 30 days on how they will ensure there is adequate power supplies for new and future data centers, and within 60 days on plans to integrate large power users in line with the new guidelines. Swett told reporters after the meeting that she hoped faster connection processes are in effect in “as little time as possible.” She didn't set an exact timeline.

Jeff Dennis, executive director of the Electricity Customer Alliance, said FERC’s order is responsive in particular to big power users and state regulators.

Tech giants are confronting unclear rules to connect data centers to high-voltage transmission systems, while states need more clarity on who should bear the cost of regional transmission projects approved at the federal level, he said.

Rob Gramlich, a Washington-based energy consultant, said states should quickly develop rules to accommodate large power users and prevent cost shifts to residential and business customers. FERC could assert broader jurisdiction over interconnection issues if states don’t act quickly, he said.

Data from the Electric Power Research Institute shows that data centers now account for about 5% of U.S. electricity demand, but could triple by 2035.

Tech companies have continued to raise their spending on building and equipping data centers, but there is evidence that construction is lagging and projects are hitting roadblocks, including permitting delays, growing local opposition or bottlenecks around gas turbines, transformers and skilled labor.

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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pa.

The market's reversal was powered by sharp gains for big technology companies. The decline on Wednesday was driven by anticipation that the Federal Reserve will likely raise interest rates this year in an effort to fight inflation.

On Thursday, stocks faced less pressure as bond yields eased and oil prices spent most of the day falling.

The S&P 500 rose 80.48 points, or 1.1%, to 7,500.58. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 72.15 points, or 0.1%, to 51,564.70. The Nasdaq composite surged 496.28 points, or 1.9%, to 26,517.93. Every major index notched weekly gains.

U.S. markets will be closed Friday for Juneteenth.

Technology stocks had some of the biggest gains and the most influence on the broader market's rise. Intel surged 10.6% after President Donald Trump announced that the semiconductor giant will make chips for Apple in the U.S. Other big semiconductor companies gained ground. Nvidia rose 3% and Micron Technology jumped 8.7%.

On the losing end, SpaceX fell for the second straight day since its ballyhooed debut on the U.S. stock market last week. The Elon Musk-led rocket maker and AI company was down 3.6% following a 4.9% loss Wednesday.

Oil prices wavered after the United States and Iran signed an agreement to end their war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic. Brent crude, the international standard, spent most of the day lower before settling 0.4% higher at $79.85 per barrel. U.S. benchmark crude fell 0.2% to $75.85 per barrel.

Airlines had some of the bigger gains. American Airlines rose 3.7% and United Airlines rose 2.1%. Cruise line company Carnival jumped 3.2%.

Energy companies lost ground. Exxon Mobil fell 2.1% and Chevron fell 2.2%.

Prices for crude oil are still above roughly $70 per barrel from before the war, but are well below the $100-plus price from a few weeks ago.

Higher oil prices have been weighing on markets throughout the U.S. war with Iran. The current deal between the nations waives sanctions against Iran and allows it to sell its oil freely. It also opens up the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil supply is shipped.

“While investors are welcoming the agreement as a constructive step for geopolitical risk, uncertainty remains elevated around potential flare-ups, the pace of shipping normalization, control of the waterway, the cost of access, and the path forward for Iran’s nuclear program.” said Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist for LPL Financial, in a research note.

Rising energy costs have been putting more pressure on already hot inflation. The average price of gasoline in the U.S. has dipped below $4 a gallon, but is still 25% higher from a year ago. Prices have been rising for a wide range of goods because of higher shipping costs.

Hotter inflation prompted the Federal Reserve to shift course from cutting its benchmark interest rate to likely raising rates by the end of the year. Lower interest rates can boost the economy by making borrowing easier for businesses and households, but it also tends to stoke inflation.

The Fed has been trying to balance its job of curbing inflation while supporting employment growth. The jobs market has remained relatively strong amid rising inflation, with low unemployment and solid job growth.

The central bank closed its two-day meeting on Wednesday by maintaining its benchmark interest rate at its current level. But it signaled that it might raise the rate at least once by December.

“This shift in the risk distribution helps explain why around half of the committee thought that an interest-rate hike this year might be needed,” said James McCann, senior economist at Edward Jones, in a research note.

The Fed's stronger signal for an eventual rate hike prompted a jump in bond yields on Wednesday, but they eased on Thursday.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.45% from 4.49% late Wednesday. The yield on 2-year Treasury, which more closely tracks action by the Fed, fell to 4.18% from 4.20% late Wednesday.

Markets were mixed in Europe after closing lower Asia.

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Senior Producer Mayuko Ono contributed to this report.

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance announced that he may postpone a trip to Switzerland that had been planned for Friday and included a ceremonial signing of the deal. And a Trump administration envoy told U.S. lawmakers in a private briefing that Iran will invite the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency to inspect its nuclear sites.

In other developments, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei endorsed direct negotiations with the U.S. in a statement read by state media.

“It is obvious that the face-to-face negotiations that will be held in the future will not mean accepting the enemy’s opinion,” he said.

It was Khamenei’s first reaction to the agreement, and it indicated a shift in Iran’s approach. Hard-liners, especially Khamenei’s father, the previous supreme leader, have long opposed direct talks, especially after the U.S. pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

The supreme leader has not been seen in public since he was wounded in a strike at the start of the war.

Trump envoy tells lawmakers Iran will invite UN inspectors to its nuclear sites

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff told lawmakers that Iran will invite the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency to inspect its nuclear sites and begin work on identifying and uncovering the locations of Tehran’s enriched material, which is believed to be buried under rubble.

The private briefing was described by two people familiar with the conversation who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to share the closed-door details.

Witkoff told congressional leadership and members of national security-related committees that the agreement that the U.S. struck with Iran did not include any side deals, but a side letter was drafted between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency extending the invitation.

Witkoff disclosed the existence of the letter and invitation in the briefing, according to the people.

Witkoff said the letter to IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi would enable him to bring U.S. nuclear inspectors to Tehran.

The agreement states that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium must at minimum be diluted under international supervision. It also says that Iran shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons — a commitment it has made previously.

Uncertain timeline could make it more difficult to promote deal

Vance's visit might have helped start talks on the next, potentially even more critical, round of negotiations between the two sides.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also postponed a planned visit to Switzerland, where Islamabad officials were to host the ceremony, because the agreement had already been signed, said two senior officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The uncertain timeline could raise new questions and make it even more difficult for the Trump administration to promote a deal that many in the U.S. — including some congressional Republicans — have criticized as too favorable to Tehran.

“Our plan is to go to Switzerland. I don’t know exactly when,” Vance said during a briefing with reporters at the White House when asked about not flying, as planned, to the signing ceremony.

That injected new doubt into an agreement that President Donald Trump said he signed to avoid “economic catastrophe” in the U.S.

Vance's announcement came a day after Trump signed the pact with Iran while dining with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles. The deal is slated to take immediate effect and extends a ceasefire while giving each side 60 days to hammer out broader agreements on larger issues.

Trump said the deal would avoid continued stress on the U.S. economy after the war caused oil prices to skyrocket, made financial markets skittish and fueled inflation. He repeatedly said he did not want to be compared to Herbert Hoover, whose policies helped exacerbate the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Vance defends U.S.-Iran deal

The vice president, who was initially personally skeptical of the U.S. going to war with Iran, has increasingly become the administration’s face of the conflict and has been outspoken in defending the deal. Asked about concerns it concedes too much, the vice president said repeatedly that the accord would force Iran to “change their behavior.”

Vance shrugged off accusations that its rollout has been piecemeal and sometimes contradictory, saying, “I don’t think our public messaging has been chaotic."

He also offered a surprisingly blunt warning to Israel, which has pushed the U.S. to take a harder stance against Iran and launched attacks on the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon throughout the war, including just before the deal extending the ceasefire was reached. Those attacks complicated the peace efforts with Iran.

Trump “is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time," Vance said. “And he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower.”

The vice president said more than 12.5 million barrels went through the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday night. That could further soothe oil prices that spiked during the war but have been falling since the U.S. and Iran announced a tentative deal to end the conflict.

He said the U.S. easing its blockade of Iran means "honoring our end of the early part of the agreement on the military side."

U.S. Central Command said American warships “will remain in the general area to make sure that all aspects of the agreement are adhered to, obeyed and in full force and effect.”

Shipping starts to pick up

At least two oil tankers left Iran and crossed the U.S. military blockade without being stopped. A merchant shipping tracking website said the ships were carrying a combined total of 3.8 million barrels of Iranian crude oil.

Iranian state media said shipping had “normalized” at Iran’s southern ports but added that the strait remains supervised and under the control of the Iranian military, and transiting through the vital waterway still requires coordination.

Major shipowners began moving vessels through the strait after the agreement was signed, according to maritime data company Lloyd’s List Intelligence, though Lloyd's did not give data on how many ships have passed through the strait as of Thursday.

In a media briefing, Richard Meade, editor-in-chief of Lloyd’s List, said for the first time in 110 days, ships owned by major companies are transiting the strait after effectively being marooned there since February.

Tankers controlled by major ship owners Grimaldi Group, Cosco, Knutsen and NYK have passed through the strait. And two Iranian-flagged, sanctioned crude oil tankers owned by the National Iranian Tanker Company have entered the strait, according to Lloyd’s List.

Phillip Belcher, marine director of Intertanko, a trade group for global independent tanker owners, said the main central route of the strait is still closed and has an estimated 80 mines that need to be cleared.

But ships have been passing through the smaller northern route, which goes through Iranian waters, and the southern route, which goes through Omani waters.

Lloyd’s List estimated that 550 merchant ships will need to exit the Persian Gulf. It could take weeks or months to fully reopen the strait, and the two alternative routes do not have as much capacity as the strait's central passage.

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Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Aamer Madhani in Zurich; Collin Binkley in Washington; Mae Anderson in New York; and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

The justices decided unanimously in favor of Ali Danial Hemani, a Texas man who argued that a law barring guns from anyone who regularly uses illegal drugs violates the Second Amendment.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that his opinion narrowly limits the government's power to take guns away from drug users who are not considered dangerous. Hemani, who was not charged with any other crimes or accused of using the weapon under the influence, is thankful he “finally has closure,” lawyer Zachary Newland said.

The decision is a loss for President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, which had defended the 1968 law despite arguing against other gun restrictions. Its core argument “fails under every measure,” Gorsuch wrote.

The law was originally meant to keep guns away from dangerous people, but the millions of people who now use marijuana can't all be characterized that way, Gorsuch wrote. While recreational use is illegal under federal law, about half of states allow it and cannabis use for health purposes is widespread.

“Whatever one thinks of these developments, the federal government has not just tolerated them; it helped fuel them,” Gorsuch wrote. “All of which leaves it awkwardly positioned to suggest that the millions of Americans who now regularly use marijuana are categorically and unusually dangerous.”

The law was also used in a case against Hunter Biden, who was convicted in Wilmington, Delaware, of buying a gun while addicted to cocaine in 2018. He was later pardoned by his father, Democratic President Joe Biden.

Someone addicted to an illegal drug could potentially still be prosecuted after Thursday’s decision.

“We do not address efforts to ban addicts, or those presently intoxicated, from possessing a firearm,” Gorsuch wrote. Prosecutors could charge a marijuana user if they had evidence the person was dangerous, he said.

Recreational use remains illegal on a federal level even after the Trump administration reclassified medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug in April.

Gun rights and pro-cannabis groups join forces

The case made for some unusual political alliances.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association supported Hemani’s case, as did cannabis legalization groups such as NORML. On the other side were gun safety groups including Everytown that usually oppose the administration on Second Amendment issues.

The ACLU applauded the ruling, saying that nearly half of Americans have reported using marijuana at some point in their lives.

“The court has sent a strong message that the government cannot criminalize the conduct of large numbers of people by making categorical and unfounded assumptions about whether they are dangerous,” said Cecillia Wang, legal director at the ACLU.

NORML applauded the decision as a “vindication of personal freedom” and the Second Amendment Foundation called it a “major victory for gun owners.”

The group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which opposes legalization of the drug, condemned it.

“While the justices in this case appear to be most concerned with historical battles over Second Amendment rights, public health and safety are the collateral damage in this decision,” said CEO Kevin Sabet.

Gun control groups were more measured, with Everytown saying the decision still recognizes that “drugs and guns can make for a dangerous mix.”

It is rare to see standalone criminal charges filed against people accused solely of owning guns and using drugs, though they are more often filed against people also accused of other crimes.

The opinion is the latest in a series of firearm cases to reach the Supreme Court since its landmark ruling expanding gun rights in 2022 led to a wave of challenges around the country.

Since then, the high court has upheld a law aimed at protecting victims of domestic violence and strict regulations on ghost gun kits but has struck down a ban on bump stocks, an accessory that enables rapid fire. The justices are also considering a second firearm case this term over strict regulations on carrying guns in Hawaii.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

“I hope this center will serve as an affirmation of just how special, how precious our democracy truly is and remind us what we can achieve when we embrace our shared responsibilities as citizens,” the nation’s first Black president told the crowd.

Bono, John Legend, Christina Aguilera, Marc Anthony and Eddie Vedder took turns on the stage ahead of Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder, who closed the show singing “Higher Ground” as the former presidents, world leaders and others danced along.

President Donald Trump was conspicuous both in his physical absence and by not being mentioned by any of the speakers or performers. Trump called the $850 million center a “total disaster” in a social media post in February.

Obama voiced his support for character, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion and sense of duty, praising both Democrats and Republicans, including those he defeated.

“Every president here today, as different as we are, has tried our best to uphold values that John McCain and Mitt Romney believed in no less than I did,” Obama said. “It is our greatest inheritance.”

Reflecting on his arrival in Chicago in 1985 as an untested political organizer, he said he could not have built the Obama Presidential Center anywhere else. He met his future wife Michelle nearby, their wedding reception was within walking distance, his children were born in the neighborhood and he launched his first candidacy not far away.

“It’s an expression of thanks, an acknowledgment that so much of what I hold most dear I owe to the people of this city and the people of the surrounding neighborhoods,” Obama said.

Michelle had some emotional words for her husband

The Obamas and their daughters shared the stage with former presidents Joe Biden, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton along with former first ladies Jill Biden, Laura Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Former Vice President Kamala Harris and many other leading Democrats were in the audience.

Michelle Obama spoke directly to her husband when she stepped up to the podium. “Eight years in the crucible and not once did you melt in the heat. Not once did you let it harden you.

“Instead, you used it to reveal your truest essence,” she said. “Your stubborn optimism and unflinching courage. Your dazzling brilliance and unpretentious decency. Your ferocious work ethic and absolutely unshakable moral fiber. And to do it all as a first.”

She ticked off highlights from her husband's eight years in office, including ordering the raid that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, “standing up for marriage equality” and “listening to science.”

“And you did it all with such grace and class and cool,” she said. “You made the hardest job in the world look like a walk in this beautiful park.”

Obama appeared to wipe away a tear as she praised him.

Michelle Obama also referenced the current “anxious and divisive times” and warned against being cynical or complacent as “everything feels so upside down.” She pitched the center as “a respite from all that.”

A-list entertainers sang inspirational anthems and protest songs

Jennifer Hudson sang the national anthem and Aguilera delivered a rousing rendition of “What a Wonderful World.” Pearl Jam’s Vedder, joined by Chicago teenagers in the nonprofit Guitars Over Guns program, sang an original song called “Better Believe,” written just for the dedication.

Legend sang “Someday We’ll All Be Free” and was joined by the rapper Common and Uniting Voices Chicago for their Academy Award-winning song “Glory.”

Bono, who said he was representing the Irish, joined with The Edge in singing the U2 song “City of Blinding Lights.” The Roots served as the house band. And Springsteen sang “Land of Hopes and Dreams” before turning to the Obamas and saying “I love you.”

Wonder sang “All I Do” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)” before the grand finale, joined by the performers who preceded him.

The VIP crowd included several potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates; civil rights leaders Andrew Young and Al Sharpton; Oprah Winfrey; comedians David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and Stephen Colbert; actor Tom Hanks; tennis legend Billie Jean King and Chicago Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts.

Former world leaders in attendance included former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Event kicked off weekend of celebration

The three-hour invite-only celebration included commentary from a nearby park where thousands gathered, and it was livestreamed to many more. It kicks off a weekend of events as the center opens to the general public on Juneteenth.

“This is not a monument to the Obamas,” said Valerie Jarrett, the Obama Foundation’s chief executive and former Obama top adviser. “This is a tribute to all those who made this journey possible.”

The opening, like the ribbon-cuttings of other presidential libraries over the years, had a heavy focus on accomplishments. This former president also expressed some regrets — such as the increase in political polarization during his two terms. “It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency — that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better,” Obama said in his final State of the Union.

“Some of the exhibits reflect unfinished business,” Obama said Thursday. “In some cases, my own shortcomings and mistakes.”

General admission tickets for the center are sold out through the end of October. More than a million visitors a year are expected at the nearly 20-acre campus.

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Associated Press writer Mike Catalini contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.

Even one of golf's elder statesmen and a three-time major champion could learn something from the way the 17-year-old played Thursday in the first round of the U.S. Open.

Russell rarely looked like a rookie while shooting a 2-over 72 that left him five shots ahead of his 54-year-old playing partner.

“He played lovely, 2-over par was the worst he could’ve shot,” Harrington said. “He hit it dead straight all day, didn’t really have himself in too much trouble at all. And then, you know, probably could have been a couple better.”

Russell is a Florida State-bound amateur who was making his U.S. Open debut. He is so young that he said this week he couldn't even remember if he watched when Shinnecock Hills last hosted the U.S. Open in 2018.

The left-hander has a thin build and could probably be mistaken for closer to 12 from far away. Harrington, with some grey hair showing from beneath his blue hat, looks every bit the age of someone who qualified for this event by winning the U.S. Senior Open championship last year.

So Russell wasn't surprised to hear that spectators were frequently asking each other how old he was.

“That was the first time I’ve played with somebody maybe that much older than me,” Russell said. “Usually I’m playing Korn Ferry events, so they’re not too much older, maybe a couple years.”

Harrington won his first major title at the British Open in 2007, then repeated and added the PGA Championship in 2008, a few months before Russell was born.

Harrington was a fair amateur himself. The native of Ireland played on three straight Walker Cup teams for Great Britain & Ireland, including one that beat a U.S. squad featuring Tiger Woods in 1995.

But he wasn't sure his game was as developed as Russell's is now.

“I can’t remember what I was doing when I was 17 years of age,” Harrington said. “But yeah, I’m sure it’s all ahead of him.”

Russell, ranked No. 1 in the American Junior Golf Association and No. 7 among all amateurs in the world, earned his spot in the U.S. Open through a 36-hole qualifier — where Charlie Woods, his future college teammate and Tiger's son, was his caddie.

He quickly was ahead of Harrington, who bogeyed six of the final seven holes on the front. Harrington said there wasn't much talk between them, even when they stood just a few feet from each other in the 10th fairway after both hit their tee shots 307 yards. He said the lack of conservation wasn't because of the age difference, but rather because the conditions made it tough to hear anything.

“It was very windy out there. Your head's down, getting your work done,” Harrington said. “There wasn’t a great deal of chat. A lot of good shots for him, as I said, but not a great deal of chat.”

Still, there was enough interaction that Russell was able to learn something from the owner of 43 worldwide victories.

“It’s always good to play with a guy like that and he’s done really well for himself,” Russell said. “He’s played a lot of good golf. So I mean, anything you can pick up from them, whether it’s just the way they act, or the way they walk, or the way they interact with people.”

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

Instead, the rollout of Vance’s second book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith,” has been largely crowded out by something else he’s put his name on: the deal to end the Iran war.

The Republican vice president has embraced the role of chief defender of the agreement he and President Donald Trump signed with Tehran, giving a series of interviews touting it as a success, releasing a video championing it and parrying questions about it during a briefing at the White House.

It’s a striking emergence for a politician who's known for his skepticism of foreign military interventions and who seemed reluctant to speak on the conflict when Trump launched it in February.

The vice president is poised to yoke himself further to the conflict’s outcome, when he’s expected to kick off a new phase of negotiations with Iran — though when that will occur was still up in the air Thursday.

Vance becoming a hype man for the agreement seems to be an all-in gamble that, should he decide to seek the White House in 2028, voters will reward him for being the face of ending an unpopular conflict.

It’s also setting Vance up as the presumptive fall guy should the deal with Iran falter.

Trump joked about such a possibility on Wednesday.

“If it works out, I’m going to take the credit," Trump said. “If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD.”

Officials release text of the deal after backlash

Vance on Thursday referred to Trump's comment as a joke and said he wasn't worried. He added: “Look, the entire team has worked very well on this, and we’ve got this thing to a very good place for the American people.”

The White House in a statement called Vance the president's “right-hand man and an invaluable member of the President’s talented national security team.”

"That’s why the Vice President was trusted to lead these negotiations alongside Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner," White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said. "What President Trump and his team achieved on the battlefield and at the negotiating table is nothing short of remarkable and will strengthen American security for years to come.”

But backlash, including from conservatives, began growing this week after the U.S. digitally signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran on Sunday.

Vance spokesman Luke Schroeder said in a statement: “It’s unfortunate that some Republicans are attempting to undermine the President’s efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East and ensure Iran never has a nuclear weapon.”

Officials gave shifting answers about when they would release the text, but leaked copies of a draft were quickly met with anger and skepticism from Democratic and Republican U.S. lawmakers, as well as Israel and pro-Israel advocates. Their criticisms included concerns that the deal, meant to open a two-month negotiating period, seemed to offer Iran wins up front while guaranteeing little in return and that Trump’s stated reason for launching the conflict, to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, remains unresolved.

Vance has reiterated that Iran must meet its obligations.

In response to the backlash and mounting questions, the U.S. on Wednesday provided the text of the agreement to journalists.

The agreement states that Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried under rubble, must at minimum be diluted under international supervision. It also states that Iran shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons — a commitment it has made previously. But beyond stating that the U.S. and Iran will negotiate over Iran's nuclear program, other commitments still need to be worked out.

Criticism on the right persisted after the text was released.

Conservative radio host Erick Erickson, a hawk who has defended the war, said Wednesday: “This is an American surrender.”

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, another potential 2028 presidential candidate, criticized the agreement and said to reporters, “I think the president, unfortunately, is receiving bad advice.”

Trump's Operation Epic Fury has angered wings of his movement

The conflict, which has stretched into its fourth month, has cleaved Trump’s broad Make America Great Again coalition and angered both those who favored a harder line against Iran and those drawn to Trump’s “America First” foreign policy underscored by a message of “no new wars.”

Critics, including Republicans, have already started pointing fingers in Vance's direction, questioning whether the deal resembles the 2015 nuclear agreement struck by Democratic President Barack Obama and whether this new agreement achieves Trump’s stated objectives for launching the war, dubbed Operation Epic Fury.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally and Iran hawk, had been skeptical of the agreement and referred to Vance on social media as “the architect of the deal."

After the agreement was released, Graham issued a tepid statement of support, saying, “I see little downside to trying.”

Ben Domenech, The Daily Wire’s opinion editor, said on Fox News that everything he was hearing about the deal “seems bad” and appeared to cast blame on Vance by alluding to his first book, “Hillbilly Elegy."

“Are we going to backslide into being some kind of ‘hillbilly Obama’ kind of GOP?” Domenech said.

GOP allies say Vance can navigate the politics

The Trump administration has not offered formal briefings to Congress on the details of the memorandum, but Vance has quietly started doing outreach to some Republican senators on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, a close ally of Vance's, said the vice president would be able to assuage even critics within his own party who are skeptical of the deal because “JD is just the president’s messenger, and the president’s going to prove them all wrong.”

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said the deal “certainly adds to the national security and geopolitical chops” of Vance, who spent two years as a U.S. senator for Ohio before ascending to the vice presidency.

But Cramer acknowledged the risks if the agreement goes awry.

“I guess the nice thing is, if you’re not the No. 1 person, you can take credit and avoid risk, avoid the criticism, but probably not so easily,” Cramer said.

Vance argues Iran is not a quagmire like the Iraq war

In interviews this week, Vance has sought to speak directly to the skeptics in his party, a preview of the difficult explanations he may be pressed to make as a candidate on the war.

On Megyn Kelly's show, the vice president said the critics “believe Iranian propaganda” about the deal. But he acknowledged some of the frustrations on the hawkish right while trying to reassure the anti-interventionists that the Iran conflict isn't the war in Iraq, where he served as a Marine.

Democrats have stressed that even as Vance becomes the face of the Iran deal, the fate of any administration official who harbors presidential aspirations — particularly hawkish Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has largely been quiet in the agreement's final phases — will be tied to its outcome.

“I think any member of this administration is going to rise or fall on the basis of the Iran war and the handling of the economy,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.

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Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.

Every Brazilian fan — in Philadelphia to watch their national team play Haiti on Friday at the World Cup — that stopped for a snapshot or a selfie with the 9-foot-11, 1,300-pound beast left the statue dressed in only his bronze trunks and boots.

No taking chances of getting hit by the Rocky curse.

Yes, the Rocky statue, long a symbol of resilience, heart and the unbreakable bond between Rocky and the people of Philadelphia, has taken a few more hits of late (even in retirement).

