Africa imported 44,358 electric vehicles from China in 2025, according to data from China’s Commerce Ministry, up from 19,386 in 2024. The shipments, valued at over $200 million, highlight growing demand, especially in Ethiopia after it banned new imports of gas and diesel-powered vehicles in 2024.

More than 115,000 EVs are now on Ethiopia's roads, accounting for about 8% of the national fleet. In 2025, it imported a third of Africa’s imports from China, ahead of other major markets in South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria.

As the Iran war drags on, Ethiopia’s fuel shortages are rippling through transport systems and daily life, reinforcing its effort to cut costly imports of oil and gas and strengthen its energy security. However that trend is raising questions about charging infrastructure and affordability.

Ethiopia’s spends about $4.2 billion on fuel imports annually, straining its foreign currency reserves.

Its minister of Trade and Regional Integration, Kassahun Gofe, said in a statement that the country also is spending up to $128 million monthly on fuel subsidies, while shipments fell short by more than 180,000 metric tons as the imports are disrupted by Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping route for about a fifth of oil from the Gulf region before the war.

The government has redoubled its campaign for quicker EV adoption, framing it as a critical buffer against external supply shocks.

“From a general perspective, it is sustainable,” said Hiten Parmar, executive director of South African- based The Electric Mission. “By replacing imported fuel with domestically generated electricity, Ethiopia is strengthening its energy security position.”

Ethiopia has an edge

Ethiopia has a special advantage in that more than 90% of its electricity comes from renewable sources, mainly hydro and solar. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Africa's largest hydroelectric project, is expected to double its power generation, though the facility and has fueled a decade-long dispute over water supplies with downstream Egypt and Sudan.

“That scale of generation creates a foundation for electrified transport,” Parmar said. “It allows EVs to be powered by locally produced clean energy, rather than costly imports.”

“By gradually adopting EVs, that intensive fuel import expenditure can be reduced and redirected into other critical development needs,” Parmar said.

Globally, the International Energy Agency estimates electric vehicles displaced more than 1 million barrels of oil consumption per day in 2024.

Countries across Africa are pushing for more EVs

Egypt, South Africa and Morocco also are pursuing a transition to EV use, adopting a mix of policy incentives, investing in manufacturing capacity and in clean energy.

“That transition is beginning to ease pressure on fuel demand,” said Bob Wesonga, policy and investments lead at the Africa E-Mobility Alliance.

“That’s over 100,000 vehicle owners who are no longer directly exposed to pump price shocks,” he said. “In the medium to long term, this creates a buffer against global oil volatility.”

For those who have switched, the savings are significant.

“A private EV owner now spends roughly $4 a month on charging compared to about $27 previously spent on fuel,” Wesonga said. “For public transport operators, the difference is even more striking.”

Charging stations and other infrastructure are still lacking

The transition to EVs faces some daunting structural hurdles, Parmar notes.

“The technology is already mature, the challenge is building it out fast enough,” he said.

Ethiopia is deploying ultra-fast charging hubs in its capital Addis Ababa, but scaling them nationwide will take time and investment.

“The biggest hurdle is the last-mile power distribution,” Wesonga said. “While Ethiopia has a surplus of generation, getting that power reliably to where it’s needed, especially outside Addis Ababa, remains a challenge.”

Frequent blackouts and delays in connecting high-capacity charging stations have slowed construction of needed infrastructure, even as demand for electric vehicles rises.

“Charging infrastructure is still heavily concentrated in the capital and along a few corridors,” Wesonga said. “That limits e-mobility to specific areas and creates a bottleneck as adoption grows.”

Plans to assemble EVs raise question of affordability

Ethiopia is one of several countries in Africa looking to build their own EV industries. Official data show 17 electric vehicle assembly plants are in the pipeline in Ethiopia, with plans to raise that number to 60 by 2030. It's part of a broader strategy to localize production and reduce costs.

Affordability, however, remains a major constraint. While operating costs are lower, prices of electric vehicles remain high relative to average incomes.

“The purchase price is still out of reach for many,” Wesonga said. “At the same time, restrictions on fossil fuel vehicles have pushed up the cost of used cars, creating additional barriers.”