Visiting American sports fans have long learned the hard way that dressing the statue with colorful jerseys, scarfs, hats, anything found in your local Rally House, has only meant that team would suffer a knockout blow at the home of the local Philly team.

Scoff all you want.

The bad fortune stretched to soccer when fans of the Ecuador's national team took over the Rocky steps and sang and danced and waved flags and ... dressed Rocky in a team jersey and tied the country's flag around the fictional fighter's neck.

It didn't go well.

Amad Diallo scored in the 90th minute to lift Ivory Coast to a 1-0 victory over Ecuador in its first World Cup appearance in a dozen years.

And there ain't gonna be no rematch.

Brazil fans noticed the outcome and one of their fan groups, the Green and Yellow Movement, urged visitors to keep their clothing to themselves.

“ ANTENCAO TORCEDOR!” the Instagram post warned.

Everyone is paying attention.

The translated text read: “It's totally forbidden to put a Brazil shirt on the Rocky statue in Philly!!!!!”

Even Visit PA cheekily got in on the fun and tried to warn foreigners that — just like Ivan Drago learned the hard way — Rocky was not to be messed with.

“Countless football teams (as in American Football, not Fútbol — same curse, different sport) have all dressed the Rocky Statue in their colors and gone on to lose,” the Instagram post said. “Ecuador dressed Rocky last weekend Coincidence? Sadly, history says no.

“Philadelphia can't wait to host you! (but Rocky does not need your kit)”

Brazilian fans paid heed to the warning through Thursday afternoon, and scores of fans simply took the spot in front of the statue and raised their arms in triumph just as Rocky did after so many fights, and many, many movies.

“This is a moment in Brazil,” said Lorival Guerreiro, who traveled from Limeira, Brazil, for the World Cup. “They promote this place to celebrate before the game. The Brazilians come here to celebrate our team."

When the bronze statue was left on the steps after filming the “Rocky” movies, the museum fought to have it removed. It was eventually relocated to South Philadelphia before returning to the bottom of the steps in 2006. The statue was a huge hit and became a point of pilgrimage for people around the world.

According to the Philadelphia Visitor Center, about 4 million people visit the steps each year — rivaling the nearby Liberty Bell in annual foot traffic. The pop culture icon was recently moved to the top of the steps.

Roberto De Freitas, a native of Porto Alegre who now lives in Florida and is attending his third World Cup, climbed the steps for a photoshoot with perhaps Philadelphia's most famous landmark. He was dressed in Brazil's colors — down to the green sneakers — and was set to attend Friday's game.

He hoped five-time World Cup champion Brazil would take a page from Rocky's corner and win some more.

“We have five titles,” De Freitas said. “We are trying to get that sixth one.”

De Freitas had not yet heard of the Rocky curse but had no plans to tempt fate once he learned of the potential consequences.

“That's what they said,” he asked with a laugh. “I'm for sure not going to do it.”

For the record, De Freitas said “Rocky” was his favorite of all the movies in the series.

The Rocky Shop at the base of the steps was loaded with tourists who snaked their way through fighter T-shirts and plush offerings of Mr. T's character, Clubber Lang. Peruvian sports journalist Jampool Cuadros Estrada tried on a Rocky robe as a cameraman followed him around the store for their latest World Cup report.

Philadelphia, home to nearly 6,000 Brazilian-born immigrants, has a bit of a recent connection with the South American country. The Philadelphia Eagles opened their Super Bowl championship season with a win over the Green Bay Packers in Brazil in 2024.

Facing pressure to win its first World Cup title since 2002, Brazil was outplayed early and needed Vinícius Júnior’s 32nd-minute goal to get a 1-1 draw with Morocco on Saturday.

Brazil now needs to beware Haiti — a noted heavy underdog, just like Rocky.

“Brazil has the pressure. Haiti has the freedom,” Haitian singer Wyclef Jean wrote on social media. “And sometimes freedom is the most dangerous thing on the pitch. I can't wait!!!!”

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

The Food and Drug Administration is evaluating Moderna's new shot, dubbed mFlusiva, for older Americans ahead of the winter flu season. Moderna is seeking full approval for the vaccine's use in people ages 50 to 64 — along with authorization for use in those 65 and older while it conducts additional testing.

The FDA's independent advisory committee evaluated Moderna's studies of the vaccine and voted unanimously that its benefits appear to outweigh any risks for both age groups. The FDA will consider that recommendation in making a final decision by early August.

Tens of thousands of Americans die from influenza every year, and older adults are among the most vulnerable. There are various types of flu vaccines already available in the U.S., including three specifically recommended for people 65 and older. But vaccines made with the Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology are faster to manufacture than other types — something experts say might help if the shape-shifting flu virus mutates in a way that requires suddenly brewing new doses to match.

“Having this technology available puts us in a better position to be prepared for emerging strains in the future,” said Dr. Flor Munoz-Rivas of Texas Children’s Hospital, one of FDA's advisers.

In a study of 40,000 people age 50 and older, Moderna’s mRNA vaccine reduced flu cases by about 27% compared with those given another routinely used vaccine brand. In a smaller study of people 65 and older, Moderna's shot also generated a strong protective immune response compared with a high-dose flu vaccine already recommended for that age group.

Data showing strong immune reactions “were very compelling,” said FDA adviser Dr. Anna Durbin of Johns Hopkins University, adding that "the vaccine looks very promising.”

Moderna’s Dr. Rituparna Das told panelists that the company’s ability to quickly manufacture mRNA vaccines that closely match the latest flu strains could prevent thousands of hospitalizations in older Americans.

Severe flu cases in the U.S. generally rise in years when the flu shot doesn’t closely match the circulating virus. Moderna officials noted that flu strains for each fall's vaccines now are chosen several months earlier than the yearly recipe update for COVID-19 shots that mostly are mRNA-based — and there can be a mismatch if the flu virus mutates after the recipe is made.

At the meeting, FDA vaccine reviewer Dr. Timothy Brennan suggested the agency was open to approving the vaccine for older adults ahead of the coming flu season, despite the need for more information about its use in frail seniors or people with weak immune systems.

If it's approved, Moderna is planning its required next-step study to include 400,000 people 65 and older, half given the mRNA vaccine and the rest given one of today’s special-for-seniors shots. It's supposed to repeat that study for two flu seasons.

Moderna's data showed no major safety issues although the shot did cause some temporary reactions including injection-site pain, fever, headache, tiredness and aches. The latter reactions are common in a variety of vaccines, but occurred somewhat more often than with today's flu shots. The FDA said that's typical of mRNA vaccines.

Those temporary reactions can be a signal that “your immune system is responding,” said Dr. Hayley Gans, a Stanford Medicine pediatrician and FDA adviser who stressed it will be important to explain that to vaccine recipients.

Earlier this year, Moderna’s data was at the center of a highly unusual public dispute as a then-top FDA official blocked the company’s application for its first-of-its-kind shot.

The embattled vaccine chief at the time, Dr. Vinay Prasad, said the company should have compared its shot to a high-dose flu vaccine recommended for seniors rather than a standard-dose brand. It was a sign of FDA’s heightened vaccine scrutiny under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Moderna challenged that decision, noting that FDA staff had approved that main study’s design and citing a separate, smaller study comparing the mRNA shot with a high-dose vaccine for seniors. Days after the spat, the FDA accepted Moderna’s application.

Moderna also is studying the vaccine in younger adults and plans a separate study in 9- to 17-year-olds this fall.

____

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

The law, which took effect Jan. 1, 2026, prohibits state-regulated health insurance plans from charging copays, coinsurance or deductibles for diagnostic and supplemental breast imaging, including diagnostic mammograms, ultrasounds and breast MRIs.

Lynchburg patient surprised by $300 bill

Debbie Farrago of Lynchburg said she had a routine mammogram and was told at the front desk that a follow-up ultrasound would be covered at no cost.

Weeks later, a bill for more than $300 arrived. Farrago says the charge was tied to her insurance deductible. Centra was the facility where she received care, but the billing determination was made through her insurance provider.

“And I said, ‘Hey, you know, why am I getting billed this when they told me at the desk I shouldn’t?’” Farrago said.

It took her months and hours of research and phone calls with her insurance provider to get the charge removed.

“Why is it not being filed, and why do we even have to go through this first of all?” she said.

Farrago said she worries others across Virginia are quietly absorbing costs they were never required to pay.

“I think a lot of people might not even know. So, they would just pay it,” she said.

Not all insurance plans are covered

The Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation, which helped advocate for the legislation, says the new law comes with an important caveat — it does not apply to every insurance plan.

The law covers only state-regulated health insurance plans, which most commonly means plans purchased through the Virginia Marketplace. Patients who receive health insurance through an employer are likely not covered, as federal, out-of-state and employer-sponsored self-insured plans are not required to comply with Virginia state insurance laws.

“VBCF knew there would be a learning curve in terms of awareness of the new breast imaging law,” the organization said in a statement.

To help patients navigate the new rules, the foundation created an online resource page with detailed information about the law and guidance on whether it applies to a specific plan.

What patients should do

The Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation recommends that patients take the following steps:

• Before your appointment: Call your insurance provider and confirm whether you have a state-regulated health care plan covered under the new law.
• If you receive a bill: Do not pay immediately. Contact your insurance plan first, point out that you believe your plan is covered by the new law and file an appeal if necessary.
• If asked to pay upfront: It is acceptable to ask the provider to bill your insurance company first or send a bill later. Providers may not yet be aware of the new law.
• If all else fails: If you have exhausted all options with your insurer and believe your plan is covered, the Virginia Bureau of Insurance may be able to help resolve the situation. The number is 804-371-9631.

Farrago said her experience reinforced the importance of pushing back.

“Reach out for help to organizations that can help you out with it and be your own best advocate for sure,” she said.

Farrago’s case was not an isolated one, according to the Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation, which says many patients have already paid bills they were never required to pay.

The James River Batteau Festival is returning to Lynchburg this week, offering more than just a scenic float down the river. This annual event is a living tribute to a pivotal piece of Virginia’s history, dating back to the 1700s, when the James River served as one of the state’s main trade routes.

A Glimpse Into Virginia’s River Past

Long before highways and railroads crisscrossed the Commonwealth, the James River was the lifeblood of Virginia’s economy. The boats that powered this trade were called batteaux, shallow, flat-bottomed vessels specially designed to navigate the rocky, shallow waters of the James.

“Batteaux are the semi trucks of the early James River,” explained Dan Tucker, chairman of the James River Batteau Festival Board.

Without engines, crews would use long poles to push off the river bottom, guiding these boats as they carried goods, especially tobacco, downriver to Richmond.

The batteau was invented by brothers Anthony and Benjamin Rucker in the 1700s. Their design helped connect Central Virginia’s tobacco growers to larger markets, fueling economic growth throughout the region.

Stories of the River: The People Behind the Batteaux

But the story of the batteau is also a story of the people who powered them. Tucker notes that many of these boats were operated by both enslaved and free Black boatmen. Recent research has even suggested that the James River may have served as a route for freedom seekers escaping slavery.

One remarkable story is that of Frank Padgett, an enslaved man who used a batteau to rescue people during a flood near Balcony Falls. Padgett lost his life during his final rescue mission, and his bravery is commemorated by several historical markers, including a stone monument in Glasgow’s Centennial Park.

Reviving a Lost Tradition

By the 1840s, the rise of canals, railroads, and other forms of transportation led to the decline of the batteau. But in the early 1980s, history resurfaced when construction crews in downtown Richmond uncovered old boats in the canal basin. These discoveries inspired the creation of modern replicas and, eventually, the James River Batteau Festival.

Today, more than four decades later, crews still launch from Lynchburg to recreate the historic journey down the James River.

“It is an excellent event to get out on the water and enjoy a unique local history to Central Virginia,” Tucker said.

A Living History on the Water

For Tucker and many participants, the festival is more than just a celebration; it’s a chance to see a piece of Virginia’s past come alive once again. As the batteaux glide down the river, they carry with them the stories, struggles, and triumphs of generations past.

Festival Details

The James River Batteau Festival launch party kicks off June 19 at Percival’s Island, with the batteaux launching the next day. Both events are free and open to the public, offering a unique opportunity to witness history in motion and connect with Virginia’s river heritage.

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.

The apportionment of funds, which the White House's Office of Management and Budget made late Friday, comes from two accounts that were intended to provide the U.S. Secret Service with extra money for hiring and training in the aftermath of last year’s assassination attempts on the president, according to Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee. The shift was made days after Congress rejected a $1 billion request for the White House in a Homeland Security bill that Trump signed law and as the ballroom project is tangled in legal challenges.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, whose panel initially drafted the security funding, said Thursday he was unaware of the allocations.

“The president said that it was all going to be paid for with private money,” said Grassley, R-Iowa. “And that’s what the country expects."

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, charged that Trump's actions are potentially illegal.

“After repeatedly telling the American people that zero taxpayer dollars would be spent on his gold-plated ballroom boondoggle, now Trump appears to be using a smoke and mirrors tactic,” Merkley said in a statement.

“Trump has proven that he can’t be trusted to follow the law," Merkley said. "He only cares about wasting taxpayer money on his vanity projects.”

Ballroom project hits setbacks

Trump has faced setbacks in his attempts to build the ballroom on the White House grounds, where he ordered the demolition of the storied East Wing to make way for it.

Touring the construction site last month, Trump called the development a “gift” to the American people. He has repeatedly said that is being paid for by donations – which has also run into ethics questions from watchdogs concerned about potential corruption and conflicts of interest.

Congress refused the Trump administration’s request for $1 billion for the ballroom last month. The administration wanted the money as part of a Homeland Security bill, but Republican and Democratic lawmakers rejected efforts to tack it on. It became politically toxic at a time when Americans are reeling from inflationary high costs of living.

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that the price tag for the project has ballooned to $600 million, according to a project summary prepared by the contractor, with more than half of that funding coming from taxpayers. Roll Call first reported on the apportionment of new funds for White House security.

At its core, arguments are swirling over how much of the White House project is to bolster security underground, with bomb shelters and a medical facility, and how much of the costs are related to the president's promised 999-seat ballroom on top.

White House says Trump and donors are paying for the ballroom

A spokesman for the White House said that Trump and donors are funding some $400 million for the ballroom development, and that the coordination with the Secret Service had been noted in the initial announcement of the project.

“The East Wing Modernization Project is inextricably tied to the security of the President, the White House grounds and the certain security infrastructure assets,” said White House spokesman Davis R. Ingle in a statement.

He said the events over the past weekend, including an alleged attack plan targeting the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House, proves why the project is needed.

“President Trump and generous American patriots are funding the ballroom to the tune of approximately $400 million, which will be a secure and appropriate venue for Presidents for generations to come,” he said.

Government lawyers have argued that the project includes critical security features to guard against a range of threats, such as drones and missiles.

The White House has said in court documents that the East Wing project would be “heavily fortified,” including bomb shelters, military installations and a medical facility underneath the ballroom. The Secret Service told senators last month that $220 million of the White House's $1 billion request would go to harden the ballroom addition, with bulletproof glass, drone detection technologies, chemical and other systems.

The rest of the money would go for other security improvements, according to a document provided to Senate Republicans, including $180 million for a new, “long overdue” White House visitors screening facility.

Congress holds power of the purse

The shifting funds are certain to ignite growing concerns in Congress over the separation of powers, and the president’s use of federal funds allocated by lawmakers.

The money comes from Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill that the president signed into law last summer. It provided more than $1 billion for Secret Service resources, including “personnel, training facilities, programming, and technology; and performance, retention, and signing bonuses.”

The provision was uncontested at the time, even as Democrats voted against the broader bill. Democrats said they did not challenge this section or try to strip it out from the package.

Under the Constitution, only Congress has the specific authority to allocate funds across the federal government, including the executive and judicial branch operations.

While the president holds the power to sign – or veto – those appropriation bills, once the funding becomes law, it largely must stand.

Chase's father, John David Schwallier, confirmed to The New York Times she died from complications of bacterial meningitis and a blood infection. She had been homeless in Los Angeles with her boyfriend near the hospital where she died, he told the newspaper.

TMZ first reported Wednesday that Chase died Tuesday.

She voiced the lead role of Lilo in the 2002 animated film, a role she auditioned for at age 8. Years later, a Hawaiian actress was cast as Lilo for the live-action remake.

For her role as long-haired Samara in the 2002 horror film, Chase won an MTV movie award for best villain.

Chase also voiced another lead in the 2001 animated film “Spirited Away.” She had roles in the 2001 movie “Donnie Darko” and the 2003 show “Oliver Beene,” according to internet movie database IMDb.com.

She was born in Las Vegas and raised in Albany, Oregon. In her small hometown, she began singing and dancing at age 3, according to IMDb.

Chase struggled with drugs since she was 13 years old, Schwallier said in an interview with the Times. He said his daughter was estranged from her parents, who are divorced.

Schwallier said he was in touch with Chase's boyfriend, and just before she died, arrived at the Los Angeles hospital where she was being treated.

An online fundraiser by her boyfriend raised about $4,000 as of Thursday. “Many people know her as a talented childhood actor from ‘Lilo & Stitch,’ ‘Spirited Away,’ and ‘Donnie Darko,'" the fundraiser post said. “But behind the scenes, she’s faced more than her share of hardship.”

The bipartisan Protect College Sports Act aims to regulate payments to players, limit them to one free transfer over their careers and create a rule to restrict coaches from changing jobs during a season. It advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee on a 19-9 vote and now heads to the full Senate for consideration.

Thursday’s vote came hours after the Southeastern Conference and Big Ten Conference, the two most powerful in college sports, reiterated their position that “revisions are needed to secure our support for the bill.” Several senators who voted against it cited concerns raised by the two conferences, which could spell trouble for its chances.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who supported the bill, said he would like to be able to bring it up for a vote in the Senate next month, before the August recess. He said the legislation will "continue to get refined as time goes on.”

“It was a really strong vote coming out of the committee,” Thune said.

The bill takes a step forward

The committee vote advancing the bill followed endorsements from several athletic conferences, the NFL and its players union, and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee. The Olympic committee backed the revised measure after lawmakers added additional protections for women’s and Olympic sports.

“The new agreement also reflects the critical importance of Olympic sports," Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican chair of the committee, said in opening remarks. “That is a major part of what this bill is about. College athletics is not only football and men’s basketball.”

NCAA President Charlie Baker applauded the Senate action Thursday, saying it was a “powerful statement to the growing bipartisan support for targeted intervention.”

In an interview with AP after the vote, Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell — the top-ranking Democrat on the committee — said the vote result felt “pretty darn good.” The legislation is the product of months of negotiations between Cruz and Cantwell as other attempts in Congress to intervene in college sports have failed to advance far.

“This is a big milestone,” Cantwell said.

Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz was among the six Democrats who voted with most Republicans in advancing the bill.

“It took me awhile to get there, and I think there's more work to be done,” he said.

Big Ten and SEC aren't on board

The SEC and Big Ten said hours before Thursday’s committee meeting that their “critical revisions have not been accepted.”

Among their concerns, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has argued the bill could invite the very litigation it is intended to prevent. Both conferences have also objected to a provision allowing conferences to pool media rights, saying they are unconvinced it would generate the additional revenue supporters say it could.

“What we did today was say we’re not going to let the most powerful, richest conferences dictate to the rest of America what’s going to happen to 500,000 athletes,” Cantwell said after the committee vote.

Support and opposition for the bill does not fall neatly along party lines, reflecting the national reach of SEC and Big Ten schools and broader divisions in Congress.

While President Donald Trump has backed the bill, multiple Republicans opposed the legislation Thursday, while several Democrat supported it.

Some of the senators who voted against the bill represent states that are home to prominent SEC and Big Ten programs, including Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat, and Republican Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.

“Universities in Mississippi and around the SEC are concerned that some further progress needs to be made on the media rights,” Wicker told the AP.

Earlier this month, the Congressional Black Caucus also urged the Senate to suspend action on the bill in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that effectively disabled a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Democratic Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, a member of the CBC, voted against the legislation Thursday.

A long road ahead

Clearing the committee is just the first step in a long process.

Passage through the Senate is far from guaranteed, as leaders already have a packed schedule and a dwindling number of legislative days left before the November election. The bill would need to clear a 60-vote threshold in the 53-47 Republican-controlled chamber.

The bill will also still need to clear the House. Earlier this year, the House Republican leadership had been working toward a vote on its own college sports bill, known as the SCORE Act, before the Congressional Black Caucus announced its unanimous opposition.

Still, supporters on Thursday called the committee action a massive step forward.

“Today we are proving that we are resilient in keeping this product moving,” Cantwell said.

___

AP National Writer Eddie Pells in Southampton, N.Y., contributed to this report.

___

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

The federation earlier said the 23-year-old Wahi was not going to be able to travel to Canada, but it issued a statement Thursday stating the necessary authorizations had now been obtained.

Wahi started in Monday's 1-0 win over Ecuador in Philadelphia. The Elephants play Germany on Saturday in Toronto in their second match of the tournament.

Taous Ait, a spokesperson for Canada’s immigration minister, declined to comment on the case, citing a need for authorization from the individual involved.

The French soccer league said Wednesday that an “unusual amount of bets” were placed internationally on Wahi receiving a yellow card during a game on May 17 while playing for Nice. The French league was alerted by partners monitoring betting markets about suspicious betting activity concerning Nice’s home game against Metz, which ended in a 0-0 draw and in which Wahi was shown a yellow card.

The French league said it passed that information to police and gambling authorities, as well as the French soccer federation.

Asked whether Wahi was questioned by police, the Marseille prosecutor's office told The Associated Press “a 23-year-old professional football player, competing in France’s Ligue 1 championship, was arrested on May 29, 2026, as part of their investigation."

The office added “the investigation concerns alleged offenses of organized fraud, organized sports corruption, receiving stolen goods, and money laundering.” The player was questioned while in police custody and was released without being detained.

Wahi’s representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Ivorian soccer federation said it has not been officially notified “of any judicial or administrative proceedings” concerning Wahi. The soccer body said if “offers its full support to the player and reaffirms its confidence in him.”

“Elye Wahi remains an important member of the Ivory Coast national team," it added.

Wahi joined Nice on loan from Eintracht Frankfurt in January and scored nine goals in 18 games in all competitions, helping the team reach the French Cup final.

The French league season ended May 17. Wahi scored twice less than two weeks later to help Nice stay in the top division, a 4-1 win over Saint-Etienne in the second leg of the promotion-relegation playoffs.

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

According to officials, at approximately 11 p.m., a physical altercation occurred at Danville’s Riverfront Park. located at 100 Memorial Drive, of which videos have been shared on social media.

The DPD has investigated the incident and found that an adult, 25-year-old Christina Witherspoon of Danville, went to the location to confront two teenagers she knew and had ongoing issues with. The confrontation led to the physical assault seen on video committed by the 14 and 15 -year-old against Witherspoon.

Witherspoon has been charged with the following:

• Virginia Code § 18.2-371- Causing or encouraging acts rendering children delinquent, abused, etc.
• Virginia Code § 18.2-415.- Disorderly conduct in public places

Officials say Witherspoon is still actively wanted for the charges and police are asking for anyone with information on her whereabouts to contact the department.

Both the 14 and 15-year-old female offenders have been charged with:

• Virginia Code § 18.2-42- Assault or battery by mob
• Virginia Code § 18.2-415- Disorderly conduct in public places

The Danville Police Department would like to remind citizens that both juveniles AND their parents may be held criminally responsible for violating the City of Danville curfew hours for minors, 11:00 P.M. on any Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday until 6:00 A.M. of the following day; and 12:00 midnight until 6:00 A.M. on the following day on Friday or Saturday. The full ordinance is found in section 23-10 of the Danville, Virginia Code of Ordinances: https://tinyurl.com/3fpdrues

Anyone with information is asked to please contact the Danville Police Department by either calling 911, patrol at 434-799-6510 option 4, investigations at 434-799-6508 option 3, and option 1 again, contacting Crime Stoppers at 434-793-0000, approach any officer you see, through social media, via email crimetips@danvilleva.gov, or use our crime tips app CARE at www.p3tips.com/tipform.aspx?ID=818#.

Thapelo Maseko’s long range shot late in the match caught the hand of Czech opponent Pavel Sulc in the area.

Mokoena, who was shown on camera with tears rolling down his cheeks during the pre-game national anthem, stepped up to the penalty spot and sent his shot low past Czech Republic goalkeeper Matej Kovar in the 83rd minute.

The South Africa midfielder said he was overwhelmed before kick off, thinking about his late grandfather.

“I know, wherever he is, he would be proud of me," Mokoena said. "I just felt his presence in that moment. I thought if he was here, he would be proud of me because I know he believed in me when nobody believed in me.”

Michal Sadilek had given the Czechs the lead in the sixth minute at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Alexandr Sojka played in Sadilek and he slid a shot past goalkeeper Ronwen Williams.

Both teams lost their opening matches, and both knew another setback would seriously hinder their chances of reaching the round of 32.

South Africa faced some strong criticism following its 2-0 loss to World Cup co-host Mexico, which raised the prospect of the country extending its run of never having advanced to the knockout phase of a World Cup — even as host in 2010.

“If we go on like that and if we can make another performance like today I think we have a chance to go in the second round,” South Africa coach Hugo Broos said.

South Africa will next face South Korea on Wednesday in Group A, but will be without Mokoena, who is suspended after picking up his second yellow card of the tournament.

The Czechs lost to South Korea 2-1 in their opening match and will likely need to beat Mexico in their final game on Wednesday to advance.

___

Associated Press writer R.J. Rico contributed to this report.

___

James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson

___

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

At the Roots 101 Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, shackles made 400 years ago in Ghana are among the many relics of the African American experience on display. They were donated by a collector and activist. But Lamont Collins, who founded the museum in 2020, doesn’t just show them. He puts them on the wrists of willing visitors.

“It’s such a deep learning tool,” Collins says. “No matter how we hear people tell stories, how people try to change the story, the reality of the stories is in those shackles. Nobody can deny the reality of what you feel in those shackles.”

For European and American slave traders, iron shackles were seen simply as tools that helped run the transatlantic slave trade. Shackles were made for wrists, ankles, waist and the neck. They were even made in children's sizes. They were forced on kidnapped and sold Africans who were brutally crammed into ships as well as in slave markets in the Deep South. Seeing a coffle of enslaved people chained together in a line was commonplace.

Shackles reinforced to those enslaved that they could not even so much as dream of freedom. They were a punishment and a deterrent. A collar shackle even had bells or spiked ends to help slave catchers track runaways.

Last year, video of Collins placing shackles on a white woman's wrists at the museum gained attention on social media. He thinks it's because people want to talk about history through a racial lens as others continue to resist it.

“What I realized is sometimes that a lot of people think they want to know the story. But they want to know the story in their boundaries,” Collins says.

White men and women have cried after trying the shackles. Some decline just as Collins is about to cinch them on their wrists.

“I would say to them ‘Why I can't put these on you for two seconds and we had them on for 200 years,” he says. “It starts a conversation.”

___ This story is part of a recurring series, “ American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more stories on the anniversary, click here.

Kean, who represents a battleground district in this year's midterms, has missed more than 100 votes and hasn't been spotted in Washington or his district, stirring a mystery that carries potential national consequences.

"Congressman Kean is eager to return to in person work on June 30 and resume a full schedule," said Kean political consultant Harrison Neely in a text. “He plans to be fully transparent regarding the nature of his health issue and you should expect to hear from him in person June 30th."

Kean’s office has said he is still running for reelection and is set to face Democratic Navy veteran Rebecca Bennett in the state's premier contest in November.

The district is among the most closely watched in this year's election. In the past two midterm elections, the seat changed party hands, with Kean winning in 2022 over Democrat Tom Malinowski, who had defeated Republican Leonard Lance in 2018.

Kean last voted in the House on March 5, but his absence wasn’t explained. In April, his social media account posted that he had been dealing with a personal medical issue and his doctors expected him to recover.

On Primary Day this month, President Donald Trump endorsed Kean’s reelection, without mentioning his absence, and the same day, Kean said in a statement he expected to return to work in a matter of weeks.

He hasn't explain what the medical issue was.

Kean comes from a long line of public servants, stretching 250 years to the country’s founding when one of his ancestors became New Jersey’s first leader since independence. His great-grandfather was a senator, his grandfather was a congressman and his father is the former two-term governor, Tom Kean Sr.

But the brief document signed by U.S. President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is vague on some of the major questions left by the three-month regional conflict that jolted the world economy. The U.S. says some outstanding issues will be worked out over the 60 days.

Here are some of the main questions, and the best answers available at the moment.

What will happen with Iran's nuclear program?

Trump says a key objective of the war was to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, something Tehran has long denied seeking. The U.S.-Israeli surprise attack that started the war on Feb. 28 came as Iran was engaged in nuclear talks, which are now set to resume.

It will be extremely difficult to reach a full nuclear agreement before the 60-day deadline, which could be extended. The 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump scrapped during his first term, took more than 18 months to negotiate and involved complex technical discussions among nuclear experts.

Iran has long insisted on its right to enrich uranium. The deal does not specify the level at which it would be allowed to enrich — the low levels required for power plants or the much higher level at which it had enriched before the war, which put the uranium a short, technical step away from weapons-grade.

Iran’s existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to have been largely buried by U.S. strikes last year. The agreement says at a minimum the stockpile will be diluted on site under U.N. supervision, without elaborating. Trump has long demanded that it be removed from the country.

When will the Strait of Hormuz reopen?

Iran's effective closure of the critical waterway — through which a fifth of the world's oil and gas passed before the war — caused a historic worldwide fuel shock, driving up the prices of everything from gas and groceries to fertilizer and airline tickets.

Lloyd's List Intelligence, a maritime data company, said Thursday that major shippers have begun moving vessels through the strait again.

Under the agreement, it will be fully reopened, with Iran to remove mines within 30 days and with no charges imposed on commercial vessels during the 60-day period.

Passage was free before the war, but Iran imposed tolls during the fighting and has said it will continue to charge fees.

Legal experts say that would violate international laws around freedom of navigation, and the U.S. has adamantly rejected it. Such fees could also run afoul of sanctions on Iran, making them problematic for shippers.

When will the fuel crisis end?

Even if the strait is fully reopened, it could take weeks or months for the normal flow of oil and gas to resume.

Ship captains and insurers will have to decide if it's truly safe. Hundreds of ships bottled up in the Persian Gulf for months will need to exit through the narrow, elbow-shaped waterway. Even a brief exchange of fire — which happened several times after a declared ceasefire in April — could halt traffic once again.

Major oil and gas producers in the Gulf, including Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, will also need time to repair critical infrastructure damaged by Iranian missile and drone attacks.

Will sanctions on Iran be lifted?

The U.S. says it has lifted its blockade under the agreement, which also calls for sanctions waivers that will allow Iran to export oil. That will provide a boost to Iran's wrecked economy and likely push world fuel prices down. The U.S. also commits to unfreezing Iranian funds held abroad.

A raft of international sanctions imposed over the years related to Iran's nuclear program, its support for militant groups and human rights violations are also to be lifted, but only as part of a final nuclear deal. U.S. Vice President JD Vance said sanctions relief would be “performance-based.”

The deal calls for the United States and its regional allies to develop a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran, but does not say who would pay for it.

Trump has said the U.S. won't contribute, and Vance has said it would be up to wealthy Gulf countries to fund it. But they are unlikely to want to help Iran at a time when their own economies are suffering from the war's fallout and the destruction of their infrastructure in Iranian attacks.

Will the war in Lebanon end?

The deal calls for an immediate halt to military operations “on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” where Israel has been battling the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, and for ensuring Lebanon's “territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

It does not say whether that means Israel would withdraw from the large swaths of southern Lebanon it has occupied since Hezbollah joined the war in its early days by firing rockets and drones at northern Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, has refused to withdraw, saying Israeli forces will remain in Lebanon until the threat from Hezbollah has been eliminated.

Hezbollah has refused to halt its own attacks while Israel is occupying Lebanese territory, and Iran has insisted Lebanon be included in any ceasefire.

Continued fighting there could unravel the deal if Iran or the U.S. believe the other is in breach of it.

What about Iran's ballistic missiles and its support for militants?

The deal says nothing about either, and Trump suggested this week that Iran is entitled to have some ballistic missiles in proportion to its neighbors.

Iran still has missiles capable of hitting Israel and has long backed militant groups like Hezbollah, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and militias in Iraq, which have also attacked it. Eliminating Iran's missiles and degrading its network of militant allies were among the main U.S. war goals.

Sanctions relief would potentially allow Iran to continue funding such groups, though it will have to balance that against its own economic crisis and reconstruction needs.

The comments deepened a rift that has emerged between the two allies over the interim deal reached by the United States and Iran to end their war.

“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” Vance said during a a news briefing at the White House. “The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.”

Israel and the U.S. jointly launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28, closely coordinating the more than monthlong military operation.

But disagreements quickly emerged following a preliminary April 8 ceasefire agreement, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushing to continue the campaign and Trump moving to wind down a war that was deeply unpopular in the U.S. and rattled the global economy.

While Netanyahu has been careful not to openly criticize this week’s ceasefire deal, some members of his Cabinet have been more outspoken. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads a small ultranationalist party, this week declared that Israel is not “bound” by Trump’s agreement and said it would not cave in to international pressure.

Vance noted that Netanyahu has not publicly criticized Trump, but he accused unnamed members of Netanyahu’s Cabinet of being ungrateful. He said Israel has few friends in the international community and protected itself with large quantities of weapons paid for by the United States.

Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on Vance’s statement.

In recent days, Trump has expressed frustration with Netanyahu, claimed credit for Israel’s existence and has described the Israeli leader as “ crazy.” He sidelined Israel throughout the negotiations, and criticized Israeli airstrikes in Beirut.

In his first comments on the newly signed memorandum of understanding, Netanyahu on Thursday said Israel’s military will stay in a zone of territory it is occupying in southern Lebanon “as long as Israel’s security needs require it.” The comments threatened to undermine the deal, which calls for a halt in all fighting and respect for Lebanon’s territorial integrity.

Netanyahu, however, noted it was important “to maintain the important relationship with our American friends who fought shoulder to shoulder with us, and we greatly appreciate that.”

Niger’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the attack in Niamey was foiled and that 20 suspects were arrested along with weapons and ammunition.

Witnesses reported gunfire and explosions during the attack, and an Associated Press journalist saw soldiers searching people on the road to the airport in the aftermath of the violence.

Hours later, the National Civil Aviation Agency said the airport was operating normally.

Niger, led by a military junta since a 2023 coup, has struggled to contain deadly jihadi violence that has battered parts of Africa’s Sahel region, including neighbors Burkina Faso and Mali that are also run by military juntas.

It was the second attack at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey this year, after the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a similar attack in January that targeted Niger’s drone assets.

The airport is a strategic hub that hosts a Nigerien air force base as well as the headquarters of the Niger-Burkina Faso-Mali joint military force.

The military has beefed up the airport security following the January attack, but jihadis in Niger and the wider region continue to pose serious threats, analysts say.

“The symbolism of the airport as headquarters for AES will drive intent by militants to target it,” said Beverly Ochieng, a senior security analyst at Control Risks, referring to the regional Alliance of Sahel States.

The document, which has not yet been made public, will be submitted Thursday to Cuba’s National Assembly. It envisions expanding opportunities for private enterprise, greater autonomy for municipalities and state-owned companies and measures to attract additional foreign investment, including from Cubans abroad.

In recent days, residents in several Havana neighborhoods staged protests, banging pots and pans as power outages spread across the island.

“Cuba resists heroically and creatively, but has endured for too long a barbaric, undeserved and unbearable punishment, to which is now added the threat of military aggression,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel said late Wednesday in the closing speech of the Communist Party session. The speech was published Thursday.

The announcement comes after months of increasing pressure from the U.S. and high-level talks between the two countries that have included Raúl Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro. The U.S. has levied numerous sanctions against Cuba and has indicted Raúl Castro in connection with the 1996 downing of two civilian planes operated by Miami exiles.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said at a White House press briefing that the administration is watching the island's actions to determine how to respond.

“We’re going to see what they do. And obviously, if they do one thing, we’re going to do something,” Vance said. "If they make smart decisions, we’re going to have a much better relationship with that island.”

Pressure from the European Union also ratcheted up Thursday, with lawmakers passing a resolution condemning “the systematic repression” by the Cuban government and demanding “profound economic and political change.” The resolution also called for EU sanctions targeting Díaz-Canel and the leadership of Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), a business conglomerate operated by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces. Both have already been sanctioned by the U.S.

Díaz-Canel said the emergency plan and the policy document prepared by the Communist Party’s Central Committee were shaped by the experiences of China and Vietnam, two communist countries that have introduced market-oriented economic reforms while maintaining one-party rule.

The document will be submitted to the National Assembly for debate during a special session that, like the recent party meeting, was convened without prior public notice.

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Seung Min Kim in Washington and Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed to this story.

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

Roanoke City Public Schools issued the following statement:

 After more than three decades in public education — including soon to be seven years leading Roanoke City Public Schools through one of the most transformative periods in its history — Superintendent Dr. Verletta White announced Thursday that she will retire at the end of the 2026–27 school year.

Dr. White, who joined Roanoke City Public Schools in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, said the decision comes as she approaches her 35th year in education.

“This is not a decision I make lightly,” Dr. White said. “I will continue to lead throughout the next year with the same focus, passion, and commitment that have guided me throughout my career.”

She began her career as a teacher in Baltimore City before spending decades rising through Baltimore County Public Schools, the nation’s 25^th largest school system. She served as assistant principal, principal, executive director of professional development, assistant superintendent, and chief academic officer before stepping in as interim superintendent in 2017.

She came to Roanoke in July 2020 at the height of a global pandemic, but she did not let that stop her from hosting walking tours around the city, starting on day one, to listen to the community’s needs. She deliberately chose RCPS, submitting just three applications nationwide.

“Roanoke is a city that cares deeply about children,” she said at the time of her hiring. “I care deeply about children, so I believe we match.”

Her tenure in Roanoke has been defined by transforming the school division’s culture and stability, and by a series of long-term investments in students, families, and the community.

Under her leadership, the division leveraged one-time federal pandemic relief funds to make a generational impact by expanding access to career and technical education (CTE) with the opening of the Charles W. Day Technical Education Center. This project doubled CTE seat capacity and reshaped how the division prepares students for life after graduation. Dr. White has often said her goal is for every student to graduate with “both a diploma and a resume of rich skills and experiences that will benefit them for a lifetime.”

The division also reimagined how it connects with families, launching the Community Empowerment Center at Booker T. Washington, which provides families with a one-stop hub designed to connect them with critical services and support. In less than a year, the center has served more than 2,000 families and served as a conduit for the launch of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Roanoke City. Now, 100% of children across the Roanoke and New River Valleys have access to free, high-quality books every month, which directly aligns with RCPS’ early literacy goals.

At the same time, the division strengthened school safety measures and emerged from the pandemic with renewed momentum. Programs focused on attendance, early intervention, and student engagement — including the Community Builders initiative, which is now a statewide demonstration site — have contributed to improvements in academic performance and reductions in absenteeism and discipline incidents. Under Dr. White’s leadership, chronic absenteeism and discipline incidents have decreased, and students who complete a two-year CTE program have a 100% graduation rate. The 2026 graduating class of 930 students across both high schools also marked the largest graduating class in RCPS history.

Dr. White’s leadership has drawn statewide and national recognition. She was named Virginia’s 2024 Superintendent of the Year and Region VI Superintendent of the Year and was recognized by K-12 Dive as one of five superintendents nationwide to watch. The School Board twice extended her contract, with her current contract set to end June 2028.

School Board Chair Franny Apel said Dr. White’s impact will be felt long after her tenure ends.

“Dr. White has led with purpose and a clear belief in what our students can achieve,” Mrs. Apel said. “Under her leadership, RCPS is positioned for long-term success, and we are grateful she has given us the time to ensure a thoughtful and stable transition.”

Dr. White emphasized that she is not done serving yet.

“We have built a strong foundation, and I am committed to making sure this next year is one of continued progress for our students, our staff, and our families,” she said.

The Roanoke City School Board will conduct a national search for the division’s next superintendent. Dr. White will remain in her role through June 2027 and will assist with the transition.

Roanoke City Public Schools

Talking to Orlando, he said, was different.

Sweeney was introduced Thursday as the new coach of the Magic, which was the obvious proof that he won them over by his answers during the interview process. Turns out, the Magic won him over with their questions as well.

“The Magic were the most thorough and they did the best job of asking questions and asking follow-ups to get to layers underneath the first answer," Sweeney said. “Some interviews that I’ve had in the past, I did not get that same level of detail. And given how I am and how I want to coach, that stood out.”

Sweeney and the Magic struck their deal for him to take over about three weeks ago; the formal welcome-to-Orlando event was put off until now because Sweeney has been a bit busy in his role as associate head coach of the San Antonio Spurs and their trip to the NBA Finals.

He stayed locked in on his tasks with the Spurs, even though the interview process started early in their postseason run. But with the finals over, Sweeney wasted little time in getting to Orlando and starting on the new job.

“When we finally did get in front of him, it was a long day and he had a lot going on," Magic President Jeff Weltman said. "It was during the playoffs and not only was he able to kind of compartmentalize his work with the Spurs and present well to us, but he really knocked our socks off. In Sean Sweeney, we have somebody who, in our minds, has the potential to be one of the elite coaches in this league.”

Sweeney said he fully believes this is the best situation for him.

Some first-time head coaches have to deal with a total rebuild; that's not the case in Orlando, where a young core led by Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner has made three consecutive playoff appearances — but three consecutive first-round exists essentially convinced the Magic that it was time for a change. Jamahl Mosley, now the coach in New Orleans, was let go after a successful five-year run and Sweeney was targeted as the replacement.

“I was fortunate this summer to have some different things to look at," Sweeney said. "But this is the only one I wanted to look at.”

Sweeney, who turned 42 earlier this month, comes to Orlando after basically spending half his life as an assistant.

He has come a long way from Anoka-Ramsey Community College and the Academy of Art University, two of his earliest stops. He started in the NBA as a video coordinator for the then-New Jersey Nets, and has since had assistant stints with the Nets, Milwaukee, Detroit, Dallas and San Antonio. He quotes the teachings of just about everyone he's worked for at every level, along with those he considers some of the greatest to ever blow a whistle in a basketball practice, names like Bob Knight, Tim Grgurich, Rick Majerus, Jason Kidd, Chuck Daly and his now-former boss with the Spurs, Mitch Johnson.

And then there was the guy who had the office next to him for the last year in San Antonio. That would be Gregg Popovich, the NBA's all-time coaching wins leader.

“Coach Pop’s office was right next to mine and I was very fortunate,” Sweeney said. "When you’re next to a guy who’s the greatest coach of all time daily, the fact that he even said hello and knew my name meant something to me. So yeah, Coach Pop, he built that program and guys like me are fortunate to be part of it. I'm very grateful and that’s part of the reason why I’m here now.”

Sweeney is blunt, focused and driven. He took a look at the handful of Magic players who attended the press conference introducing him as the team's new coach on Thursday, offering them his first message since taking the job.

Or, perhaps more accurately, it was part message, part warning.

“I'm going to listen to you guys as much as I talk to you,” Sweeney said. “Now, how I talk to you may be different than how I listen.”

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

The expected motion for dismissal of the suit was filed Thursday by the 99th District Court in Lubbock County. That was three days after Texas Tech said he wouldn't play this fall, and exactly a month after Sorsby filed his lawsuit that set off a legal saga that rattled college sports.

That Texas court issued a temporary injunction June 8 that made the transfer quarterback eligible to play even after admitting that he placed bets on his own team while at Indiana as a freshman four years ago. Those were among thousands of impermissible bets he made while in college.

Sorsby had to be ineligible for NCAA play to be able to apply for the NFL's supplemental draft. The submission deadline for that rarely used draft is Monday, and the 22-year-old quarterback tentatively plans to work out for NFL teams on July 10.

The injunction last week by Judge Ken Curry had prevented the NCAA from enforcing its ruling that the quarterback was ineligible to play what would have been his final college season. Sorsby transferred to reigning Big 12 champion Texas Tech in January after the past two seasons at Cincinnati.

Cody Campbell, the billionaire booster who is chairman of the Texas Tech regents, announced in an open letter Monday night that Sorsby would not be part of the team this fall. He wrote that the decision was made with Sorsby and his family, with the draft deadline and ongoing legal process among the key factors.

That letter came on the same day the NCAA and Big 12 Conference had filings in separate courts related to the case.

Sorsby already faced a two-game suspension as part of the temporary injunction. The continued legal wrangling made uncertain what his status could be for Tech's remaining games.

The temporary injunction had cleared the way for Sorsby, after the first two games, to play despite being declared ineligible after he admitted making thousands of bets worth at least $90,000 while at Indiana, Cincinnati and Texas Tech. Those included at least 40 bets on Indiana while he was a freshman there in 2022, though none on the games in which he played for the Hoosiers that season.

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

Here, The Associated Press runs you through some of the more compelling — and controversial — backstories from the kit designs on show in soccer’s biggest event, currently taking place in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Cape Verde's flight paths

For its World Cup debut, the smallest nation by population at the tournament is paying homage to the roughly 525,000 inhabitants who live on 10 volcanic islands off the coast of Africa. A geometric, triangular print across its blue (home) and white (away) jerseys represents the network of flight paths that connect the islands. The idea is that the people of Cape Verde are united behind the players at the World Cup — and that togetherness showed as the team held firm to seal an unlikely 0-0 draw with heavily favored Spain in their first match.

Belgium's surrealism

“This is not a jersey,” reads a message on the collar of Belgium's multicolor away shirt. No, the Belgians aren't losing their minds. It's just a nod to the European nation's surrealist heritage — and notably the work of its master in this artistic movement from the early 20th century. Throughout his career, Belgian artist René Magritte questioned the enigmatic relationship of mind and eye, reality and language, writing under “The Treachery of Images” — his iconic painting of a pipe — the words: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe).” The light-blue jersey features pink patterns and black detailing, incorporating soccer-inspired motifs such as pitch lines and a ball. “True to the surrealism theme, the kit sparks the imagination and invites conversation,” the Belgian federation says.

Haiti's battle scene

The original jersey submitted by this Caribbean nation included a depiction of the final battle of the Haitian War of Independence in 1803 on its front. In the words of Colombian sportswear manufacturer Saeta, it was a “tribute to the men and women who contribute every day to Haiti’s future.” It didn't go down too well with FIFA, which rejected the image during its approval process, deeming it too political. So an updated blue soccer kit was needed, one that no longer includes the battle artwork.

Argentina's swirling paint technique

The defending World Cup champion is mixing sporting heritage with artistic expression in its jerseys. The home kit — worn by Lionel Messi for his hat trick against Algeria on Tuesday — features three shades of blue on its stripes, an homage to the South American nation's World Cup-winning uniforms from 1978, 1986 and 2022. As for its dark blue away jersey, that's inspired by a traditional painting technique from capital city Buenos Aires — filete porteño — that's used for ornamental design, combining brilliant, swirling colors with specific lettering styles.

France's American connection

France arrived for the World Cup with an away kit that honors a gift the nation famously gave to the United States: the Statue of Liberty. The jersey has a green hue that resembles the oxidized color of the iconic sculpture designed by a Frenchman — Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi — and given to the United States in 1886 as a symbol of French-American friendship. On the jersey is a logo in copper — the original color of the statue — with the words “Nos différences nous unissent” (Our differences unite us).

Iran's endangered Asiatic cheetah

The most striking imagery on Iran's home (white) and away (red) kits is an Asiatic cheetah low across the front. There also are cheetah spots on the sleeves up to the shoulder. The Asiatic cheetah, an equally fast cousin of the African cat, is one of the world’s critically endangered species — one that Iran has long tried to save. There were as many as 400 in the 1990s but the numbers have dwindled to less than an estimated 70 remaining in Iran.

Norway's runic font

Norway's kit might be the sharpest at the World Cup — literally. The font used for the names and numbers of players is inspired by runic writing — characters in several Germanic alphabets used in northern Europe from ancient times until the adoption of the Latin alphabet. The writing is pointy, geometric and easily visible, representing the Norwegian team's desire to embrace its centuries-old history. Flanking the large blue cross across the chest are Viking art patterns in an Urnes style.

Colombia's yellow butterflies

Look closely at Colombia's typically vibrant yellow jersey and you'll notice a burst of butterfly patterns. That's an homage to the classic novel by the nation's Nobel Prize-winning author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” and the stories that made him literature’s best-known practitioner of magical realism — the blending of the everyday with fantastical elements such as a man trailed by a cloud of yellow butterflies.

Mexico's Aztec calendar

Mexico's home jersey brings back the Aztec calendar design that was popular in the 1990s. In the run-up to the World Cup, the team visited the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City and posed for a photo with the uniforms in front of the Aztec “Piedra de Sol” or Stone of the Sun, best known as the Aztec calendar.

Saudi Arabia's architecture

Dotted across Saudi Arabia's dark green home jersey are symmetrical lavender squares or diamond shapes, a tribute to doorway decoration — namely geometric, triangular architecture — commonly seen in homes in the kingdom. Wild lavender flowers fill Saudi's desert landscapes in springtime, so purple is a celebrated color in the nation and regarded as a symbol of generosity.

Brazil's Amazonian frogs

What might immediately jump out when looking at Brazil's navy blue-and-black away jersey made by Nike is a yellow “Jumpman” logo synonymous with Michael Jordan-promoted sportswear. However, more closely linked to Brazilian culture is the color of the kit, inspired by the skin of the poison dart frog found in the Amazon. It's a nod to the danger posed by Brazil, the record five-time world champion.

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This story has been corrected to remove a reference to Haiti as a World Cup debutant. This is Haiti's second World Cup.

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Associated Press writer Luis Andres Henao contributed to this report.

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

A century of broken treaties already had spawned distrust of the federal government, and widespread forced assimilation was accelerating. With shifting cultural and social circumstances came declining populations. Survival was hanging in the balance.

Renowned for their masterful beadwork, Lakota women had a strategy.

Incorporating symbols of American patriotism into their work was more than a simple embrace of the stars and stripes. It was an act of quiet resistance that provided an avenue for conserving their values as U.S. policies unraveled their communities.