That dynamic could have unintended social impacts if not managed carefully.

“A national fleet transition is always gradual,” Parmar said. “Existing combustion vehicles will remain in use for some time, and the transition needs to account for livelihoods tied to that system.”

Even so, both experts say the long-term trajectory remains clear. Lower operating and maintenance costs for electric vehicles could reduce transport costs over time, easing the price of goods and improving access to economic opportunities.

Ethiopia is also looking to lessons from countries such as China and Norway, where policy support, infrastructure investment and consumer incentives have driven rapid adoption.

“This is not just about transport,” Wesonga said. “It’s about reshaping how the country uses energy, and who benefits from that shift.”

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

"I grabbed three of them,” Baltimore Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said before a 4-3 loss to the Athletics.

Shakur was raised in New York and Baltimore before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s. He lived in Oakland, California, in the early 1990s, which made Friday's matchup between the Orioles and Athletics an appropriate time to honor the rap icon, who was killed in 1996. The familiar riff from “California Love” was played while the starting lineup for the A's — who left Oakland before last season — was being announced.

Albernaz mentioned “Pain” when asked his favorite Tupac song.

“This is back on — I'm dating myself — Napster or LimeWire, trying to download that,” Albernaz said.

He also said “All Eyez On Me” best encapsulates the current Baltimore team.

Everyone on the Orioles' active roster was born in 1989 or later, so it wasn't immedately clear if the players were familiar with Shakur's music.

“I hope so,” Albernaz said. “I probably should ask around about that.”

Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur, Tupac's sister, threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

The game drew 39,311 fans, the most for a Baltimore home game since opening day.

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Ben Stiller attracted a crowd at halftime, and Tracy Morgan cheered for another Knicks win, too.

No this wasn't Celebrity Row at Madison Square Garden.

The Hollywood A-listers — and yes, just your average Knicks fans — crashed Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on Friday night to watch New York beat the 76ers 108-94.

Oh, it wasn't all orange and blue and well-heeled celebrities in Philadelphia.

The Sixers still boasted the bulk of the fans — though there was a sizable contingent of Knicks supporters — and the spirited crowd included fans who received tickets donated by the franchise to community groups in the Sixers' latest attempt to keep more of their own fans in the building and avoid a New York takeover.

Lee gleefully reminisced about the time he saw the Knicks win their first NBA championship on May 8, 1970 — exactly 56 years earlier.

Most of the Knicks fans were just happy to get a chance to travel roughly 90 miles south of MSG to Xfinity Mobile Arena — no matter how hard the Sixers tried to shoo them away.

The Sixers had already tried to ward off Knicks fans in this playoff series through Ticketmaster by geographically restricting sales to fans in the greater Philadelphia area.

Knicks fan Lenny Rakhmanov of Brooklyn had a workaround to the geo-fencing barrier.

He phoned a friend.

“I bought my tickets off Ticketmaster,” he said. “I did have trouble. I have a friend in Philly and he got the tickets for me and sent them to me through Ticketmaster. They told me while I was trying to make the purchase from my office in New York, you had to be a Philly resident to purchase the tickets.”

Rakhmanov said he spent $800 per ticket for three seats in Section 123, and brought his 11- and 8-year-old sons.

“I can't even believe that they're trying to keep fans out,” he said. “It's part of sports. If their team was on the road, and they were up in the series, and they wanted their fans in the building, why would they want to stop that?”

The Sixers said 250 medical workers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine and 250 local educators selected by Learn Fresh, Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia, the Philadelphia school district and Camden, New Jersey, school district would attend Game 3 on Friday night.

The 76ers plan to host 500 mothers and children selected by Uplift Center for Grieving Children, Boys and Girls Club of Philadelphia, La Liga del Barrio and Apologues for Sunday's Game 4.

The Knicks lead the series 3-0 and can advance to the conference finals by winning Game 4 on Sunday.

Mikal Bridges, a Philadelphia native who starred at Villanova, scored 23 points for the Knicks in front of a loud cheering section.

“I spent a lot of money,” Bridges said. “I think my friends and family are pretty grateful.”