So with America's 250th birthday come mixed emotions rooted in pain, pride and even patriotism. Native youth are writing essays about what 1776 means to them. Museums are displaying elaborate beadwork as a window into that past, while contemporary Native artists are offering critics in paintings on more modern political struggles.

It's a milestone marking resilience — and a fresh opportunity to look at the nation's history through an unexpected, and perhaps less varnished, lens.

Native Americans and the US have a unique relationship

Curators and tribal scholars say the Native experience cannot be overlooked or minimized when talking about the complex tapestry that is America.

“The United States could not exist without Native history having been here first,” said Aaron Carapella, who is of Cherokee descent and creates maps of Indigenous territories. “There’s so many influences that Native people embedded into the fabric of what we call America.”

A student of history, Carapella finds it unlikely that most of the Founding Fathers would have expected tribes to persist as sovereign entities. Rather, they thought tribes would be absorbed into American society.

Implementation of laws like the 1830 Indian Removal Act signed by President Andrew Jackson and the 1887 Dawes Act enacted by President Grover Cleveland led to forced relocations through brutal journeys like the Trail of Tears. Land grabs resulted when millions of acres of tribal landholdings were broken up.

Bounties in Minnesota and the Southwest along with militias in California further eroded tribal territories. Then came the boarding schools, where Native children were sent in an effort to erase their connections to culture, language and religion.

It's not ancient history. Tribal leaders say their people are still living with the effects of those policies.

Today, there are 575 tribes with inherent sovereignty recognized by the U.S, with the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina joining the list in December. The government-to-government relationships are unlike arrangements many other countries have with Indigenous populations.

N. Bruce Duthu, chair of Native American and Indigenous Studies at Dartmouth College and a member of the United Houma Nation, has taught and lectured around the globe. He said it’s hard for Indigenous leaders in Bolivia and elsewhere to believe that tribes in the U.S. have been able to build power over the last half-century. It’s an ongoing fight, but Duthu points to successful efforts to influence environmental policies and pass major legislation to hold nontribal citizens accountable for crimes committed in Indian Country.

“The U.S. is routinely at the top of the heap in terms of a country that, despite all the flaws, at least now in the last 50 years or so, seems to have gotten it right,” Duthu said.

There's a deep history of influence

Native influences span from the notions of democracy shared with the Founding Fathers to the warrior ethos exhibited by the fierceness with which tribal nations fought to protect their land — from other tribes, foreign nations and the federal government.

It's not unlike the patriotism many Americans feel today. And for some Native Americans, it's a fundamental part of who they are; they have one of the highest per-capita rates of military service in the country.

At the center of the “Stars, Stripes and First Americans” exhibit at New Mexico’s Museum of Indian Arts and Culture is a painting by Kee Yazzie titled Diné Code Talker. The brushstrokes pay homage to the Navajo Code Talkers, who used their language to create an unbreakable code that played a critical role in U.S. victories during World War II.

Danyelle Means, the museum's executive director and a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, said other tribes also had code talkers. That included the Choctaw Nation and Comanche, Kiowa, Hopi, Muscogee, Sioux and Seminole recruits.

“Veterans are a huge part of celebration and ceremony within Native communities and are often revered and have their own societies within these communities,” Means said. “So it is something — that aspect of the U.S. and being a warrior for this country — that is very deep-seated in so many Native communities.”

Influence has permeated art and culture

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., is commemorating the 250th with an installation of two dresses that highlight heritage and Native American servicewomen.

Made a century apart, one is a Lakota beaded dress likely made for a July Fourth celebration and the other is a modern jingle dress worn by members of the Native American Women Warriors that includes a patch honoring Lori Piestewa, who is believed to be the first Native woman killed in combat on foreign soil. The Hopi soldier died from injuries following an ambush in Iraq in 2003.

Those military operations came after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Navajo artist Pauline Thomas called it a scary time, knowing that more Native soldiers would be heading off to war. The 73-year-old created a weaving following 9/11 that is now part of the exhibition in New Mexico.

For Thomas, her weavings mark moments in time, but they're also a way for Navajo customs to live on. Her 12-year-old granddaughter already is winning blue ribbons for her weavings.

“I think it’s very, very important,” Thomas said from her hometown of Naschitti on the Navajo Nation. “I don’t want my people to lose their culture. I want them to learn more about their ancestors, where they came from.”

The way forward has many paths

Jami Powell, curator of Indigenous art at Dartmouth College's Hood Museum of Art, uses the phrase “colonial entanglements” to describe the complexity of U.S.-tribal relations. She tells her students that things aren't always black and white.

“And it is OK to have feelings of ambivalence around these issues and the difficult histories that led to this current moment,” said Powell, a citizen of the Osage Nation.

The Hood Museum is displaying the work of Native artists as part of its 250th commemoration. Both subversive and pointed, the pieces broaden the conversation and get visitors thinking about the next two centuries, Powell said.

Ensuring Native youth have a voice in that future is a driving force for Tracy Canard Goodluck, executive director of the Center for Native American Youth.

A member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and of Mvskoke Creek heritage, Goodluck said the power of those voices rang loud and clear in essays submitted for a recent competition focused on the 250th. They touched on sovereignty, self-determination and maintaining a connection with land and culture.

“They know who they are, where they come from, their identity, their culture, their history,” Goodluck says, “and we need to create pathways for them to be able to share that with everyone.”

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This story is published through the Global Indigenous Reporting Network at The Associated Press.

Civil society groups including a Christian organization joined the challenge, arguing that the ban violates the rights to life, health, dignity and equality, and that such protections should be extended to pregnant girls and women.

The challenge was filed Wednesday in the country’s Constitutional Court.

The Dominican Republic has one of the strictest abortion bans in the region, criminalizing it without exception and regardless of circumstance. Women face up to two years in prison for having an abortion, while doctors or midwives could face five to 20 years.

“My daughter died because she was denied the medical care she needed. No other mother should have to go through this,” Rosa Herminia Hernández said in a statement.

Rosaura Almonte died in 2012 from leukemia while three weeks pregnant. She was 16 years old, according to the court filing.

The challenge seeks that abortions be allowed in rape or incest cases; when the life or health of a woman or girl is in danger; or when a fetus has fatal abnormalities.

“This action seeks something very simple: that no woman or girl should have to choose between her life, her health and the law,” attorney Patricia Santana Nina said in a statement.

At least 67,455 abortions were recorded from 2019 through late 2024 in the public health sector, according to government data. It did not differentiate between spontaneous and induced abortions.

Meanwhile, from June 2017 to October 2022, prosecutors filed 62 criminal cases for abortion and 16 cases for attempted abortion. The Prosecutor General’s Office has stopped publishing such data since November 2022.

“Is it legitimate to maintain a permanent criminal threat against women in medical emergencies solely to legally express a moral stance?” the challenged filed Wednesday stated.

In 2023, a woman with three children, one of whom was product of a rape, had an incomplete and spontaneous abortion while pregnant, according to the challenge. It noted that authorities detained her for 10 days in inhumane conditions despite her condition, adding that she did not receive adequate medical care.

“The woman went to a health center seeking care and ended up being deprived of her freedom,” it stated.

Human rights activists say that it’s often health providers who report women to authorities.

There are no reliable statistics on how many women in the Dominican Republic have died during or after a clandestine abortion.

In 2024, at least 585 girls from 11 to 14 years old became mothers, according to government data. Meanwhile, at least 681 rapes were reported from January to July 2025, with activists noting that unreported cases are much higher.

The challenge noted that the ban worsens existing inequalities: women with resources can seek private medical care in or outside the country, while those who are impoverished face higher health risks and are more exposed to criminal prosecution.

“The women who are persecuted often share conditions of socioeconomic vulnerability, job insecurity, low educational level, or migratory status,” the challenge read.

Now that the department is offloading civil rights enforcement and special education, some parents and advocates warn a process that has largely been stalled since President Donald Trump took office will see only more chaos and roadblocks.

“It’s to the point I don’t even check in anymore with the attorney,” said Nicole May, an Ohio mother. May filed a complaint in spring 2024 with the department’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging her teenage daughter was bullied over her hearing aids and was getting in trouble in class because she couldn’t hear her teachers. More than two years later, the case lacks a resolution.

Under the changes announced Tuesday, the Department of Justice will take over civil rights enforcement in schools, and the Department of Health and Human Services will oversee special education. The moves help fulfill Trump’s campaign promise to dismantle the Education Department. Linda McMahon, the education secretary, pitched the changes as a way to get more help to families of kids with disabilities.

Advocates said special education doesn’t belong in a health department, which usually treats disabilities as conditions to manage, instead of differences in how children learn. The top Republican on the Senate education committee agreed, saying he’d pursue legislation to keep special education out of Health and Human Services.

Some families already are taking discrimination cases elsewhere

For many, though, the response to the announcement was a sigh of resignation.

The Education Department’s civil rights office had long been the last resort for parents who believe their child is facing discrimination at school, with a mandate to review all complaints. Under Trump, the backlog of cases has ballooned, and resolutions have dwindled. Increasingly, attorneys say they are turning elsewhere to try to obtain justice for children.

The reaction is a marked change from a year ago, when parents and attorneys were in a panic as Education Department staff and attorneys were slashed.

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services has shrunk by roughly a third since 2024, and the Office for Civil Rights is roughly 40% smaller. Meanwhile, in the Department of Justice, the Education Opportunities Section has shrunk by half, according to estimates provided by Justice Connection, a network of department alumni.

“I think a lot of people are mad, but they are like, ‘What are we going to do?’” said Emily Harvey, the co-legal director at Disability Justice, formerly Disability Law Colorado, who has watched her cases languish.

When Trump took office, she had a federal complaint pending, alleging some Colorado schools were illegally rejecting enrollment from kids outside their neighborhood boundaries because they had disabilities. Harvey also has a case pending at the Department of Justice, alleging a district south of Denver restrained and secluded disabled students hundreds of times, even though the practice is supposed to be reserved for emergencies.

“I feel like they’re probably collecting dust on a virtual shelf somewhere,” Harvey said.

In response to the federal backlog, she helped to push for a new state law that expands the types of civil rights cases Colorado education officials can pursue.

States across the U.S. already investigate various special education complaints, including when parents allege schools aren’t following a child’s individualized education program, or IEP. But the Colorado legislation, signed into law in May, allows the state to pursue the types of cases typically handled at the federal level, such as those involving allegations of discrimination and harassment.

Harvey said she didn’t think the federal civil rights office was ever perfect. “But I think it’s become even less help for people who are trying to resolve issues,” said Harvey, who worked as an Education Department civil rights attorney in 2020 and 2021.

Boston-area special education advocate Craig Haller said he’s heard nothing on a complaint he filed early last year with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. Ever since the Trump administration started dismantling the department, he has leaned more on Massachusetts’s state system for resolving special education matters.

He recently used that system to help a student whose high school didn’t take into account his special education plan when it suspended him.

“I got it fixed for my client,” Haller said. But without the federal Office for Civil Rights, “I can’t get it fixed systematically.”

Department workers say the dismantling has made their jobs harder

While only Congress can close the Education Department, McMahon, a billionaire and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, has signed 10 additional agreements to give department functions to other federal agencies.

So far, those agreements have not reduced the number of employees working on specific programs. But the union that represents department workers says staff have run into issues with equipment and access at their new postings.

“It’s hard to describe how inefficient the implementation of the (agreements) has been,” said Rachel Gittleman, the union’s president.

The Education Department said Wednesday the latest agreements will help the Office for Civil Rights run “more effectively and efficiently.”

“Compliance and enforcement of federal civil rights laws will remain a priority,” the department said in a written statement.

Taken together, the fracturing of programs, enforcement and oversight for disabled students across multiple agencies raised questions of what would fall through the cracks, special education advocates said.

Robyn Linscott, who directs education and family policy at The Arc of the United States, a major disability rights group, recalled attending a three-hour listening session the Education Department hosted in January. Families, educators and advocates described barriers to accessing proper support and services. Although they acknowledged breaks in the system, not a single parent advocated for moving oversight of special education to Health and Human Services.

Still, she isn’t surprised the Trump administration moved the program anyway.

“It has only been 24 hours, but I think we anticipated this move for over a year,” she said on Wednesday.

In Congress, senators from both sides of the aisle said they would try to stop the move to put special education in Health and Human Services.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said he would “publicly commit” to working with his Democratic colleague, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, on legislative action that would push the administration to change course. Cassidy, who lost a primary election this spring and has less than six months left in his Senate term, has personal knowledge of the education challenges faced by kids with disabilities: His wife co-founded a network of charter schools for students with dyslexia.

If special education is moved, he said Wednesday, it should go to the Labor Department. That agency, he said, is better positioned to support people with disabilities as they learn and work.

Ultimately, what matters to parents is whether they can get the services their children need, said Rob Harris, an IEP advocate in Colorado. Families spend an inordinate amount of time navigating systems that should be working together to serve children, but often aren’t. Harris has navigated those systems himself: His 19-year-old daughter is blind.

“Families don’t experience the government through organizational charts,” Harris said. “We experience it through the services our children receive.”

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Associated Press writers Bianca Vázquez Toness and Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.

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

From a distance, Ivan Franco thought it must be a car. But as he approached in his tow truck, he saw it was a plane — broken in half, its fuselage resting on its side, bright fire beginning to rise above. He stopped and rifled through the rescue kit his company keeps in the truck, grabbing a sledgehammer as well as three fire extinguishers, which he handed off to police officers.

“At that moment, you don’t think much about what to do, because I knew the plane could explode since it was on fire,” Franco told The Associated Press in Spanish. “My idea was to try to break the windows because the pilots hadn’t come out yet.”

Franco was one of several motorists who happened across the crash in Laredo, Texas, late Tuesday night and rushed to help — putting their own lives in danger to help those on board escape as smoke filled the cabin.

Passersby helped save lives

Police were also on the scene quickly, and their teamwork with the good Samaritans undoubtedly saved lives, officials said.

“The officers and the good Samaritans that went to the scene, our firefighters that responded — I do also want to commend each and every one of them,” Laredo Police Chief Mike Rodriguez said during a news conference Wednesday. He said he asked his staff to track down all the civilians who helped.

The Cessna Citation Latitude twin jet departed Tuesday evening from the Mexican resort city of San José del Cabo and was bound for Austin, Texas, the FAA said in a statement. The plane was operated by NetJets, a company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway that lets people buy part ownership in private jets. NetJets said in a statement that it was cooperating with authorities.

The crash occurred after its pilots reported mechanical problems while requesting an emergency landing at a nearby airport. The fuselage came to rest across a concrete barrier, while its tail broke off and fell to a lower section of roadway.

One person was killed: Joshua Baer, a leader in Texas’ technology and startup sectors. Three teenage passengers and two pilots survived, as did a person in a truck struck by the plane as it crashed. Authorities have not released more detail about the passengers' connections to one another.

Investigators combed through wreckage Wednesday for clues to the cause.

It was the third significant aviation accident in as many days in the U.S. A B-52 crashed Monday during a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California and killed all eight people aboard, while on Sunday, 12 people were killed when a plane on a skydiving outing in Missouri crashed.

‘It looked like part of a movie’

Among the motorists who stopped in Laredo was Zayra Garza, an esthetician who was driving her co-workers home when she saw the wreckage. She recorded video as her husband ran to help.

“It looked like part of a movie. I was in shock,” Garza said. Most worrisome was the fire: “I was concerned that it could have just exploded at any time.”

Garza saw people leave their cars to try to smash the cockpit glass. Her video shows the aircraft's door popping open slightly from inside as a voice cries “Help! Help! Help!” The rescuers strain to lift the door farther open as the three teenagers dart out, followed quickly by one pilot and then by another.

Franco, a 23-year-old from Laredo, frantically swung the sledgehammer through heavy smoke. Others struck at the window with a shovel and tools from their own vehicles.

Cockpit windows are designed not to shatter

They accomplished little more than spiderwebbing the cockpit window with small cracks: Airplane windshields have multiple layers of glass and are designed to remain structurally sound even if the outer layer shatters. The windows must be able to withstand a bird strike at cruising speed and hold up to extreme pressure differences at high altitudes.

“They are basically bulletproof,” said retired airline pilot John Cox, who is CEO of Safety Operating Systems.

Police officers tried to remove the final person inside — Baer — as the smoke grew thicker. Officers doubled over coughing after turning away from the smoke.

Eventually firefighters with oxygen masks were able to get inside.

Firefighters also removed a dog from the plane that was suffering from smoke inhalation. The dog was turned over to animal control and was expected to survive, said Jose Baeza, an investigator with the Laredo Police Department.

Five officers were treated for smoke inhalation; the five people who survived the crash were also released from a hospital.

As the plane crashed on the northbound lanes of the highway, its wing hit a truck traveling southbound. The driver of that vehicle also survived, Baeza said.

There has been an outpouring of support on social media for those who stopped to help, heralding their bravery and selflessness.

Laredo Mayor Victor Treviño called it “nothing short of a miracle that this tragedy did not become a mass fatality event,” thanks in part to the late hour when the crash occurred and the quick action of first responders.

Franco said that as he tried to help, all he could think of was getting people out of the plane. But to do it, he had to conquer another feeling.

“You’re in constant fear," he said. "You don’t know what situation you’re in.”

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Johnson and Golden reported from Seattle. Taxin reported from Santa Ana, California. AP journalists Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska; Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed.

Some experts have warned that this summer's World Cup — co-hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada — could be the hottest in the tournament's history. In response to concerns about extreme heat, FIFA implemented three-minute hydration breaks midway through each half regardless of temperatures or whether stadiums are enclosed or air conditioned. But some critics say they're interrupting the game's flow and give coaches a chance to shift momentum in their team’s favor, while some scientists have said the breaks are too short to make a significant impact on cooling and rehydration when conditions are sizzling.

“When we look at the three-minute hydration breaks, we're really looking at this as a way to mitigate anything that could potentially lead to an incident or an emergency,” said Joshua L. DeVincenzo with Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness.

FIFA's mandatory breaks, regardless of temperatures

FIFA said the mandatory breaks are to “ensure equal conditions for all teams, in all matches,” and the rules draw upon the experiences of past tournaments, including the FIFA Club World Cup in the U.S. last summer when temperatures soared.

Some coaches said the breaks make sense when temperatures are extreme, but they questioned whether they were necessary at every match. The pauses have also been criticized for interrupting the spectacle for fans, with broadcasters cutting to commercials.

Mexico coach Javier Aguirre said they're making the most of the hydration breaks.

“You can’t get on the field but the players can come near you while drinking water and we can give them instructions,” he said. “We take advantage to try to correct something during the game, it’s something good for the coaches.”

Even highly-trained, elite athletes can get heat stress

Athletes pushing themselves physically in hot and humid conditions risk getting what's called exertional heat illness. It happens when the body gets too hot and is accompanied by significant strain on the heart, nerves, muscles and central nervous systems.

Symptoms include muscle cramps, extreme fatigue, impaired performance, headache, irritability, nausea, dizziness, cramping and dehydration.

When internal body temperature exceeds 105 F (40.5 C), athletes might feel confused, aggressive or lose consciousness, said Yuri Hosokawa with the Faculty of Sport Sciences in Japan’s Waseda University, in an email, “all of which are characteristic signs of exertional heat stroke and require immediate medical attention.” She co-signed a letter to FIFA in May urging stricter heat guidelines for player safety, including that cooling breaks be at least six minutes.

Exertional heat stroke is among the leading causes of death in athletes.

Dehydration also exacerbates the risk. Athletes in the heat can sweat 1 to 2 liters (50 to 67 ounces) an hour, and most drink less liquids than they expel. Losing as little as 2% of one's body weight to dehydration can impair physical performance.

Ryan Calsbeek, professor of biological sciences at Dartmouth College, said the human body performs better when it’s warmer, but there’s a critical threshold above which that improvement in performance not only stops, but precipitously drops off.

“Your body starts to really fall apart, you lose the ability to cool off fast enough,” he said. “And the physiological mechanisms just break down.” That happens when the wet bulb globe temperature, which includes temperature, humidity, cloud cover and wind, reads above about 95 F (35 C), though some people will be more heat tolerant.

The increased confusion from extreme heat could impact an athlete’s ability to make strategic decisions, he said.

“It’s these marginal differences in performance that I think can determine the outcome of a match,” Calsbeek said. “If you have individuals that do better in extreme conditions, whether it’s extreme heat or high altitude or whatever the case may be, those small differences could play a critical, pivotal role in determining the outcome.”

Hydration breaks should be longer, some experts say

The three-minute mandatory hydration breaks are meant to protect players, and referees, from extreme heat illness and help them maintain their physical performance.

Players can cool off and replenish lost water and salt from sweating.

That could mean putting wet, cold towels on parts of a player's body. If done well, that could reduce their body temperature by about 0.22 F (0.12 C) per minute, said Douglas Casa, CEO of the University of Connecticut’s Korey Stringer Institute who also co-signed the letter.

“Some people can tolerate a little more fluids comfortably and then do intense exercise. Some people can’t because it sloshes around in their stomach and they don’t feel super comfortable, so they might not drink as much in such a short period of time,” he added.

In a 2024 study, researchers found that three minutes lowered athletes' core temperature by about 0.72 F (0.4 C) during simulated soccer running in a heat chamber. But this happened in ideal conditions where they drank 350 to 400 milliliters of cold water and draped a cold towel on their shoulders.

Draping ice towels over a player's shoulders can be helpful, but only if they rehydrate as well, said Julien Périard in an email, a study co-author and director of the University of Canberra Research Institute for Sport and Exercise who also signed the letter.

That’s why it’s important the three minutes be well planned, but “even in ideal settings, the breaks can slightly help but will not eliminate the risk of heat illness in response to a rise in core temperature,” he said.

Casa said time dictates the volume of impact, whether from fluid or cooling.

How much time a player needs to recover also varies. “Depending on your body, you might need more or less time. But those kinds of breaks are crucial so that your body isn’t just being forced to keep trying to play catch up... to keep trying to cool you down without any kind of rest or a break,” said Bharat Venkat, director of the Heat Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles.

As our planet gets hotter, mandating hydration breaks and changing where, when and how sports are played will be necessary.

“No matter what sport you play, there’s going to be adjustments that have to be made in the face of climate change, ” he said.

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Tales Azzoni contributed from Guadalajara, Mexico.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

In a media briefing, Richard Meade, editor in chief of Lloyd’s List, said for the first time in 110 days, ships owned by major companies were crossing the strait after effectively being marooned there since February.

The strait is a critical passageway for the world’s oil and natural gas. Before the war, the waterway off Iran's coast carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil. Its closure during the war has created a historic energy crisis.

Lloyd’s List did not say how many ships were transiting through or had passed through the strait as of Thursday. It said tankers controlled by major ship owners Grimaldi Group, Cosco, Knutsen and NYK had passed through the strait. Two Iran-flagged, National Iranian Tanker Company-owned, sanctioned crude oil tankers entered the strait, according to Lloyd’s List.

Meanwhile, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the U.S. Navy lifted its blockade of the strait to allow some ships through Iranian ports.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani wrote on X that an Italian merchant ship owned by the Grimaldi Group was among the first vessels to transit the strait after the agreement’s signing.

Maritime data and tracking company Kpler said it observed six verified ship crossings on Wednesday and another 11 on Thursday.

Phillip Belcher, marine director of Intertanko, a trade group for global independent tanker owners, said the main central route of the Strait of Hormuz was still closed and has an estimated 80 mines that need to be cleared. But ships have been passing through the smaller northern route, which goes through Iranian waters, and the southern route, which goes through Omani waters.

“Those two routes now seem to be fully open,” Belcher said.

However, it will take weeks or months to fully reopen the strait, and the two alternative routes don't have as much capacity as the central passage in the Strait of Hormuz.

“This is like a highway where the road in the middle is closed and you’re using that hard shoulder,” Belcher said. “That’s now being used as the main route. We need to get back to having the highway open.”

Lloyd’s List estimated that 550 merchant ships will need to prepare to exit the Persian Gulf, including 160 tankers, 200 bulk carriers, 60 container ships and 10 vehicle carriers.

The review was yet another surprise for European allies and Canada as they learn to deal with an increasingly unpredictable ally. U.S. officials and senior military officers had promised to coordinate closely with the Europeans as America draws down.

In recent months, U.S. President Donald Trump and the Pentagon have sent conflicting signals about whether America is reducing or increasing its military footprint in Europe, as well as threatening to annex Greenland, a semiautonomous island that is part of ally Denmark. Just weeks ago, the Trump administration said that it would no longer provide as much military support should any NATO member come under attack.

“This will be a real review. It will be designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe,” Hegseth told his NATO counterparts. “It’s a review that some countries will fail and others will pass with flying colors.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz later said the allies have long been aware of U.S. plans to pull troops from Europe at some point and that they must take care of their own security.

“We know that we must do more and we are doing it,” Merz said.

Public dressing down over bases, gender and migration

In a fiery speech at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Hegseth lambasted European allies for failing to provide U.S. forces access to bases in Europe to launch attacks on Iran, calling it “shameful.”

“These allies, they put America’s sons and daughters, our sons and daughters, at risk by denying them the predictable access, basing and overflight that never should have been in question at all,” he said. The review would also assess whether the U.S. has full access and overflight “when we need it.”

While defense ministers and military officers sat in silence, Hegseth railed against migration and gender equality policies in Europe, in remarks reminiscent to those of Vice President JD Vance in February last year that angered many Europeans.

“Instead of tanks and fighters and air defenses, the focus has been on gender equity and climate change and defense austerity. Europe’s borders flew wide open, welfare states expanded, defense budgets cratered, along with Europe’s belief in itself and its civilization,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth's comments largely mischaracterized European policies today. On defense, European allies and Canada have launched an unprecedented effort to boost defense spending and expand their armed forces. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte noted on Thursday that they spent $90 billion more on defense last year, a 20% increase over 2024. And while Europe accepted large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers more than a decade ago, most countries have tightened their borders since.

It does not augur well for a summit of NATO leaders in Turkey on July 7-8.

A rare and short visit to NATO

It was a rare visit to NATO by Hegseth, his first this year after skipping a meeting in February. The Pentagon chief did not stay long, leaving well before the gathering was over and hours before Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to press allies for more weapons for his country.

Speaking to reporters at Brussels airport before flying home, Hegseth said, “It was great to hear country after country say, ‘We’re going to meet our target. We’re going to meet our target.’ There are still a few outliers, and we will be clear with them as we do this review.”

NATO’s supreme allied commander, an American, is working on backup plans to defend Europe after the U.S. signaled on June 3 that it would no longer supply an aircraft carrier and support ships, aerial refueling planes and dozens of fighter jets, among other military assets, in a crisis.

The Trump administration insists that it needs to be able to plan for two simultaneous conflicts and wants more military resources at hand should it clash with China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Under NATO’s collective security guarantee – Article 5 of its founding treaty – the 32 allies pledge that an attack on one of them will be considered an attack on all. It does not oblige them to provide military support, although many likely would.

In essence, the United States is scaling back how it might help should an ally trigger Article 5.

US nuclear weapons will stay

The U.S. has by far NATO’s biggest armed forces. It does not intend to withdraw its nuclear weapons in Europe, which are key to NATO’s deterrence. To underscore that point, NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group issued its first statement in 19 years after Thursday’s meeting.

In the statement, it “recalled that the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance remain the supreme guarantee of Allied security and underpin NATO’s extended deterrence architecture.”

The ministers “agreed to continue enhancing NATO’s nuclear deterrence mission by modernizing NATO’s nuclear capabilities, strengthening its nuclear planning capacity, and adapting to achieve its security interests.”

Rutte played down the impact of the U.S. decision, saying that the NATO Force Model – the system for organizing what forces member countries will provide commanders in times of peace, crisis or conflict – is just “a planning tool,” and not a reflection of what would actually happen.

“If war breaks out, we will all max out what we need to do to make sure we can fight the war,” Rutte told reporters. “In the planning phase, it is important to know what we can count on. What is in theory there.”

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Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.

He’s intent on becoming the best. He already may be there.

The 24-year-old is hitting unprecedented velocities for a starter in MLB's pitch-tracking era that began in 2008. Over the last month, he's dominated unlike any pitcher in the last century.

Misiorowski has allowed just one run over his last eight starts heading into his Friday matchup with the Atlanta Braves. He says he can’t come up with a specific moment or decision that sparked this surge.

“It’s more that it finally clicked,” said Misiorowski, who is 8-2 with a 1.34 ERA and 131 strikeouts to lead the majors in the latter two categories. “Everything started settling in and feeling good.”

The fact Misiorowski used the word “finally” to describe an emergence in his first full major league season underscores his exacting standards.

Misiorowski's rise has Brewers manager Pat Murphy comparing him to Forrest Gump, which prompted a social media post by the pitcher his own face over the Tom Hanks movie character’s body.

“It’s for sure meant to be a compliment for a guy who didn’t put in limits on himself and his naiveté,” Murphy said. “It was a factor in a positive way, where he went out and achieved whatever he set his mind to, and didn’t let the outside forces, weren’t even aware of the outside forces, and didn’t let anything hold him back.”

Misiorowski was selected to the All-Star Game last season after only five starts. He struggled late last year before producing a 1.50 postseason ERA during Milwaukee’s run to the NL Championship Series. Now he’s a Cy Young Award favorite.

Misiorowski is more than just a hard thrower

The eye-popping numbers most associated with Misiorowski come from the radar gun. He reached 104.5 mph — the fastest velocity by any starter in the pitch tracking era — and got to 100 mph on a record 58 pitches during the Brewers’ 6-0 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday.

He's thrown 460 pitches at least 100 mph this season, already surpassing the record for a starter set by Cincinnati's Hunter Greene with 337 such pitches in 2022.

But his most impressive statistics have more to do with results than velocity.

According to MLB.com, Misiorowski’s 0.17 ERA since May 1 is the best in an eight-start stretch for any pitcher since earned runs became an official statistic in 1913. Against Philadelphia, he became the third pitcher since 1900 to throw a shutout while striking out 15 and allowing no more than one baserunner.

Opponents are batting just .140 against Misiorowski this season. SportRadar says no starting pitcher has allowed an opponent batting average of .166 or below over a full non-pandemic season since at least 1910. Boston’s Pedro Martinez had batters hitting .167 against him in 2000. Opponents hit .168 against Cleveland’s Luis Tiant in 1968.

Misiorowski’s development into a complete pitcher should come as no surprise, considering who he grew up watching.

The pitchers Miz admires most aren't necessarily smoke throwers

The list of pitchers he admired growing up includes Adam Wainwright, Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale. While Sale is a hard thrower and Kershaw also had outstanding velocity early in his career, Wainwright and Greinke succeeded without overpowering fastballs.

They had one thing in common.

“Every game, you felt like they could trust them to get a win,” Misiorowski said. “That was the big thing. You looked at those guys and they were going out there and going to perform for seven or eight innings to secure the team a win.”

His appreciation for baseball history includes a baseball card collection he says numbers in the thousands, though he probably owns even more Pokemon cards.

“Since I was a kid, my dad got me into it,” Misiorowski said of his baseball card collection. “It’s huge right now. I think I need to downsize it a little bit, but it’s fun.”

His enthusiasm shows on the mound and in his work ethic. He devoted the offseason to upgrading his leg strength to withstand the rigors of a full season and results are showing in his improved endurance and command.

“He could rest on his laurels. ‘Hey, I was an All-Star in my first year. I pitched in the playoffs. I pitched well. I can do it. I’m fine. I’ll be all right,’“ Murphy said. “Or you can say, ‘I’m going home. I’m going to get stronger. I’m going to do whatever I can do to come back and dominate.’ That’s what he’s done.”

He's stabilizing an injury-riddled rotation

Misiorowski’s growth has helped the Brewers overcome numerous pitching injuries to build a comfortable NL Central lead. With Misiorowski and Kyle Harrison (8-1, 2.47) leading the rotation, the Brewers rank fourth in the majors in ERA.

Over his last eight starts, Misiorowski has struck out 80 while allowing nine walks and 14 hits over 54 1/3 innings. The only extra-base hit he’s allowed over his last nine starts was a double by Houston’s Isaac Paredes on May 31.

The low walk totals are notable after Misiorowski battled control issues as a rookie. He walked 31 batters in 66 innings last year, but now constantly gets ahead of hitters.

“He’s winning the 0-0 and the 1-1 (counts) a lot,” pitching coach Chris Hook said. “When he doesn’t, it stands out to be like, ‘Oh, God, he didn’t win the 0-0. He didn’t win the 1-1.’ Like that’s weird, for him to go to a two-ball count.”

Once hitters fall behind in the count, they have little chance.

After facing him for the first time last month, New York Yankees slugger and three-time MVP Aaron Judge noted that “he’s almost basically releasing it in the catcher’s glove” due to the extension Misiorowski gets with his 6-foot-7 frame.

MLB Network analyst and two-time All-Star pitcher Ryan Dempster says Misiorowski reminds him of 6-10 Hall of Fame lefty Randy Johnson in that regard because their hands seem right in front of the plate to the batter when they let go of the ball.

“You can tell yourself to swing, but your brain doesn’t quite compute until it’s out of the hand,” Dempster said. “By the time it’s out of his hand, it’s already on you. I haven’t seen a fastball like this since Kerry Wood.”

Wood’s career was derailed by injuries, leading to worries of hard throwers being susceptible to blowing out pitching arms. Dempster notes Misiorowski is playing in an era with lower pitch counts. Misiorowski also produces elite velocity without overthrowing.

“He sure is repeating his delivery, and when you repeat your delivery, you tend to stay healthy,” Dempster said. “Guys who don’t repeat deliveries and get out of whack and something’s a little off, they struggle with that. I really think he will stay healthy, just me personally.”

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AP freelance writers Jack Albright and Rich Rovito contributed to this report.

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

The league launched an investigation at the request of the NHL Players’ Association in light of the Edmonton Oilers’ interest in hiring Babcock. The league in a statement said even in the least favorable light, there was no basis to restrict Babcock’s employment.

It was not immediately clear if or when the Oilers would name Babcock coach. They have been looking for a replacement since firing Kris Knoblauch following a first-round playoff exit that came after back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Final.

Babcock, 63, has not coached in the NHL since 2019, when he was fired by Toronto 23 games into his fifth season in charge. The Blue Jackets hired him on July 1, 2023, and Babcock resigned in September after his requests for personal photos from players in an attempt to get to know them drew criticism as an invasion of privacy.

A statement from the NHLPA called the allegations very concerning and said, "Moving forward, we expect that Mr. Babcock will uphold the high standards required of NHL head coaches.”

The NHL dropped its planned investigation at the time because Babcock stepped down. It got underway this week after the final ended

Babcock coached Detroit to the Stanley Cup in 2008 and has made two other trips to the final, along with guiding Canada to Olympic gold medals in 2010 and ’14.

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

The 1,200-year-old Major Oak in Sherwood Forest is believed to have died after it didn’t sprout leaves this spring, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said Thursday.

Visitors over the past two centuries who viewed the tree's gnarled limbs and sprawling canopy in Nottingham compressed the soil, making it difficult for rain to reach its roots, the conservation group said.

The forest has been under threat for years and the tree had been rumored to have died in the past — only to have the group confirm it was still alive.

That is no longer the case.

“The tree’s failure to produce leaves this year is heartbreaking for everyone,” Hollie Drake of the RSPB said in a statement announcing the death.

The tree is said to have sheltered Robin Hood, the legendary 13th-century bandit who stole from the rich and gave to the poor and took refuge in the forest when being pursued by the sheriff of Nottingham.

It got its name after being mentioned in a book on oaks by Major Hayman Rooke in 1790 that led to the first wave of fans who flocked to the forest.

It's impossible to say what killed the tree, but the footprints of millions contributed to its downfall, along with intervention to shore up its massive limbs using cables and poles. Climate change that has brought heat waves and drought was also blamed.

Tree experts found the root system strangled and starved.

“Ancient trees like the Major Oak are the ‘conservation white rhinos of the U.K.’ but their decline is far less visible,” said Ed Pyne, of the Woodland Trust. “Saving them is vital to the health of the world we live in and yet most disappear quietly, without the recognition or care given to the Major Oak.”

In addition to its place in folklore, the forest is known for Sherwood oaks that floated the ships of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson’s Royal Navy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and as timbers in the roof of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The Major Oak was spared from the saw and has been protected by a fence since the 1970s.

“The Major Oak will continue to stand at the heart of Sherwood as a natural monument for visitors to come and see, living on in the legend of Robin Hood and continuing to provide as much support to the forest’s ecosystem in death as in life,” Drake said.

Although the official certification of the primary race is continuing, McDuffie said in a statement that “it is clear that the voters have chosen a different path.” The former member of the D.C. council said he had contacted Lewis George and congratulated her. He thanked his supporters and urged them to continue working for the city.

"The campaign may be over, but the work of building a safer, more affordable, more prosperous city continues.”

The Associated Press has not declared a winner in the race. Lewis George had a little less than 53% of the vote Thursday morning, which is just a few percentage points above the 50% threshold to avoid ranked choice voting.

The city is scheduled to release preliminary ranked choice voting results on Sunday. AP will call the race before then if it is clear that the ranked choice process will be avoided.

Lewis George has pledged to aggressively stand up to federal intervention into Washington, D.C.’s, affairs, setting up a potential showdown with President Donald Trump over his administration's moves to challenge the city’s limited autonomy.

If the results stand, Lewis George is likely to win November’s general election in the heavily Democratic city. The winner in the general election will replace Muriel Bowser, who decided not to run again after three terms.

Lewis George would join Robert White Jr., who won the Democratic primary for the district’s delegate to Congress, as the top local officials who likely will contend with the federal government’s intentions for the city. They each campaigned on a promise to take a harder line than their predecessors against the Trump administration’s moves on the district, including its deployment of the National Guard on an ongoing, open-ended mission meant to fight crime.

“As mayor, I will work with anyone who makes D.C. safer,” Lewis George told a crowd of cheering supporters Tuesday night, “but I will also stand up to Trump.”

Washington has limited autonomy and federal leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C. Council.

Trump further encroached on that autonomy last year when he briefly federalized the city’s police force and deployed an ongoing law enforcement surge that included the National Guard. His efforts to downsize the federal government also roiled the capital region, costing thousands of people their jobs. And he has been reshaping the city by renovating storied landmarks and putting his name or image on buildings.

Lewis George, a self-described democratic socialist and a member of the D.C. Council, has already come under fire from Trump, who last week threatened to place the city under federal control if she won.

“Maybe we’d take back Washington, run it on the federal basis,” he said.

Lewis George, 38, and a third generation Washingtonian, has vowed to overrule an executive order by the city’s police chief permitting local law enforcement to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Lewis George argued the order “hurt the trust of our community.”

She also pledged to use any levers available to her through the city’s home rule compact to resist what she called authoritarian infringements on the district’s local governance.

“We have legal tools we can use to fight back,” she told the AP in an interview before the vote. “And we know that when we have gone to court, we’ve won.”

Bowser found herself walking a fine line between staying in Trump’s good graces and responding to the concerns of constituents, many of whom said she didn’t push back hard enough on Trump’s actions. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the 18-term, 89-year-old delegate to Congress, meanwhile, faced mounting concern from critics who said she wasn’t forcefully pushing back on the Trump administration’s moves against the city.

But that wasn't the only memorable moment Macron had this week at a G7 summit where the experience and networks he has built over nearly 10 years as president bore fruit.

Perhaps the most remarkable feat was getting Trump to more forcefully back Ukraine in its war with Russia — a win for European leaders and for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following his diplomatic disaster at the White House in March 2025.

“Bravo,” Macron said after Trump signed the Iran war agreement. The signing came as a surprise to most of the officials and other guests at the Versailles Palace dinner, and they responded with a round of applause.

Macron had said the dinner was intended as a celebration of French-American friendship. The unannounced signing ceremony transformed it into a symbolic finale to Macron’s weeklong effort to get Trump more aligned with Europe — perhaps his last big achievements before the end of his term next spring.

Macron used Versailles as an ‘instrument of influence’

Macron had presented Versailles as an “instrument of influence” and suggested the invitation could help keep Trump engaged through the end of the G7 summit held in Evian. Trump left last year’s gathering in Canada before it had concluded.

The Palace of Versailles, which Trump praised as “not gold leaf,” has been a venue for French leaders to honor visiting guests for more than three centuries.

After the signing, Macron praised the Iran agreement as one that “allows for putting an end to the conflict, that allows peace, that allows the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz" and will likely result in lower oil prices.

Macron, who was not involved in the Iran war negotiations, cannot claim success for Trump deciding to sign the deal. But he secured the historic location, helping to put Europe back into the frame of a war that the U.S. and Israel jointly launched without consulting Western allies.

French Economy Minister Roland Lescure, who attended the dinner, described the signing as largely improvised.

Trump said in his remarks that he was going to sign the agreement, Lescure said. Asked whether Macron knew in advance, Lescure said he believed Trump had informed the French president shortly beforehand.

“But for us, ministers in the French government, it was a surprise,” he told French radio RTL.

Trump received backing from European leaders

Trump arrived in France facing pressure at home over Iran, including criticism from some allies about his handling of the conflict and the emerging agreement. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies and a longtime Iran hawk, had expressed skepticism.

As negotiations with Iran advanced, Trump sought backing from leaders at the G7 meeting, according to a European diplomat briefed on the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The G7 includes the U.S., France, the U.K., Italy, Germany, Canada and Japan.

“We certainly gave him some reassurance on the Middle East,” the European diplomat said. “And President Trump, for his part, delivered for us on Ukraine.”

The G7 statement on geopolitical issues referred to a “breakthrough” in the Middle East and mentioned Trump by name three times, praising what it called his “strong leadership.”

Trump has had friction with Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni over failing to consult them before the decision to go to war. He has pushed back on the four members of NATO for their lack of support for the U.S. in the conflict.

Macron, whose bumpy relations with Trump started with an awkwardly long handshake nearly a decade ago, prepared for the G7 summit for months via frequent phone calls focusing on both Iran and Ukraine.

Trump met on the sidelines of the summit with Zelenskyy, who showed Trump photos of the damage caused by Russian bombing of the Dormition Cathedral in Kyiv.

Americans and Europeans align views to support Ukraine

Macron has at times expressed caution about Trump’s shifting positions, particularly regarding Russia and President Vladimir Putin. But European officials argued that this week’s written commitments represented a more durable position because the language had been approved by Trump himself.

“America is with us on Ukraine. That is very important,” Macron said after Trump joined a three-way phone call with Zelenskyy from Versailles.

G7 leaders agreed in a joint statement to increase deliveries of air-defense systems and long-range weapons for Ukraine. They also pledged to increase pressure on Russia through stronger sanctions, including measures targeting the country’s oil and gas sectors.

Macron also used the summit to raise Lebanon’s future with Trump. France has longstanding historical ties to Lebanon and has sought to keep support for Lebanese sovereignty high on the international agenda. During discussions in Evian, Trump repeatedly expressed sympathy for Lebanon while criticizing Israel and describing tensions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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AP reporters Angela Charlton and Thomas Adamson in Paris contributed to the story

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russian oil facilities, aiming to cut Moscow’s revenue for the war and make Russians feel the consequences of the invasion. Some areas have reported fuel shortages.

The attack by dozens of drones came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had held “an important coordination call” with the presidents of the United States and France and had won key pledges of further support from this week's G7 summit.

“If Ukraine is going to burn, your Moscow will burn too," Zelenskyy said, adding that the attack was part of Kyiv's effort to bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table. "It is time to end the aggression, time to end this war.”

Ukrainian attack embarrasses Putin again

The Moscow attack was the latest embarrassment for Putin. Ukrainian drones attacked his hometown of St. Petersburg earlier this month as he welcomed foreign VIPs to his showcase economic forum in the city.

Putin on Thursday was in Kazan, some 700 kilometers (430 miles) east of Moscow, hosting leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as Russia seeks to bolster business and other ties with the regional bloc.

Russia’s state-controlled TV channels only briefly mentioned the attack on Moscow. Pro-Kremlin newspapers reported it, with some praising the performance of air defenses while noting that the strike highlighted the need to further strengthen the defensive shield around the capital.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of Russia’s parliament, warned that Moscow would respond by ramping up its strikes.

“Their action will lead to our counteraction and launching harsher blows, with more powerful weapons,” Volodin said in televised remarks.

Some Russian hawks urged the Kremlin to respond with nuclear weapons. Nationalist Konstantin Malofeyev criticized the military for “fighting at half-strength in a gentlemanlike way.”

“War means victory at any cost,” Malofeyev wrote on his Telegram channel, suggesting the use of “the nuclear weapons that our ancestors created and stockpiled while mobilizing the entire country’s strength precisely for this purpose -– to win."

Fires rage at Moscow refinery

Thick, black smoke and occasional flames spewed from the Moscow Oil Refinery amid its red-and-white smokestacks on the southeastern edge of the city, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the Kremlin. Sooty, black rain fell on cars, according to local video.

“One of the most popular questions asked by Muscovites this morning is ‘What is going on?’" Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X. "I can answer. Your country started a war of aggression against ours. For years, it has been killing our people. Now that you know what’s going on, ask Putin when he is planning to end it.”

The refinery is one of Russia’s biggest, according to its website, producing more than a third of the Moscow region's fuel. It was last attacked by Ukraine on Tuesday, but officials said that fire was swiftly put out.

Thursday's fire at the refinery was “largely contained,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said hours afterward, adding that remaining hotspots were being extinguished.

As Ukraine pressed its strikes on Russia's energy infrastructure, fuel supplies appeared to be under strain. Gas station chains in multiple regions have introduced restrictions on what drivers could buy. Russian independent news outlet Agentstvo reported that one out of every four gas stations has introduced some kind of restrictions.

Authorities in the capital said in a statement hours after the attack that “supplies of oil products to Moscow and the work of all gas stations in the city continue as normal.”

The attack also temporarily halted flights from four Moscow airports, transport and aviation authorities said. The Russian business daily Kommersant counted more than 500 delayed or canceled flights at the airports, based on their online flight information.

In the greater Moscow region, a drone hit a residential building in the town of Zhukovsky, according to Gov. Andrei Vorobyov. Buildings elsewhere were damaged by drone debris, injuring 17 people, including two children, he added.

Ukraine seeks more help from NATO, EU

“Russia is on the back foot: militarily, economically and politically,” ‪EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas‬ said on X after meeting Thursday with Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. “Now is the time to provide Ukraine with even greater support and to exert even more pressure on Russia to end the war.”

Zelenskyy held talks Thursday in Brussels with NATO and European Union leaders, and the German and Ukrainian defense ministers signed an agreement to jointly develop an air defense system to counter ballistic missiles. Zelenskyy described it as the start of an “anti-ballistic missile coalition” and invited others to join.

Russia has relentlessly struck Ukraine with those types of missiles, which air defenses struggle to counter.

Russia says it downed over 500 Ukrainian drones

The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight shot down 555 Ukrainian drones over multiple regions, with almost 200 intercepted as they approached Moscow. That was roughly double the number of drones that Russia launched at Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force.

“If Putin does not want to end this war and wants to continue it, we will not sit quietly — we will respond,” Zelenskyy said in a voice message to a group chat with journalists.

He has accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump, but Putin has refused, and U.S.-led peace efforts have fizzled.

Ukraine disrupts Russian supply lines

Along with pledges of more diplomatic and military help at the G7 summit, Ukraine recently has gained momentum on the battlefield against Russia’s bigger army, thanks to its high-tech drones, Western officials and analysts say. Longer-range drones are choking Russian supply lines in occupied regions of Ukraine, in addition to disrupting oil production.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the G7 summit was “very important for Ukraine” because its supporters — crucially including the U.S. — vowed to help it, although he provided no details. The U.S. under Trump has cut back assistance to Ukraine, leaving the Europeans as the biggest suppliers of military and financial aid. Trump and Zelenskyy have had a sometimes strained relationship.

“America is with us on Ukraine, that is very important,” Macron said as he and Trump left the Palace of Versailles near Paris.

In other developments Thursday, Russia struck the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine with two glide bombs that killed a 64-year-old man who was fishing in a river, said Oleh Hryhorov, head of the regional military administration. A Russian strike on the central city of Dnipro killed one man and wounded nine, said Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration.

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

The City of Roanoke’s Parks and Recreation Department says the change is part of ongoing efforts to make the pool experience safer and more enjoyable for everyone.

To help guests adjust to the new policy, staff will be handing out 300 free clear bags at both pool locations while supplies last. Once those are gone, clear bags will be available for purchase on-site for $5 each. Poolgoers are encouraged to bring their own clear bags if possible, which should help speed up the entry process.

“The policy is designed to improve safety, reduce bag check wait times at entry points and create a more welcoming environment for pool visitors and staff,” the City of Roanoke said in a press release.

For more details about the new clear bag policy and other pool guidelines, you can visit playroanoke.com/pool-safety-guidelines

The news emerged as Ukraine launched one of its biggest drone attacks since Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor more than four years ago, Russian officials said Thursday. A major oil refinery was hit for a second time in a week and commercial flights at Moscow airports were disrupted.

Against the backdrop of conflict, and despite reservations among some European leaders, the EU has been quietly seeking to reopen communications with Moscow even as it doubles down on its support for Kyiv. President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, has tried to cut out Europe and Kyiv and negotiate Ukraine’s future with Washington.

“⁠In the past few weeks, brief contacts were made at diplomatic level to open communication channels, but nothing was discussed on substance,” an EU official with knowledge of the approach said on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive move. A second official, also speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media on the matter, confirmed the Russia outreach is taking place but declined to comment further.

“In any future scenario, the EU has specific interests that will need to be defended, therefore it is important to have established diplomatic channels with Russia. The EU is not a mediator. It supports Ukraine in its efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace,” the first official added.

The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Putin has repeatedly said Europe cannot play any kind of mediation role in settling the conflict but has not ruled out speaking to the EU.

“We have never refused contacts with representatives of the European Union in any format,” he said earlier this month. “We are not rejecting contacts. If they want to talk, they know how to reach us. They can pick up the phone and call. If they want to come, they are welcome to do so. It is not Russia that is refusing engagement.”

The officials said European Council President Antonio Costa “has been coordinating closely with European leaders on possible engagement with Russia and the issues to be discussed when the right moment comes.”

News of the moves came as EU leaders met in Brussels for their summer summit, where Ukraine was high on the agenda. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was expected to address the 27 leaders, who are seeking closer ties with Kyiv.

Leaders of EU countries in the Baltics expressed skepticism about the initiative.

"There has to be someone on the other side willing for peace,'' Latvia’s new Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said. Otherwise, "there's no point for contact.''

Luxemburg's Prime Minister Luc Frieden said that if Europe wants a voice in Ukraine's future, "at some point in time, yes, we need to sit at the table.”

The EU leaders overwhelmingly urged support for Ukraine as they arrived for the summit. On Monday, Ukraine officially opened negotiations to join the EU, launching a process that will require its government to commit to years of political reforms even as it fights the Russian invasion.

The EU outreach to Russia also closely follows this week's meeting of the world's seven leading industrialized nations in the French spa town of Evian-Les-Bains, where Europeans managed to get Trump to join G7 leaders in offering “unwavering support for Ukraine.”

Zelenskyy said his country won key pledges of further support from world leaders attending the G7 summit in France, including the United States.

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Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands.

A military judge at Fort Stewart handed down his verdict in the court-martial of Sgt. Quornelius Radford, local news outlets reported. Army prosecutors accused Radford of targeting leaders of his supply unit when he opened fire with a personal handgun last August.

Radford, 29, wounded four fellow soldiers and his then-fiancé, Raekwon Smith, who testified during the two-day trial that he had followed Radford onto Fort Stewart fearing the soldier was suicidal. Smith said Radford shot him in the torso before entering his unit's office building and shooting others.

Radford admitted to carrying out the shootings in March when he pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated assault and domestic violence. But he insisted he never intended to kill anyone, and Army prosecutors pressed ahead with trying Radford on charges of attempted murder.

Trial witnesses described how Radford walked to two offices and a conference room as he shot four soldiers, but he told others he encountered to leave, WSAV-TV reported. He was apprehended by military police after being restrained and disarmed by fellow soldiers.

A radiologist who examined X-rays of the soldiers' injuries testified one was shot in the face and another in the chest, while bullets stuck other victims in the back and abdomen. Dr. Morgan Williamson said any of those wounds could have been fatal, WTOC-TV reported.

Prosecutors argued that Radford knew from his military firearms training never to shoot at anyone unless he meant to kill them.

Defense attorneys said Radford was suicidal and opened fire to provoke a showdown with police, hoping they would kill him.

“Radford only wanted one person to die that day, himself,” said Lt. Col. Dylan Mack, one of Radford's Army lawyers.

Radford opted for his trial to be decided by a military judge rather than a jury of soldiers. The judge scheduled a sentencing hearing for Monday. Under military law, attempted murder carries a potential penalty of life imprisonment.

The largest Army post east of the Mississippi River, Fort Stewart is home to thousands of soldiers assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division. It is located about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Savannah.

Radford served as a supply sergeant in the division’s 2nd Armored Brigade. Army records show he enlisted in 2018.

The benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate fell to 6.47% from 6.52% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the average rate was 6.81%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, also came down this week. That average rate fell to 5.81% from 5.84% last week. A year ago, it was at 5.96%, Freddie Mac said.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

With inflation still well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, officials at the U.S. central bank left the benchmark interest rate where it was on Wednesday. It was the first meeting with new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who replaced Jerome Powell after his eight-year run as the U.S. central bank’s leader.

A number of Fed policymakers said they are actually willing to consider at least one interest rate hike this year.

Rates have been mostly trending higher since the conflict between the U.S. and Iran began in late February, disrupting the flow of crude oil from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide. That’s sent oil prices sharply higher, helping drive up inflation, bond yields and mortgage rates.

However, earlier this week, the U.S. and Iran came to a tentative agreement to end the war and allow Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz and sell its oil freely.

That sent the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury note down from 4.53% last week to 4.44% Thursday. It was just 3.97% in late February, before the war broke out.

As recently as late February, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage had slipped just under 6% for the first time since late 2022. It’s hasn’t fallen below that threshold since. Two weeks ago, it climbed to 6.53%, its highest level since Aug. 28.

While average long-term mortgage rates remain lower than they were at this time last year, their mostly upward trajectory and uncertainty over how much higher they may go has kept many would-be homebuyers on the sideline.

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes declined in the first three months of the year compared to a year earlier, extending a nationwide housing slump that dates back to 2022 when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales were essentially flat in April, but accelerated in May to their fastest pace since December.

Still, sales of existing U.S. homes continue to hovering close to a 4-million annual pace, far short of the historic norm that is closer to 5.2-million.

Though mortgage applications fell according to the most recent Mortgage Bankers Association survey, they jumped 10.8% the week before.

Pending home sales also rose last month, an encouraging sign for the housing market heading into the second half of the year after a lackluster spring homebuying season.

The killing is the latest act which Polish authorities believe could be part of a campaign of Russian sabotage aimed at sowing fear and demoralizing Ukraine's closest allies. Poland, a NATO and European Union member, has in recent years become a place of refuge for political dissidents from Russia and Belarus, as well as Ukrainian war refugees.

“Early this morning, police apprehended a suspect in the murder of a Russian man — a murder that shocked all of Poland,” Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński told a news conference in Warsaw.

He said the suspect is a 36-year-old man who carried a passport belonging to the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia with links to organized crime and crimes committed in Poland dating to 2022. The arrest took place in a hostel housing foreigners in Piastów, near Warsaw, he said.

Robert Kuzovkov, a 44-year-old known by the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, was killed on Monday morning near his home in the eastern Polish city of Biala Podlaska, near the border with Belarus. Prosecutors said the perpetrator fired two shots at him, then shot him three more times at close range before fleeing.

Kuzovkov, who died of gunshot wounds to the head, chest and back, had painted unflattering caricatures of Putin, Kadyrov and other high-ranking Russian officials. One depicts Putin being cradled in the arms of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. He had refused offers of protection by Polish authorities.

Polish officials said Russia was under suspicion due to the profile of the victim and the way he was killed, though they stressed that they are still investigating.

“We are treating this case very, very seriously because, frankly, there is reason to suspect that there may have been people who commissioned this potential assassin,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in Brussels, where he arrived for a summit on Thursday.

“I do not need to convince anyone that this concern involves the possibility of state-sponsored terrorism. This would not be the first such case in Europe, as Europe has seen incidents of this kind before. However, in Poland it would be the first case of a politically motivated assassination carried out on behalf of a foreign state.”

Since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been accused of trying to assassinate its opponents abroad, including targeting exiled activists in France and Lithuania.

Officials in Germany have also broken up plots targeting the head of a German weapons supplier to Ukraine and a Ukrainian military official.

Polish authorities arrested a man in 2024 in what they said was a plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That same year, a Russian helicopter pilot who defected was killed in Spain, with Russian operatives as the prime suspects.

The event will begin at noon in the Building 5 Auditorium at the Salem VA Medical Center.

The History Walk/Roll and Ceremony aims to honor the men and women who have protected and strengthened the nation for two and a half centuries. The event will feature historical displays outlining the history of the United States and the key role veterans have played in serving the country. The celebration will conclude with a ceremony featuring patriotic music from the 29th Infantry Division Band, a presentation of colors, and remarks.

Additionally, Delta Dental’s Party in Elmwood, featuring Too Much Sylvia, has been postponed to a later date due to safety concerns. A new date has not yet been announced.

Supporters and opponents alike view the effort as a major litmus test for tapping the AI-powered software on a U.S. public transportation system, positioning Kansas City as the latest epicenter of a fierce debate over whether the safety benefits of artificial intelligence are worth the privacy costs.

“The idea of running face recognition on a camera that is pointed on live spaces in public is a line that until recently has never really been crossed in the last 25 years,” said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the Project on Speech, Privacy and Technology at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The state of Missouri declined to help fund the project as expected due to concerns with the facial recognition component. Still, the city is pushing ahead with local and federal money, said Tyler Means, chief mobility and strategy officer at the Kansas City Transportation Authority.

“Privacy is always a tricky thing,” Means said. “We’ve always had cameras on our buses. It’s just new technology. I think in time it’ll smooth over and people will realize, ‘Well, it didn’t really feel any different.’”

Cameras that recognize a face

SafeSpace Global, the Knoxville, Tennessee-based company partnering with Kansas City to run the cameras, started using live facial recognition years ago to alert nursing homes when residents left the building, then brought the technology to correctional institutions and schools. Kansas City’s buses represent the company’s inaugural venture in transportation.

Images captured by cameras aboard the buses would immediately be checked against any active alerts, generated when a missing person, banned rider or someone on a law enforcement watch list designated by the transportation authority is identified.

If no match or safety issue is detected, the facial data won't be retained. After the buses return to the depot, the transportation authority would archive the regular video footage on a local server for up to five years.

“It’s not sitting there filming all the time,” SafeSpace Global CEO Scott Boruff said. “It just captures the face and goes away.”

But Stanley with the ACLU warned that it's nearly impossible to limit the scope of a surveillance project when artificial intelligence is involved.

“It may be used for a very narrow watch list today, but there are very good reasons to think it’ll expand over time,” he said.

Backers of the effort point out that security cameras are already found nearly everywhere — even on Kansas City's buses — and some law enforcement agencies have used facial recognition software to identify suspects spotted on video.

Cameras with other types of AI-powered software have been installed on public buses and school buses in other cities to read the license plates of nearby vehicles and ticket the ones spotted committing infractions such as illegally parking in a bus lane. Privacy advocates are concerned about those devices as well, but they're particularly alarmed by cameras that could actively record faces even when no crime is committed.

“City residents should not be guinea pigs for transit systems to test Silicon Valley’s latest unproven, biased surveillance tech,” said Will Owen, communications director for the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.

Lessons from elsewhere

Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, police in Tampa, Florida, used facial recognition cameras in the Ybor City neighborhood to search for crime suspects, but there was immediate opposition and the program was soon abandoned, Stanley said.

More recently, New Orleans police secretly relied on facial recognition surveillance cameras run by a private company despite a city ordinance prohibiting the technology, The Washington Post reported last year. Although the program was believed to have been paused, Stanley wrote a report for the ACLU last month that found it was still operating in some capacity, citing emails an activist obtained through an open records request.

Detroit partnered with some gas stations and liquor stores in 2016 to install high-definition cameras that relayed live feeds of violent crimes directly to the police department. But after a New York Times investigation found footage was paired with facial recognition software to make arrests, some of the accused filed successful lawsuits claiming they were wrongly targeted due to faulty technology that misidentified Black suspects.

James Craig, the police chief at the time, said officials felt the backlash and changed the rules over how facial recognition could be used without scrapping the program entirely. But he still advocates for the technology, provided it’s used correctly, and says it would be a shame for cities to abandon one of their best tools for securing the streets.

“If the police department or the city doesn’t have the insights to build in strong policies, transparent policies and accountability, the knee jerk reaction is, ‘Well, let’s just ban it,’” Craig said.

KC delays rollout, eyes ‘bigger’ plan

The cameras were expected to be installed on Kansas City's buses this spring, but organizers halted the effort just before launch, derailing hopes that they would be up and running in time for the World Cup matches the city began hosting this week.

The delay was partly technical — a need to upgrade Wi-Fi routers to support both the cameras and a new fare collection system on the buses — and partly financial due to state government funding falling through, illustrating the headwinds U.S. cities often encounter when seeking to deploy facial recognition.

Despite the delays, Means said he's confident the program will launch this year and “a little bit bigger” than initially planned, with potentially as many as 30 buses instead of the nine that had been planned under the pilot.

Boruff, the SafeSpace Global CEO, said the company is ready to start installing the Kansas City cameras as soon as the money comes through, although it'll likely take three to four months to configure the software for the city's specific needs.

Ryana Parks-Shaw, a City Council member serving as mayor pro tem, said she's not disappointed that the rollout has been delayed.

“I think they need to take their time and do it right,” Parks-Shaw said. “I believe that any use of this kind of technology must be approached carefully, transparently and with clear guardrails.”

As for securing buses during the World Cup without the facial recognition cameras, Means said the reconfigured plan includes up to 40 more officers patrolling stops and transit centers.

“We're kind of going old school to address what we hoped the technology would do,” he said.

For Blanca Nubia Monroy, it’s a black-and-white scale of justice tattooed on her forearm, identical to the one used to identify her 19-year-old son's body after he was kidnapped and killed by Colombian soldiers in 2008.

For Sigifredo López, it's flashbacks from the seven years he was held captive by guerrillas in the South American country's dense jungles and the trauma of surviving after his companions were massacred in 2007.

Both have radically different views of who should win Colombia’s presidency on Sunday, with Monroy throwing her support behind peace activist Iván Cepeda and López backing Trump-endorsed Abelardo de la Espriella, who has promised a scourge on crime.

But their fear is the same: Returning to a more violent past.

“It all takes a toll, both physically and emotionally,” said López. “Emotionally, there’s the fear that still simmers deep down, something you don’t openly express, the fear that everything we’ve already lived through could happen again.”

Polarization ‘brewing for decades’

In Colombia’s most polarized presidential election in years, voters will choose between de la Espriella and Cepeda – two candidates with sharply different visions for how to find peace in a country long marked by war.

The armed struggle between Marxist guerrillas, Colombian military forces and right-wing paramilitaries has resulted in more than 10 million people — one in five Colombians — becoming victims of conflict, according to a government registry documenting killings, kidnappings, forced displacement and more.

The trauma of war and the fight for peace are embedded in Colombian politics. Despite a 2016 peace pact with Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, conflict rages in many parts of the Andean nation, becoming a defining theme in Sunday's vote.

Polarization within Colombian society over how to handle violence has “been brewing for decades,” said Elizabeth Dickinson, Bogotá-based deputy Latin America director of International Crisis Group.

“Increasingly on both sides, there's an us and a them. That's very dangerous in a country like Colombia with a long history of political violence. ... The spark could light at any moment."

On one side is Cepeda, who has pledged to continue Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “total peace” agenda of negotiating peace pacts with a range of criminal groups, from drug mafias to insurgent fighters. That strategy sought to rewire how Colombia deals with conflict, but has largely failed, stoking a rebuke as armed groups have taken advantage of ceasefires to grow in strength.

On the other is de la Espriella, a lawyer who has promised an all-out offensive on crime, echoing El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s war on gangs. While Bukele’s crackdown has drawn attention across the region for sharply cutting homicide rates, it also fueled allegations of human rights abuses.

Fears of state violence

The 67-year-old Monroy is reminded of the civilian toll from past military offensives every time she thinks of her son, Julián Oviedo Monroy, or looks at the tattoo on her arm.

Her son, who had dreamed of joining Colombia’s military to lift his family out of poverty, disappeared in 2008 along with other poor young men on the fringes of Bogotá. Months later, his body was unearthed in a clandestine grave in the conflict-torn northeast. His body was identified by his tattoo.

“It’s like still having him here,” she said, looking down at the tattoo she got as an homage to her son and his photo that she keeps in her wallet.

Monroy's son became one of 6,402 victims in one of the worst atrocities of Colombia’s conflict. Colombian military officers carried out extrajudicial executions against civilians in a scandal known as “false positives” carried out largely between 2002–2008 under ex-President Álvaro Uribe. Officials then falsely said the murdered civilians were enemy combatants killed in the war with FARC rebels.

Around a dozen high-ranking security officers later acknowledged they killed Monroy's son and asked for forgiveness in a peace tribunal established after the 2016 peace pact to unearth the ugly truths of the war — a court that de la Espriella has promised to dismantle.

Monroy criticized the mounting violence under incumbent president Petro, saying Cepeda would have to come down with a heavier hand on criminal groups.

But what outweighed her criticism was fear of the military campaign promised by de la Espriella, who has vowed to wipe out “anyone who I’ve declared a military target like cockroaches, like rats.”

“God willing, this man doesn’t come to power, because ‘false positives’ will become a reality again,” she said of de la Espriella.

‘Colombia is being kidnapped’

For López, 62, the fear is returning to the “hell” he lived in for seven years from 2002-2009 when he was kidnapped by FARC guerrillas and held captive in the jungles they controlled.

López was working as a local assemblyman in western Colombia at a time when the rebels had declared politicians military targets. They kidnapped him and 11 other lawmakers.

López was being held in solitary confinement in 2007 when his companions were massacred by rebels. He heard the gunshots echo over the rebel camp, a memory that haunts him. The case turned López into a symbol — a survivor of the FARC's kidnapping of over 21,000 people over five decades of conflict.

Now in Cali, the city where he was kidnapped, he lives with a state-appointed security detail because of threats against his life. He's watched with fear over the past four years as violence has mounted. Because of that, López, a self-declared leftist, said de la Espriella has his support.

“Colombia is being kidnapped,” López said. “I’m with Abelardo because his priority is to restore safety to Colombians. He understands ‘total peace’ isn’t won by negotiating with criminals, but by exercising the legitimate force of the state.”

Under current president Petro, armed groups have used weapons like drones to wage war, bombings have racked up a civilian toll and one presidential candidate was assassinated in June 2025. In May, the International Red Cross said the impact of armed conflict on civilians in Colombia over the past year had reached the worst point in a decade.

This week, the country's largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), announced a temporary ceasefire in order to not interfere in Colombia's elections. Other criminal groups made no such promises.

With the wave of violence, López said, “victims are being revictimized."

Just as Monroy fears what could come from a sharp swerve to the right, López worries about what could happen if Colombia continues on its current path.

“My fear is for the new generation, that the same thing that happened to me could happen to them if the country keeps being handed over to guerrillas and organized crime,” López said.

___

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

But how much is actually in there per serving?

The label usually does not tell you.

A new Consumer Reports investigation found concerning levels of certain additives and contaminants in some widely sold foods and drinks.

They’re pantry staples in many homes: chips, pudding, soft drinks, and other processed foods.

Many use additives to enhance color, sweetness, texture, or preservation.

But a Consumer Reports investigation reveals one important thing shoppers usually cannot see on the label: the amount.

“Companies in the U.S. are not required to disclose the amount of a specific additive or contaminant that’s actually in their products,” said Consumer Reports Investigative Reporter Paris Martineau.

And CR says that matters because, with some substances, the dose can make a difference, especially when people eat the same foods again and again.

Consumer Reports partnered with Yuka, a product transparency app, to test 40 popular processed foods and drinks for food additives and contaminants linked to potential health concerns at certain exposure levels.

“What we found is that one quarter of the products we tested contained concerning amounts of additives,” Martineau explained.

When contaminants were added to the mix, that rose to more than one-third of the products tested.

Consumer Reports contacted the FDA about its findings. The agency declined to comment on the specific findings of this investigation but stated that it has launched a stronger post-market review process for chemicals and additives already on the market.

CR also contacted the makers of the flagged products. Some said their products meet U.S. regulatory standards. Others said they’re working to remove certain artificial colors or titanium dioxide from some products.

For shoppers, CR recommends reading ingredient labels carefully, especially on brightly colored or highly processed foods.

And limit how often you eat the products CR flagged as concerning.

“The best thing consumers can do is kind of scrutinize the foods that they eat,” Martineau said.

While extremely rare, an infectious disease expert explains what it is.

“Naegleria fowleri is a microscopic amoeba. It’s a free-living organism that lives in fresh water such as lakes and rivers. It can also live in poorly kept pools and water systems,” said Lyssette Cardona, MD, an infectious disease specialist with Cleveland Clinic Florida.

Dr. Cardona explained that the brain-eating amoeba thrives in warm fresh water – that’s why cases tend to make headlines over the summer.

If water with the amoeba enters the nose and reaches the brain, it can cause an often-deadly infection that destroys brain tissue.

While infections are rare and the amoeba is not found in all water with these conditions, it’s best to take precautions.

These include holding your nose when jumping into fresh water and avoiding putting your head underwater in hot springs.

Dr. Cardona said it’s also important to know the signs of possible infection.

“The symptoms of meningoencephalitis are usually fever, headaches, nausea, vomiting and confusion. If it progresses without awareness, you can have hallucinations and seizures with the increased brain swelling,” Dr. Cardona said.

Early treatment is critical, and Dr. Cardona urges that people seek medical care right away if symptoms develop after possible exposure.

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits in the week ending June 13 dropped by 4,000 to 226,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s in line with the 225,000 new applications forecast by analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet.

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

Despite concerns that the conflict in the Middle East would further squeeze a flagging labor market, hiring has picked up in recent months following a miserable 2025 that saw fewer than 200,000 job gains. For comparison, about 1.5 million jobs were added in 2024.

U.S. employers delivered a surprising 172,000 new jobs in May and the economy is averaging 188,000 job gains in the three months since the Iran war began in late February. That’s the best three months of hiring since early 2024. The unemployment rate remains historically low at 4.3%.

Job openings also rose in April as employers posted 7.6 million vacancies, up from 6.9 million in March and the most since May 2024.

The government reported last week that rising gas prices — triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s southern border — pushed U.S. consumer inflation in May to 4.2%, its highest level in three years. Despite recent declines, prices for oil and gas remain elevated, which can squeeze consumers’ budgets and make businesses think twice about hiring.

Earlier this week, Iran and the U.S. agreed to a deal to end the war and allow Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and sell its oil without restrictions.

With inflation still well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, officials at the U.S. central bank left the benchmark interest rate where it was on Wednesday. It was the first meeting with new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who replaced Jerome Powell after his eight-year run as the U.S. central bank’s leader.

Lower interest rates can boost the economy and hiring, but also tend to stoke inflation, leading a number of Fed policymakers to say they are actually willing to consider at least one interest rate hike this year. That could potentially help bring inflation down, but higher borrowing costs generally make businesses more reluctant to hire.

Optimism over artificial intelligence has also injected a degree of uncertainty about the job market due to the investment required to develop it and because the powerful technology could alter or even replace some jobs.

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

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

The Labor Department’s report Thursday showed that the four-week moving average of jobless claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, rose by 4,000 to 223,250.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending June 6 rose by 24,000 to 1.81 million, slightly more than analysts predicted.

In the era of Jim Crow laws, finding work as an African American in Virginia was a challenge, especially for those in the medical field. Black doctors faced significant barriers, with few organizations willing to accept them as members or support their professional growth.

“When you had Black individuals becoming doctors, there was really no organization for them to go to that would accept them, accept their membership,” Charisse Hairston, executive director of the FAHI Museum, explained.

That changed with the founding of the Magic City Medical Society. Co-founded by Roanoke-based doctors Isaac Burrell and Percy Corbin, though some sources credit James H. Roberts, the society brought together physicians, dentists and nurses. Their mission was clear: to build a healthcare system for Black people in the Appalachian region and lay the groundwork for what would become Burrell Memorial Hospital. The society also included a women’s auxiliary unit, expanding its reach and impact.

Hairston describes the society as a close-knit network: “These doctors formed a brotherhood that basically consisted of doctors from Roanoke, Lynchburg, Martinsville.”

The Magic City Medical Society didn’t just offer professional camaraderie. It changed the course of medical history in Southwest Virginia, opening doors for more people to pursue their dreams of helping others.

“You could have that brotherhood, that sisterhood, and that encouraged you to complete your program, and then it gave you a network of individuals, and they could help you get started professionally,” Hairston said.

This support system meant more hospitals could be established to serve the Black community. One notable example is Dr. Dana Baldwin’s St. Mary’s Hospital.

“He was able, through that society, to attract other doctors to come to the area,” Hairston shared. “These were not just any doctors; these were doctors and pharmacists who were sought out in the nation.”

As access to medical care expanded, so did the city itself. The society’s influence reached beyond hospitals, with one doctor even helping to establish churches in the community, all in the name of making Southwest Virginia a better place to live.

“It meant access to good medical care. It meant having hospitals and facilities that you could go to and be properly treated,” Hairston said.

While both society and the medical field have evolved over the decades, the roots of change planted by the Magic City Medical Society remain deeply woven into the fabric of Southwest Virginia.

Their legacy is a testament to the power of community, determination and the pursuit of equality, ensuring that everyone, regardless of race, could receive the care and support they needed.

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.

Voters in the Makerfield district of northwest England are electing a new lawmaker, and the leading contender is Andy Burnham of the governing Labour Party, the current mayor of Greater Manchester and oddsmakers’ favorite to be the next prime minister.

If Burnham defeats a candidate from the anti-immigration party Reform UK and wins the seat for Labour, he’s almost certain to challenge the embattled Starmer for leadership of the party, and the country.

Burnham has pledged that “if people put their trust in me, I will change politics” — a big promise for a politician who, if he wins, will be just one of 650 lawmakers in the House of Commons.

But the scores of journalists from around the world who have flocked to Makerfield during the campaign are evidence that this is no normal by-election.

In an election-day video, Burnham said he would take the fight for change “as high as I can possibly take it.”

Polls close at 10 p.m. (2100GMT), with results due early Friday.

Starmer struggles since landslide win

About 75,000 people are eligible to vote in Makerfield, a constituency that encompasses several towns and villages on the edge of Greater Manchester, 200 miles (320 kilometers) northwest of London.

They hold in their hands the fate of Starmer, whose popularity has cratered since he led the center-left Labour Party to a landslide election victory in July 2024.

Starmer’s government has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and been hamstrung by repeated missteps, including his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as the U.K. ambassador to the United States.

A dismal performance in May’s local elections spurred scores of Labour lawmakers to demand Starmer’s resignation. He has refused to budge, but senior colleagues are trying to force a change. Wes Streeting resigned as health secretary in May, saying that “where we need vision, we have a vacuum.”

Then Josh Simons, the Labour lawmaker for Makerfield, stepped down to trigger a special election and give Burnham the chance to return to Parliament.

Britain’s parliamentary system allows governing parties to change leader midterm, with the winner becoming prime minister without the need for a national election. Under Labour rules, a lawmaker can challenge the leader if they have backing from a fifth of the party’s House of Commons lawmakers — a number that stands at 81.

Streeting said Tuesday that he hopes Starmer will agree to step down, but that if he doesn’t, “there will need to be a contest, and I would be prepared to do that.”

A Burnham victory will pile pressure on Starmer to quit

Streeting is an assured communicator with a base of support among parliamentary colleagues, but Burnham is considered the more likely successor.

The 56-year-old politician nicknamed the “King of the North” has led Manchester since 2017, overseeing rapid regeneration for the city where the Industrial Revolution was forged. Burnham is pledging to repeat his signature brand of “Manchesterism” on a national scale.

“It’s not right, the way the country has been run,” Burnham said on the campaign trail last week, claiming “London-centric politics” has failed other regions of the U.K.

Starmer, meanwhile, has tried to keep calm and carry on, insisting during a G7 summit in France this week that he has no intention of leaving his post.

“I will fight if there’s a challenge,” he said. “We won a significant general election result in 2024, with a mandate to bring about change. I’m not going to walk away from that.”

Starmer suggested that he could offer Burnham a Cabinet post if he wins, telling Sky News on Wednesday that “I want him to have a big role in government.” Allies of Burnham indicated that he wasn’t interested.

Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said that if Burnham wins convincingly, “the pressure on Starmer will be very hard to resist.

“Starmer can say all that he likes that he wants to carry on,” Ford said. “But if the entire Cabinet turns around and says, ‘We’re not going to serve under you and we think you should go,’ then either he’ll go with dignity or go without dignity, but he’ll end up having to go quite quickly.”

Reform UK poses a challenge to Labour

Burnham’s victory isn't a given. The Makerfield area has elected Labour lawmakers for more than a century, but Reform UK has rapidly gained ground in post-industrial northern England, winning big in local elections last month.

Reform candidate Rob Kenyon, a local plumber, is hoping to tap into concerns about immigration — frequently expressed by voters despite relatively low numbers of immigrants in Makerfield. But Reform faces a challenge from Restore, an even more hard-line, anti-immigration and ethnonationalist party to its right.

A Burnham victory would be bad news for Starmer. But Ford said that a Reform win in Makerfield would spell “Gotterdammerung, apocalypse, disaster, chaos” for the Labour Party.

“Andy Burnham is miles more popular than every other (leadership) candidate available. Miles better known, miles better liked,” he said.

“If Reform take him out, then simultaneously you have a situation where the Reform threat looks much graver, and the best person available to combat the Reform threat has failed.”

Thursday’s decision was widely anticipated after figures showed inflation did not rise as had been expected in May, holding steady instead at 2.8%.

Though that remains above the bank’s target of 2%, it raised hopes that the upward pressure on prices emanating from the spike in oil and gas prices after the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28 may have been less than anticipated.

Economists think rate-setters will opt against hiking rates over coming months, but only if the recent fall in energy prices is sustained. The pressure on central banks since the outbreak of hostilities in the Persian Gulf has been to raise rates. The European Central Bank hiked last week while on Wednesday, half of the policymakers at the U.S. Federal Reserve said that they could support a rate hike later this year.

Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England governor, said the recent decline in oil prices has been “encouraging” while noting they are still higher than before the war, a steer to markets that higher U.K. borrowing costs are possible.

“Whatever happens in the future, the higher energy prices of the past four months mean there’s already some inflationary pressure in the pipeline,” he said. “The Bank’s job is to make sure that doesn’t turn into sustained inflation above our 2% target.”

Two of the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee remain concerned enough about those pipeline pressures that they voted for a quarter-point increase.

Because of the recent pullback in oil and gas prices, the bank has trimmed its forecast for inflation in the final quarter of the year to 3.25%. The hope is that inflation then starts to drop next year, freeing up the bank to cut rates, allowing mortgage lenders to offer cheaper home loans.

“If energy prices continue to moderate then the debate could once again turn again to rate cuts, but that might have to wait until next year,” said Luke Bartholomew, deputy chief economist at asset management firm Aberdeen.

A $14-billion arms sale package to Taiwan is still in limbo after President Donald Trump returned from Beijing in May and said he had discussed the proposal “in great detail” with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, heightening anxieties in Taiwan and raising concerns among lawmakers on the Capitol Hill.

“We need those arms for defensive purposes,” Alexander Yui Tah-ray, who heads the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S., told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday in Washington. “We're trying to increase our defense expenditure. We try to increase our ability to defend ourselves better and survive times of crisis.”

The United States, like most countries, does not officially recognize Taiwan as a country. China prohibits any state it has diplomatic relations with from having formal ties with Taipei. But the U.S. is the island's strongest informal backer and arms provider.

Yui, while not formally an ambassador to the U.S., acts as Taiwan's top envoy in Washington.

The Trump administration has not moved forward with the $14 billion weapons sale proposal approved by senior lawmakers earlier this year. Trump has described the sale as a “very good negotiating chip” with China.

Washington is obligated by domestic law to provide Taiwan with sufficient hardware to deter aggression from China, which claims sovereignty over the island and vows to seize it, by force if necessary, to achieve what it considers to be unification. Beijing has always opposed U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, which has never been under China's communist rule.

Taiwanese diplomat says the island won't wait for ‘the U.S. cavalry’

Yui said Taiwan is aware that it must defend its territory.

“This is our responsibility, so we will not wait and depend for the U.S. cavalry to come and save us,” he said. “That’s why we’re willing to acquire, to buy U.S. equipment and arms to make ourselves stronger.”

Yui said the weapons sales need to be “commensurate” to the threat level, which is “actually pretty high” from China.

“First and foremost, we’re not the aggressors. It is the People's Republic of China who is sending all the planes and ships,” he said. “They're the ones huffing and puffing. They are the ones who’s trying to annihilate our freedom and democracy in Taiwan.”

China sends warships and military aircraft near Taiwan almost daily and has conducted major military exercises around the island in recent years.

Beijing sees the island as a core interest and has criticized those supporting Taiwanese independence for causing instability in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan diplomat sees no change in the US position toward the island

Yui stressed that there had been no changes to the U.S. position on Taiwan and that the Taiwanese government will respect the Trump administration's “tempo” in making announcements.

The arms sale has broad support in Congress, with lawmakers raising concerns to Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a hearing this month. Rubio affirmed that U.S. policy on Taiwan has not changed and that Washington does not “consult with the Chinese on these arms deals.”

“We’re aware of their position. They talk about it all the time,” Rubio said of Beijing. “They are not negotiated, and they are not consulted.”

Rubio said the proposal was not held up but under review and that the administration had other factors to weigh.

“It includes the availability of the stocks in the short term,” Rubio said of U.S. weapons stockpiles, which have been drawn down during the Iran war. “We have to balance that with our own procurement process.”

The administration did approve a separate $11 billion arms sale package to Taiwan in December that included high-mobility artillery rocket systems, or HIMARS, and howitzers.

Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te on Thursday told reporters his administration maintains close contact with the U.S.

"We hope the arms purchase from the U.S. can be approved as soon as possible," he said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian called it “a dead end” for the Taiwanese government to seek independence by relying on the U.S. and through military means. "China’s opposition to American arms sales to Taiwan is consistent and clear," he said.

Yui is navigating the second Trump presidency

Yui arrived in Washington in late 2023 during Joe Biden's presidency. Biden had said several times that he would send troops to the island if Beijing attacked.

Now, Yui is navigating the caprices of the second Trump administration, which has struck a more conciliatory tone with Beijing following an intense trade war marked by tit-for-tat tariffs.

As much as Trump has raised eyebrows by ignoring a Reagan-era promise not to agree to prior consultation with Beijing on arms sales to Taiwan, he also said he could call Taiwan's President Lai, breaking a decades-long practice that no sitting U.S. president has directly spoken with the leader of the island.

In its national defense strategy published in January, the Pentagon said it seeks to deter China through strength, not confrontation. It says the U.S. “will build, posture, and sustain a strong denial defense” along a strategic line of islands, including Taiwan, to keep China out of the wider Pacific Ocean.

Yui ascribed what appears to be mixed messages to Trump's outside-of-the-box style but expressed confidence in Taiwan-U.S. relations.

“It's important to look at the actions, what is happening, not just the rhetoric,” Yui said. “The big stick is still there.”

___

Associated Press writer Simina Mistreanu in Taipei, Taiwan contributed to this report.

The two-day meeting, being held in Kazan, is set to consider ways to expand Russia’s “strategic partnership” with ASEAN nations that include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, East Timor and Vietnam, according to Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov.

The regional bloc has maintained relations with Moscow as a “dialogue partner” and engaged Russian officials in annual top-level meetings, he said. The summit in Kazan, on the Volga River, marks the 35th anniversary of Russia-ASEAN relations.

In a message greeting participants in a business forum held on the sidelines of the summit, Putin said he was confident that it will “create new opportunities for expanding mutually beneficial trade, investment, and industrial cooperation, while also strengthening direct dialogue between our business communities.”

Ushakov said the agenda includes exchanging views on global and regional issues and reviewing efforts to develop Russia-ASEAN ties. He emphasized that the participants are set to underline their adherence to “forming a just and democratic multipolar world order based on the principles of international law and the United Nations Charter.”

Ushakov praised what he described as “fruitful, equal and constructive dialogue” between Russia and ASEAN.

He told reporters that Putin would have bilateral meetings with ASEAN leaders during the summit, which he will co-chair with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., whose country holds the association’s rotating presidency.

Opening a bilateral meeting with Marcos, Putin noted their countries' “mutually beneficial cooperation built on good traditions, mutual respect and consideration of each other’s legitimate interests.”

Marcos thanked Putin for organizing the Russia-ASEAN meeting in Kazan and invited him to the ASEAN summit in Manila in November.

Putin also met with Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Russia and ASEAN nations "jointly stand for forming a just world order, defend the principles of sovereign equality of states, (of) non-interference into internal affairs,” Putin said at a formal reception for heads of delegations Wednesday evening.

“All our states follow their own models of development and don't impose their views on anyone. And this is, indeed, our strength," he said. “Russia is ready for continuing active joint work with ASEAN member states with the goal of strengthening strategic partnership, in the interests of ensuring security, well-being and prosperity of our countries and peoples, as well as the Eurasian region as a whole.”

Another bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit was with Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who met in Moscow on Tuesday with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

Putin praised Russia's ties with Turkey as “developing steadily,” with contacts between the countries being “truly friendly and being filled with new meaning.” Fidan said the two had multiple issues to discuss.

Some of ASEAN’s diverse member countries, including the Philippines, are seen to be aligned with the United States, while others have heavy trade and security engagements with China and Russia.

Several ASEAN members, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, have either imported Russian crude oil or expressed interest in purchasing it after global fuel prices soared in the wake of the war in Iran.

Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally, the first woman to lead the church and the person seen as the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, issued the apology as the church released a report on conditions at the homes from 1949 to 1976.

Many women and girls were forced to do menial labor as a form of “correction’’ for having children out of wedlock, and their babies were sometimes described as commodities available to meet the demand for adoption, the report found.

“We are profoundly sorry for the pain, trauma and stigma experienced — and still carried — by many people because of historical adoption practices in homes affiliated to the Church of England,’’ Mullally said. “We have heard firsthand the accounts of mothers who were separated from their babies in circumstances where they had very few meaningful choices.”

During the period covered by the report, about 185,000 children born to unmarried mothers were put up for adoption in England and Wales. It was a time when a “culture of shame, stigma and secrecy” surrounded unmarried mothers and their children, even as attitudes about sex and marriage were beginning to change, the report said.

While church policies emphasized that unmarried women had the right to keep their children and the children had a right to remain with their mothers, staff often ignored this guidance and worked closely with adoption agencies, researchers found.

The guidance “sat alongside language which expressed dehumanizing and dismissive attitudes, falling short of what would be expected towards anyone in the church’s care, not least people who were rendered especially vulnerable by their circumstances,” the report said.

The organization, founded by former President George H.W. Bush to encourage service, is set to unveil plans to improve that connection at its annual conference in Washington on June 22.

Jennifer Sirangelo, president and CEO of Points of Light, told The Associated Press that the group’s National Volunteer Strategy initiative is the first phase in its $100 million plan to double the number of U.S. volunteers to 150 million by 2035.

“We believe that volunteering changes everything,” Sirangelo said in an interview. “It changes the people who serve. It uplifts the community. And we know that collectively it can change our society.”

The National Volunteer Strategy is Points of Light’s contribution to “building bridges, deepening empathy, and putting us on a path for having a more civil society where we can get along in a pluralistic environment,” she added.

The strategy – which includes investments in infrastructure and building standards for both volunteers and nonprofits – comes at a complicated time for volunteerism and the broader nonprofit sector. President Donald Trump’s administration gutted AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteerism, in 2025, eliminating thousands of jobs and leaving nonprofits scrambling to replace the lost workers and funding.

Those cuts aggravated a decline in volunteerism caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that created a shortage of workers at many charities that have seen an uptick in demand. Though volunteers began to return in 2023, the most recent year the U.S. Census Bureau has released data for, the 28% of the population who donated their time is still below pre-pandemic levels.

Interest in volunteering is rebounding

Sirangelo said that rebound is a sign that the timing is right to roll out a significant strategy to foster more volunteerism. “So many people in the industry have applauded the effort and said, ‘I’ve been waiting for this for years’,” she said. “There has been enthusiastic engagement.”

Cathy Scott, UPS vice president for social impact and The UPS Foundation, said that she is excited about Points of Light’s plans, in part because her foundation has seen its own strategy to increase volunteerism succeed.

In 2011, The UPS Foundation set an ambitious goal for company workers to volunteer 30 million hours by 2030. UPS accomplished that goal in April — four years ahead of schedule.

Through its work with Points of Light, UPS was able to quantify how volunteering helped increase employee retention and employee pride in themselves and the company, Scott said. “We know that volunteerism increases well-being,” she said. “And we know that doing good is good for business.”

The idea that Points of Light’s volunteer strategy would help spread that kind of success to other companies and communities is something UPS wanted to support.

“We’re finding that (volunteerism) is bringing employees out of loneliness,” Scott said. “It’s creating additional professional networks. It is increasing skill development and talent development. It’s giving them a purpose… And people want to be part of a purpose and also find their own purpose.”

‘Listening tour’ yields new volunteer strategy

Points of Light developed its National Volunteer Strategy after a yearlong “listening tour” that included two national surveys, 23 roundtables with leaders from corporate, cultural, faith and governmental groups, and input from a 40-member advisory council.

What they learned, Sirangelo said, was that interest in volunteerism was strong, but the nonprofit infrastructure to bring those interested into the groups that need them and engage them with the work and the mission was lacking. To strengthen that infrastructure, Points of Light plans to support the millions of volunteer managers at the nation’s nonprofits.

“We will invest in them and their continued growth with tools and resources that help them be effective at building those transformative volunteer experiences,” she said, adding that nonprofit managers are essential to ensuring “volunteers are available to achieve what we need in hunger, youth development, the environment and other big nonprofit issues.”

Another part of that support is creating a sort of canon for volunteerism so that both volunteers and nonprofits better understand what to expect from each other and can have clearer common goals.

Sirangelo is quick to point out that the National Volunteer Strategy is the launch of the process to double U.S. volunteerism, not the final goal. One area that remains to be developed is the strategy to better engage Gen Z and younger people who have not embraced traditional volunteering in the way previous generations have.

Engaging young people is essential to overall growth

That’s not to say young people are not as generous or as interested in volunteering.

Alex Edgar, youth engagement manager at the history education nonprofit Made by Us and a member of the Points of Light board of directors, said young people don’t often get the credit for their volunteer work and that no strategy for the future of volunteerism would be complete without engaging that group.

“There is a hunger for (nonprofits) to have more youth-focused things, but oftentimes these local volunteer action centers don’t have the staff or resources or best practices honestly to do that well,” said Edgar, 22, who is also the co-founder of Youth250 at Made By Us, which is connecting young people to the country’s upcoming 250th anniversary. “There is interest, there is energy around bringing young people in, in part, because people see how disconnected they are, how much they distrust our institutions."

Edgar is hopeful Points of Light can help create a framework that shows young people the career pathways available to them in the nonprofit sector. “It is going to be incredibly beneficial for young people who are interested in service, but may not really see much of a ecosystem out there right now, especially given the changes in funding,” he said.

There are plenty of economic and cultural barriers to overcome before young people can volunteer more, experts say. And Edgar says no strategy can address all of them.

“For so many young people, we’re not 100% there yet in terms of showing them, ‘This is for you. This is something that we can do with you’,” he said. “But we have to start somewhere.”

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

As of Thursday, June 18, the average price of regular gas per gallon in Virginia is $3.74, according to AAA. Premium averages $4.64 per gallon, while diesel averages $4.98 per gallon.

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

• Lynchburg:
• • Regular: $3.64
  • Mid: $4.18
  • Premium: $4.57
  • Diesel: $5.02
• Roanoke:
• • Regular: $3.74
  • Mid: $4.25
  • Premium: $4.66
  • Diesel: $5
• Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and Radford (New River Valley area)
• • Regular: $3.75
  • Mid: $4.22
  • Premium: $4.62
  • Diesel: $4.91

Count on 10 News to bring you the latest price at the pump every morning.

To find out where the lowest fuel prices are near you, visit GasBuddy’s website.

The initial deal to end the war takes “immediate effect” after leaders from both countries signed it, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who helped mediate the agreement, said online.

The agreement calls for a permanent end to hostilities and starts a 60-day negotiating clock to reach a final deal on the future of Iran's nuclear program, though Trump left the door open to resume attacks. It appears to offer Iran several benefits up front while extracting little in return.

The deal has been shrouded in secrecy and confusion for days. U.S. officials refused to disclose the terms even after saying Trump and Vice President JD Vance digitally signed it over the weekend. Trump signed a physical copy Wednesday while dining with French President Emmanuel Macron at Versailles, the palace where many historic agreements have been signed over the centuries, ending wars or territorial disputes.

The White House had planned a signing ceremony on Friday in Switzerland, but its fate is now uncertain, with conflicting information from the U.S., Iran and Pakistan.

“It’s signed,” Trump said as he left the dinner at Versailles, which followed his trip to the Group of Seven summit in France.

In a video posted online by a White House aide, Trump was seen seated at a table next to Macron signing a paper copy of the agreement. Trump then handed the document and pen to Secretary of State Marco Rubio as people in the room applauded.

“This was not easy,” Trump said right before he signed it, according to a video posted to social media by Macron.

In Tehran, a stone-faced President Masoud Pezeshkian signed the deal on behalf of Iran, according to the state-run IRNA news agency, which posted an image of him holding up the deal with his signature and Trump’s.

Text of the agreement still has not been formally released by the Americans. U.S. officials dictated draft language to journalists after days of secrecy, speaking on condition of anonymity. Iranian state media has released text that largely tracked what the U.S. put out.

The deal will stop the fighting and start more negotiations

Much of the agreement would restore the status quo before the war, including ending hostilities, restarting talks between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial passage for the world’s oil and natural gas whose closure created a historic energy crisis.

The agreement opens the strait without tolls for two months, but does not preclude fees in the future, according to the drafts from both countries.

In return, the U.S. will move to waive, but not eliminate, some wide-ranging sanctions against Iran.

The deal also affirms a commitment to Lebanon’s territorial integrity in the face of Israel’s invasion against the Hezbollah militant group. That is one of the most delicate parts of the agreement because Israel has maintained it will continue to defend itself and to occupy vast swaths of Lebanon. Iran has said Israel must withdraw under the deal, a condition Israel has already rejected.

The U.S. and Israel went to war Feb. 28 in part to prevent Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon. Trump has cited various goals for the war, including at times vowing it would end Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and its support for Hezbollah and other proxy groups. He also suggested it could lead to toppling the Iranian government.

The interim deal falls short of all those goals, but Trump hailed it as “very strong.”

He also opened the door to abandoning it: “It’s a memorandum of understanding, and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs.”

The U.S. agreement to immediately allow Iran to sell its oil freely and the offer to eventually lift all sanctions are major concessions that go beyond the terms of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Trump withdrew America from that Obama-era pact in his first term, declaring it the “worst deal ever.”

Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, though it is the only country to enrich uranium to 60% purity without a weapons program, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The interim deal calls for the IAEA to monitor the “downblending” of that uranium in Iran, without elaborating.

The accord likely will draw intense opposition in Washington, and it appears to be a major setback for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come under criticism at home from the media, his opponents and even some allies as details emerge.

Under the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran that Trump pulled out of, Iran also agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program and promised never to build an atomic weapon in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Major concessions have been offered to Iran

Some concessions to Iran — including the full lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets — would happen gradually and be linked to progress in the nuclear talks, according to Pakistani officials. They outlined some of the deal’s major points on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

But in the meantime, the U.S. will issue waivers to sanctions that allow Iran to sell oil freely.

The Islamic Republic's oil export revenues in 2024 were more than $46 billion. Its main buyer of oil, China, is believed to have bought at below-market prices because of its willingness to ignore the sanctions.

Granting oil waivers at the start of the 60-day talks strips the U.S. of a major point of leverage. Only at the conclusion of the overall deal in 2015 were sanctions on Iran's oil lifted.

The interim deal also opens the door to ending all sanctions Iran faces from the U.S. and at the U.N. — including those over Tehran’s weapons programs and human rights abuses — though it says the schedule for that will be worked out later. Still, that far surpasses the 2015 deal, which only lifted some sanctions in exchange for Iran drastically reducing its enrichment and stockpile of uranium.

The accord would also provide Iran with at least $300 billion to rebuild — an extraordinary figure and another major benefit for Iran. The money also appears dependent on the progress of further negotiations.

Vance has said Gulf Arab nations would invest that amount. But Gulf countries would likely be reluctant to help Iran after Iranian attacks in the war destroyed oil facilities and other sites in their territory.

Trump reiterated Wednesday that the U.S. would not contribute and said it was up to other countries if they wanted to invest.

The pact would provide relief to the global economy

The initial deal provides a major win for the global economy — the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas once passed before the war began. Since then, Iranian attacks on shipping and the threat to vessels effectively shut the strait.

The strait's closure drove up energy prices around the world and made many basics, including food, more expensive. Iran let through some vessels that paid tolls, something never done before in the strait, which has long been considered an international waterway. The U.S. later provided military support to get other tankers out, but traffic was nowhere near levels before the war.

The deal also says the U.S. will lift a blockade imposed on Iranian ports and that the strait will return to its prewar traffic levels in 30 days, while acknowledging Iranian mines may need to be destroyed.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Magdy reported from Cairo and Catalini reported from Morrisville, Pennsylvania. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Evian-les-Bains, France, Darlene Superville in Geneva, Angela Charlton in Paris and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this story.

The Sydney-based airline on Thursday unveiled the first of its specially-modified Airbus A350-1000 jets that will regularly make the 17,015-kilometer (10,573-mile) journey from October next year. The flights between cities on opposite sides of the world are expected to take between 19 and 22 hours.

The current longest regularly scheduled direct flight is Singapore Airlines’ route between its city-state base and New York City. The distance of 15,349 kilometers (9,537 miles) is flown in under 19 hours.

A significant difference in passenger comfort between the airlines is that Singapore’s Flight SQ24 doesn’t fly economy passengers.

While a standard Airbus A350-1000 can carry up to 480 passengers, Qantas ’ customized version A350-1000ULR will carry only 238, with 140 of those in what is colloquially termed “cattle class” on flights between London and Sydney.

The farthest an economy passenger can currently fly on a direct flight in the world is with Qantas between London and Perth on Australia’s west coast. That’s a distance of 14,499 kilometers (9,009 miles) flown 16 and 18 hours. Sydney is on Australia’s east coast.

Sharon Petersen, chief executive officer of AirlineRatings, an Australia-based website that ranks airlines around the world on their products and safety, said Qantas economy seats between London and Sydney would have more leg room than most long haul airlines.

Economy passengers would also have access to a so-called Wellbeing Zone between economy and premium economy cabins where they could stretch their limbs and help themselves to drinks and snacks.

Qantas has said passengers will pay more for direct flights when tickets go on sale in February than they do for flights that make a stop in Singapore. Qantas says the direct flights will save up to four hours of travel time.

Petersen said flying business class direct was a great option for passengers who could potentially sleep for eight hours without the interruption of disembarking at Singapore.

But she would prefer to break up the journey than fly 22 hours in economy.

“The reason for that is 22 hours is really daunting. If you get sat next to someone who’s smelly, is perhaps really unwell and coughing, perhaps there’s a baby sitting next to you that’s having an uncomfortable flight or an oversized passenger who really needs two seats,” Petersen said.

She regards two shorter flights as a safer option in economy.

“If you’ve got it wrong on one flight, you might be okay on the next. You get a break,” she said.

Petersen said the smaller passenger configuration of Qantas’ A350-1000ULR was to enhance comfort and to compensate for an additional tank carrying 20,000 liters (5,283 gallons) of fuel.

Such long haul flights rely on premium passengers to make profits, she said.

“Because the flight is so long, they can’t rely on cargo because of the weight. So it really is a passenger-heavy aircraft and a premium passenger-heavy aircraft at that to get the profit margin,” Petersen said.

Once the Sydney-London direct route was established, Qantas said its next ultralong-haul direct service will be Sydney-New York, a shorter distance of 16,013 kilometers (9,950 miles).

For Emmanuel Macron, that was precisely the point.

On Wednesday night, the French president threw open Louis XIV’s palace to his U.S. counterpart for a private reception, show and dinner marking America’s 250th birthday. At a turbulent moment for the trans-Atlantic alliance, it could help Macron keep a personal channel open as the two navigate differences over Iran, Ukraine and tariffs.

It already kept Trump from leaving a Group of Seven summit early, as he did last year in Canada.

“I’m a fan of beautiful places,” he told reporters, saying he had planned to leave earlier until “a very nice man” invited him to dinner.

After posing in front of Versailles' golden doors, Trump enjoyed a private tour of the chateau's glittering interior. And in a surprise move over a dinner of lobster, caviar and vanilla ice cream, he signed a memorandum on ending the war in Iran at a venue steeped in historical symbolism.

Versailles is perhaps the biggest soft-power flex available to a French president: the Hall of Mirrors, the gardens of the Sun King and several centuries of carefully polished national grandeur.

“Versailles is a diplomatic tool and an instrument of influence,” Macron said Wednesday, likening diplomacy to soccer. “Whether I’m playing at home or away, my goal is to score goals. And when I host other teams, I try to give them a nice welcome.”

France holds little economic or military sway over Washington, so pageantry is one of its few levers — even as its use elsewhere has brought mixed results at best.

Soft power built from stone

Macron and Trump have often clashed over policy.

Their relationship has endured partly because Macron understands the power of personal attention, dramatic settings and a well-timed invitation.

Their first meeting in 2017 produced a white-knuckled handshake that instantly became a symbol of their competitive rapport.

Months later came dinner inside the Eiffel Tower and a place of honor at France’s Bastille Day parade.

Versailles raises the stakes, allowing a French president to wrap a modern political encounter in the scale and authority of national history.

“It is soft-power flex based on hard buildings,” said Denis Lacorne, professor of American studies at Sciences Po.

Macron has used the palace before, receiving Russian President Vladimir Putin there in 2017 and later hosting King Charles III and Queen Camilla for a state dinner.

Versailles has been a favored setting for French leaders to honor foreign guests for over three centuries, the palace told The Associated Press. It remains “a place in the service of French diplomacy.”

With Trump, the setting carries added resonance.

The former real estate developer has long treated architecture as a statement of status, success and power. In his second term, he has sought to erect a legacy in stone — with plans for a new White House ballroom and a 250-foot (76-meter) triumphal arch resembling Paris’ Arc de Triomphe.

The real deal — and 357 mirrors

The evening included a Hall of Mirrors visit and fountain display.

The Hall of Mirrors was once a feat of technology: 357 mirrors set in 17 arches along a 73-meter (240-foot) gallery, showing French manufacturers could rival Venice’s celebrated glassmakers.

They were also built to multiply a king. Every royal entrance ricocheted across the glass, and a modern guest gets the same treatment.

“You will be reflected many, many times, from one mirror to another,” Lacorne said.

For a president who has spent his second term turning the Oval Office gold, the appeal is clear, he added.

Trump arrives, in a sense, at a building he has quoted for years: He has said he modeled Mar-a-Lago’s ballroom after Versailles.

Others have sought to flatter a visiting Trump

Trump remembers spectacle, and often brings it home.

The 2017 Bastille Day parade saw tanks, horses and marching bands fill the Champs-Élysées as fighter jets trailing red, white and blue smoke soared overhead.

Trump called it “one of the greatest parades I’ve ever seen.”

“We’re going to have to try and top it,” he said back in Washington, where he began pressing for a military parade. In 2025, he finally presided over a large Army anniversary parade through the capital.

China employed dazzle diplomacy when it hosted Trump for a “state visit plus” in 2017, including a rare tour of its Forbidden City, an experience once reserved for emperors.

Britain offered its own version last September, greeting Trump’s second state visit with mounted troops, a carriage procession and a Windsor Castle banquet.

The gleam is the easy part

The diplomatic pomp has clearly flattered Trump, who called the Windsor banquet one of the highest honors of his life.

But it seems to have won few concessions.

The early Macron-Trump “bromance” has hardened into something rougher and more transactional.

Trump has threatened tariffs of up to 100% on French wine and Champagne amid a broader trade fight. France opposed the U.S. war against Iran, even as Macron pressed Washington to keep backing Ukraine.

At home, the dinner has drawn criticism.

“We must learn once and for all to live without Trump,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the veteran far-left leader.

Versailles hands Macron some advantages, experts say: centuries of diplomatic history, a setting built for Trump’s taste for ceremony, and a palace already familiar to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who visit each year.

History counsels caution. Ronald Reagan dined beneath the same mirrors on the sidelines of the 1982 G7, and central disagreements outlasted the splendor.

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Angela Charlton in Paris and Michel Euler in Versailles contributed.

Los Angeles firefighters responded around 2:30 p.m. to the blaze, which was sending large plumes of dark smoke into the air in the Boyle Heights neighborhood. Local news stations showed smoke billowing from the burning roof of the warehouse, which was covered in solar panels.

Officials issued an alert to the area shortly after, warning of “hazardous materials nearby.” Residents were told to close all windows, doors and vents, turn off air conditioning and bring people and pets to an inside room.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Jennifer Middleton said there was previous concern over the fire burning an ammonia line, but that danger had “dissipated.” The roof blaze had been extinguished by late afternoon and firefighters were entering the building to assess the interior, Middleton said.

The building at the address is listed online as a cold storage warehouse owned by Lineage Logistics for the transport of frozen or other temperature-controlled goods. It contains 491,000 square feet (45,600 square meters) of warehouse space, according to its website. The company did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

“A lot of things came to me from the past,” Díaz said after Colombia beat Uzbekistan 3-1 on Wednesday night. “I worked for this. I fought to be here at this moment.”

First, Colombia failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. Then his parents were kidnapped.

In late 2023, Luis Manuel “Mane” Díaz and his wife, Cilenis Marulanda, were captured by armed guerillas at the Colombia-Venezuela border. Marulanda was quickly rescued, but Mane Díaz was not.

Luis Díaz, playing for Liverpool at the time, missed two games to return home to Barrancas and advocate for his father’s freedom. Upon his return to the club, he scored and revealed an undershirt with the words “Freedom for Papa” printed in Spanish.

The gesture garnered international support and increased pressure on the Colombian government to act. Mane was released after being held for 12 days, and father and son had an emotional embrace when they reunited.

This week, Díaz’s father posted a viral video of himself praying over his son’s jersey ahead of his first World Cup game.

Díaz, who now plays for Bayern Munich, scored the go-ahead goal shortly after Uzbekistan equalized to lift Colombia to its first World Cup victory since 2018 while his father watched from the stands.

“I think there was always something that kept us from being at ease,” Díaz said. “I think that today, I am at my best.”

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Jack Little is a student in the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.

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

Luis Díaz had a goal and an assist in his debut on soccer's biggest stage, sparking Colombia to a 3-1 win over Uzbekistan on Wednesday night.

“That’s what we came here to do. It’s very important to win this first game. We controlled the first half, but they played better in the second,” said Díaz, who plays for Bayern Munich. “We must improve.”

Daniel Muñoz, also playing in his first World Cup, opened the scoring in the 40th minute after a pass from Díaz, who scored the tiebreaking goal in the 65th when his strike from close range deflected off the hands of diving goalkeeper Utkir Yusupov and trickled across the line.

“We knew that it was going to be a tough match,” Colombia coach Nestor Lorenzo said.

Fayzullaev Abbosbek scored in the 60th minute for Uzbekistan, which made its World Cup debut in front of a heavily pro-Colombia crowd of 80,824 at Estadio Azteca.

“It is a wonderful joy, but emotionally, I think it weighed on some of the players who suffered physically,” Lorenzo said. “It has to do with the emotional burden generated by the opening match and the setting in which we played — especially since we were expected to take the initiative and were under pressure to win.”

With the White Wolves' defeat, three of the four debuting teams at this year's World Cup lost their first match. Cape Verde played Spain to a draw, while Curaçao and Jordan lost.

“For a small team like ours, to lose 3-1 is too much,” said Uzbekistan coach Fabio Cannavaro, an Italian who took over the team in October 2025. “We have good quality for an Asian team, but we need to grow. It was a good experience.”

Jaminton Campaz added a goal in second-half stoppage time for the Colombians, who are ranked 13th in the world and were heavy favorites over 50th-ranked Uzbekistan. Colombia's best World Cup finish was a run to the quarterfinals in Brazil in 2014.

“We needed to hit the ground running. Now we can enjoy the rest of the night,” midfielder Gustavo Puerta said.

Colombia moved atop Group K, ahead of Portugal and Congo, who played to a surprising 1-1 draw earlier Wednesday.

The Colombians will face Congo next Thursday at Guadalajara, Mexico, while Uzbekistan will take on Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal at Houston.

“We are going to play against a tough team that played great against one of the best teams in the world. It is going to be hard,” Lorenzo said.

Colombia finished third in South American qualifying behind Argentina and Ecuador. Uzbekistan was second in its Asian qualifying group behind Iran.

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

Always a darling of the far left, he has earned praise from both President Donald Trump and former Democratic critics like New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. He has emerged as the face of the region's sports renaissance. And days before New York's primary elections, Mamdani is testing the limits of his newfound political muscle in a bid to reshape the Democratic Party — in his state capital and in Washington — even if it means challenging his own party's leadership.

Mamdani will join Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. at a get-out-the-vote rally in Brooklyn on Thursday. The event is designed to elevate a slate of candidates aligned with Mamdani's values, including two running against Democratic incumbents in Tuesday's primary.

“He’s seeing that opportunity — that we can radically change the Democratic Party,” said Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser to Sanders and a friend of Mamdani's. “Like Bernie, he's not saying I'm doing this out of spite against you, dear leadership. He's saying, I am supporting these candidates who have a better vision, and I am prepared to lose if it has to be the case.”

The Mamdani slate

Establishment Democrats are not pleased with the mayor's decisions.

Mamdani endorsed political organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in New York's 13th District, which includes parts of upper Manhattan and the Bronx.

He is also backing former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running against incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in New York's 10th District. And in New York's 7th, he's supporting democratic socialist state Assembly Member Claire Valdez against outgoing Rep. Nydia Velazquez’s handpicked successor.

The Mamdani slate, in addition to several state Assembly candidates, will be featured at Thursday's rally.

Valdez says the election is about advancing the political movement Mamdani ignited on his way to City Hall.

“Right now there’s really mass dissatisfaction with the way the party leadership has been operating and not standing up strongly enough to Trump,” she told The Associated Press, contrasting the malaise to the way the mayor energized voters last year.

She said she hopes to “bring a partner to Zohran to Washington.”

Valdez's primary opponent, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, said he feels like the underdog in the race, even though he was endorsed by the outgoing incumbent. He said Mamdani “has a celebrity status that we haven’t seen the likes of since I’ve been alive.”

“He’s going to be our champion for the foreseeable future and he’s doing a great job, and when he says that he’s endorsing someone, it matters,” Reynoso said in an interview. “I believe that this community has seen me work, they know I’m a progressive champion, and in any other circumstance I would be a favorite to win this race, but I’m not because he has tipped the scale.”

The candidates are largely aligned on the biggest issues, although there are modest differences.

Israel’s war with Gaza has featured heavily among the Mamdani slate, with Lander, Valdez and Avila Chevalier casting their Democratic opponents as too soft on Israel. They're echoing the mayor’s steadfast criticism of the country’s leaders and harnessing what they believe could be a driving force in this year’s elections.

The mayor’s candidates have also sought to replicate much of the platform that sent him to City Hall, focusing on the city’s high cost of living and framing themselves as fresh faces not beholden to powerful business interests.

The view from Washington

On Capitol Hill, Democrats are pleasantly surprised that Mamdani has become less of a political liability for the party in swing district seats than they once feared.

But Mamdani’s endorsements have aggravated intraparty fissures, especially among moderates who worry that Mamdani's far-left brand may eventually tarnish the entire party.

And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a fellow New Yorker, has tried to push back against the Mamdani-backed democratic socialist challengers, endorsing and campaigning for the embattled incumbents in a proxy fight with the mayor.

But Jeffries and Mamdani have opted to wrestle only in primaries rather than bicker publicly and feed into GOP narratives of Democratic disarray.

“Democrats must understand, and both the leader and Mamdani appreciate this, how to yell in areas where we agree and whisper in areas where we diverge,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist who works with House Democrats.

For now, Jeffries' allies acknowledge that Mamdani has energized Democratic voters and may be able to reach some Americans who have checked out of the political process. They also prefer that Mamdani is hyper-focused on New York City’s governance rather than traveling across the country nationally.

Republicans, however, have plans to elevate Mamdani's profile whether Washington Democrats want them to or not.

The GOP hasn't made Mamdani a central feature of its broader national messaging as it once threatened, but Republican operatives have sought to link Mamdani to Democratic House candidates in swing districts across California, Colorado and Wisconsin. They also believe the specter of the New York City mayor will loom large in pivotal House races in New York and New Jersey.

The Republican bet is that vulnerable Democrats cannot afford to break with Mamdani too cleanly for fear of alienating progressive voters, even as they cast him as a radical.

“Zohran Mamdani’s socialist brand is as toxic as it comes,” said Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, House Republicans’ campaign arm. “And during a time when Democrats don’t have a leader or a message, he’s exactly the kind of bogeyman we can use against Democrats to truly show who is leading their party and the crazy policies they all support.”

Meanwhile, Sanders' adviser Shakir encouraged the Republicans to try. He noted that Sanders mentions Mamdani in almost every speech as he tours the nation rallying voters ahead of the midterms.

“The crowd just goes nuts,” Shakir said. “He certainly is not a political liability.”

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Brown reported in Washington.

The phenomenon is particularly notable among Western European teams, which for most of soccer’s history were overwhelmingly white and Christian. As those societies have increasingly diversified, so have the national team rosters — featuring Christian and Muslim players who are open about their faith.

England’s national squad, for the first time, includes a Muslim player. France’s roster has multiple players from Protestant, Catholic and Muslim backgrounds. Spain’s emerging superstar, 18-year-old Lamine Yamal, is a practicing Muslim. So is Sweden’s Yasin Ayari, who prostrated himself on the field to thank God after the first of his two goals in a victory Sunday over Tunisia — his father’s homeland.

All four of those nations — like several others in Europe — have experienced political polarization related to the arrival of large numbers of Muslim immigrants. Does the diversity of the World Cup teams send a potentially helpful message?

“Absolutely,” said Eboo Patel, who — as president of Interfaith America — advocates for religious pluralism and cooperation. “It is symbolic yet also substantive.”

He evoked the images of Christian players crossing themselves, and Muslim players cupping their hands in prayer. Their message, Patel said, is, “My identity really matters to me and it makes me a better soccer player.”

“They score, they each say their respective prayers, and then they’re hugging each other,” he added. “You’re cooperating to build a community and a team. … It’s not a contrived television ad or a condescending afterschool special. It’s the way you build an excellent soccer team.”

These are some of the World Cup players whose openness about their faith has drawn attention:

Mohamed Salah (Egypt)

By far the best known of Egypt’s players, Salah is a Sunni Muslim who practices his faith openly, on and off the field. After scoring goals, he often prostrates himself to give thanks to God. His positive impact has been tangible: After he joined Liverpool in the Premier League, researchers reported that anti-Muslim tweets by fans dropped by half.

Luka Modrić (Croatia)

Playing in his fifth World Cup, Modrić, 40, is set to surpass 200 international appearances during the tournament. A Catholic, Modrić has often worn shin guards depicting Jesus and the Virgin Mary. A few days before he and his teammates traveled to the United States, they gathered to celebrate Mass at a chapel in the Croatian town of Icici.

Djed Spence (England)

Although the Football Association has not kept records of players' religions, the BBC — among other news outlets — has identified Spence as the first Muslim to play for the senior England team. A fullback with Tottenham, Spence played six times for England’s under-21 squad. “It’s good to make history and hopefully inspire young kids around the world that they can make it as well,” Spence told the BBC. “They can do what I am doing.”

Lamine Yamal (Spain)

Yamal, a Muslim whose father is Moroccan, attracted headlines worldwide when he waved the Palestinian flag during Barcelona’s celebrations after it won the Spanish league in May. Barcelona coach Hansi Flick questioned the decision at the time; Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, later criticized Yamal by saying he was inciting “hate.”

Marc Guéhi (England)

The son of a Christian minister in London, Guéhi, 25, is playing his first season with Manchester City and was selected to be one of England’s defenders for the World Cup. While captain at his previous club Crystal Palace, Guéhi defied the Football Association’s rules by writing religious messages on his uniform during a Premier League campaign celebrating LGBTQ+ inclusion. Guéhi avoided punishment, though the FA prohibits players from displaying religious messages.

Aimar Sher (Iraq)

Religious minorities have long faced persecution in Iraq. Yet this year’s World Cup team includes Kurds, Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, and several Christians — notable since Iraq’s Christian population is estimated to have fallen from 1.5 million in 2003 to about 150,000 now. One of those Christians, midfielder Aimar Sher, has eagerly shared his faith, posting photos on social media of him wearing an “I Belong to Jesus” T-shirt.

Christian Pulisic (US)

U.S. forward Pulisic has spoken openly about his Christian faith and often wears a cross necklace given by his mother. He has led team Bible studies; his Instagram posts have included photos of the Bible, showing passages he has underlined. Several of Pulisic’s teammates also are open about their Christian faith, including Weston McKennie and goalkeeper Matt Freese. McKennie’s Instagram bio contains just four words: “All glory to God.”

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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.

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

On Wednesday, it was the youngsters’ turn to take the spotlight at the draft.

In being selected first overall by the Vancouver Goldeneyes, U.S. national team and Wisconsin defender Caroline Harvey kicked off a parade of 14 2026 Olympians — five of them Americans — taking downtown Detroit's Fox Theater stage during the six-round event.

The draft class was regarded as the league’s deepest and most talented and was one of the reasons behind the PWHL adding four new markets, growing to 12 teams entering its fourth season. It's also why Harvey experienced nerves before finally hearing her name called.

“There’s always this, you have no idea until you officially hear it,” said Harvey, who kicked off the day being named the International Ice Hockey Federation's female player of the year.

“This draft class is just so deep and so many phenomenal players. Anyone could get picked at any time,” she added. “It’s just a surreal feeling, and I had no idea. I mean it could have been anyone. But I’m grateful to have my name called.”

Draft features tears and cheers

The draft was held in one of the PWHL’s new markets and featured its share of tears and cheers.

Seated next to Harvey, Laila Edwards grew emotional while congratulating her longtime friend and teammate upon being selected.

“It caught me off guard. After I gave her a hug I started crying, and I couldn’t stop,” said Edwards, who was chosen fourth by San Jose. The 22-year-old Edwards is from Cleveland, and became the first Black player selected in the first round of the PWHL draft.

As for the cheers, they rang out any time Detroit or Knight — the expansion team’s star addition — were mentioned. And the biggest roar in the packed theater was heard when Detroit finally made its first selection in the second round by choosing Switzerland Olympic goalie Andrea Brandli.

The 29-year-old Brandli’s selection was key for Detroit, with GM Manon Rheaume — a former goalie — growing nervous because she had had yet to fill the position.

As for the welcome she received, Rheaume said: “I got like emotional walking there ... And I think everybody felt it, every player that was getting drafted.”

This was the atmosphere the PWHL has become accustomed to generating while growing its brand in the wake of the Americans’ thrilling 2-1 overtime win over Canada in the Olympic final. The win created a surge of attention for women's hockey in North America, with Knight and gold medal-clinching goal-scorer Megan Keller appearing on Saturday Night Live.

“Milan was just one of those amazing things that keeps happening to us,” PWHL executive board member Stan Kasten told The Associated Press. “You see what the city of Detroit is going to do for this team, right? We just think the more people that get exposed, the more fans we make.”

Americans fill top 5 selections

On Wednesday, Americans swept the top five picks and made up nine of 12 first-round selections, with the 23-year-old Harvey continuing to cement her reputation as her generation’s most accomplished player.

She’s a two-time Olympian and was the tournament MVP in Milan. At Wisconsin, she won three NCAA titles and capped her four-year career winning the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as college hockey’s MVP.

From Pelham, New Hampshire, Harvey is the second American player to go No. 1 after Minnesota chose Taylor Heise in the league’s inaugural draft in 2023.

“She’s actually just at the start of her career, which is crazy, and she’s coming in with all these accolades,” Goldeneyes GM Cara Gardner Morey said, before emphasizing the priority PWHL teams place on defense. “To have one of the best ones in the country, in North America, probably in the world right now is pretty special.”

Fellow U.S. Olympians followed with Minnesota forward Abbey Murphy chosen second by Seattle, Penn State forward Tessa Janecke going third to Las Vegas. After Edwards went fourth, Wisconsin forward Kirsten Simms rounded them out, going eighth to Toronto.

“It’s a little bittersweet,” Simms said of watching many of her Badgers’ teammates go their separate ways. “I’m just happy for all of them. They’re unbelievable players and unbelievable people and so every team is super lucky. But, obviously, I’m gonna miss them.”

Finland national team defender Nelli Laitinen was the first European player selected, going No. 6 to Hamilton. The first Canadian selected was Ohio State defender Sara Swiderski, who went ninth overall to Minnesota.

Overall, 31 Americans and 30 Canadians were among the 72 players selected with Finland having four.

Las Vegas lands 3 of top 13 selections

Las Vegas finished having three picks among the top 13. Janecke was selected with the pick Las Vegas acquired in trading Knight to Detroit. Las Vegas then used its fifth pick to select Wisconsin's Lacey Eden, women's college hockey's leading scorer last season. The team then traded forward Abby Boreen back to Vancouver to acquire the Goldeneyes' first pick of the second round and select Princeton forward Issy Wunder.

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AP women’s hockey: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-hockey

The Spokane County Sheriff's Office announced Wednesday that its forensic unit found what appeared to be human remains inside a home destroyed in the fire. A family member had requested a wellness check at the home because one of the residents had refused to evacuate and could not be reached, officials said in a news release. They were working to confirm whether authorities found human remains, and if so, identify who they were and how they died.

Authorities have not reported any injuries.

Many people living in the densely populated neighborhoods had to flee on a moment's notice — sometimes after an officer knocked on their door — leaving behind belongings and in some cases, critical medications, Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels said during a news conference.

People were being escorted Wednesday by an officer to their homes one-by-one to access those essential needs, but then they were taken back out, Nowels said.

The evacuation order for the 1,500 residents remained in effect Wednesday, said Chandra Fox, deputy director for Spokane County Emergency Management.

“Our concern is for increased winds Wednesday afternoon,” Fox said.

The blaze started just after noon on Tuesday and quickly moved up a hill, said fire district spokesman Robert Gray. Winds then shifted, sending flames into a neighborhood, Gray said. Spokane is about 280 miles (450 kilometers) east of Seattle near the border with Idaho.

John Leavell, battalion chief with the Spokane Valley Fire Department, was one of the first people to spot the fire. He said he was driving near Interstate 90 when he saw a column of smoke.

“As I approached it, I thought this is going to be a big event — this is going fast,” he said. “It looked like waves of fire going up the hill.”

He pulled into a driveway and found a house fully engulfed in flames, so he contacted surrounding agencies and the local fire district took over while his crew started building fire lines, he said. Leavell said he didn't know if they fire began at the house or quickly consumed it. The cause is still under investigation.

Fire crews from Washington state and Idaho attacked the fire from the ground and air, but it quickly grew to 225 acres (.35 square miles). It was 10% contained Wednesday morning, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Avista turned off power for the area as the fire progressed for the safety of firefighters. It remained off Wednesday in some areas.

The weather was working in the firefighters’ favor.

Winds were lighter on Wednesday and were expected to decrease after sunset, according to Rachael Fewkes, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Spokane. The temperature also dropped a few degrees from the mid-80s on Tuesday to a high of 80 on Wednesday, she said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Wednesday that they authorized the use of Fire Management Assistance Grant funds to help with firefighting costs for the Spokane blaze. The regional FEMA director said the fire had the potential to constitute a major disaster. Besides threatening homes, it also threatened a school, power lines, parks, businesses and wildlife.

FEMA said this was the first fire grant awarded this season to fight a Washington wildfire.

More than 32,000 fires have burned more than 3,900 square miles (10,100 square kilometers) so far this year in the United States, according to the fire center, which coordinates the mobilization of large-scale firefighting efforts.

That’s significantly higher than the 10-year average of just under 24,000 fires burning about 2,200 square miles (5,700 square kilometers) by early June, according to the fire center, even though fire activity has been relatively light in recent weeks.

Weather and fuel models that predict conditions like wind, lightning and how likely plants and other materials are to burn also show an increased danger of fires in multiple areas across the U.S. in coming weeks, according to the fire center. Some regions with critical conditions for fire include portions of California, and the Southwest, Great Basin and Rocky Mountain areas.

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Bellisle reported from Seattle. Associated Press journalists Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed reporting.