When the teams met two years ago in the first round, Knicks fans swarmed Philadelphia, and Sixers All-Star center Joel Embiid pleaded with fans ahead of this series not to let it happen again.

“Last time we played the Knicks it felt like this was Madison Square Garden East. So we’re going to need the support,” Embiid said. “Don’t sell your tickets. This is bigger than you. We need you guys. The atmosphere we’ve had the last couple games in Philly, especially the last one pushing it to Game 7, I mean, we need all of it.”

Embiid was booed when he went to the free-throw line in the first half, and Knicks fans roared when he missed the shot.

Moments later, Jalen Brunson went to the free-throw line and “MVP!” chants were quickly muffled by Sixers fans who booed the former Villanova standout.

It was that kind of night.

On the resale market, SeatGeek said buyers from New York and Pennsylvania were nearly even, with 27% of tickets sold to New York billing addresses and 26% to Pennsylvania buyers. Another 21% were from New Jersey, suggesting that Knicks fans were slightly more motivated to get to the game.

For Sunday’s Game 4, the New York share ticks up a bit further: 33% for New York vs. 17% for Pennsylvania.

Former Sixers standout Marc Jackson visited Camden’s Pride Elementary School ahead of the game and surprised teachers with Game 3 tickets.

That seemed like a big win, no matter which team fans rooted for in Philly.

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

Former Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares called the decision a victory for the rule of law, while Democrat Trish White-Boyd, who led redistricting efforts, expressed disappointment and concern over broader national implications.

Miyares: ‘A win for the rule of law’

Miyares praised the ruling, arguing the original redistricting effort would have unfairly benefited Democrats.

“This was not a partisan ruling, it was a win for common sense and saying that we have to follow the rule of law — if you’re gonna amend the constitution you can’t do it illegally,” Miyares said.

Miyares added that Virginia’s current congressional maps — which are split 6-5 — have been recognized as among the fairest in the country.

“At the end of the day we’re gonna go back to a map that we currently have in Virginia that nonpartisan observers have said is the fairest map in the entire country — it reflects communities of interest,” he said.

“Politicians should not be picking their voters, voters should be picking their politicians,” Miyares added.

White-Boyd: Court ‘failed to reflect what voters wanted’

White-Boyd, who served as senior advisor for Virginians for Fair Elections, said she was blindsided by the court’s decision.

“I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” she said.

White-Boyd argued the ruling carries implications well beyond Virginia, as states across the country implement or consider redistricting ahead of the midterm elections.

“This referendum was for the entire country to bring back balance of power, and so far that has not happened, and with this ruling it may or may not happen,” White-Boyd said.

She expressed frustration that the court did not appear to reflect the will of Virginia voters.

“We just felt like the Supreme Court would answer to the voters who said we wanted this map drawn the way it was, and they didn’t do that, so I was very disappointed,” White-Boyd said.

“We were concerned about all of America, and we thought this would give us an opportunity to level the playing field,” she added.

National redistricting landscape

The Virginia ruling comes as several states across the country have already redrawn their congressional maps ahead of the midterms.

States including Texas, Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina have implemented new congressional maps that add up to nine additional Republican seats. In California, Democrats gained five seats, and one additional seat in Utah, for a total of six new Democratic seats.

While the Supreme Court ruling is final, the debate over redistricting is far from over as multiple states look to redraw their maps ahead of the midterm elections.

According to the sheriff’s office, Debra Daniel is 5′7 with brown/gray hair last seen on the 29 bypass, northbound, nearing the Town of Amherst.

Anyone with information regarding her whereabouts is asked to call the Amherst County Sheriff’s Office at 434-946-9300.

Game 4 is Sunday in Philadelphia.

With 2016 and 2018 Villanova national championship banners hanging in the rafters, the so-called Nova Knicks all took turns taking the fight out of the Sixers in the fourth quarter, turning a four-point lead into another double-digit victory

Josh Hart had 12 points and 11 rebounds and Mikal Bridges added 23 points, pushing the Knicks and first-year coach Mike Brown within one victory of their second straight conference finals appearance.

The Knicks have the luxury not to rush back forward OG Anunoby, who's averaging 21.4 points per game in the postseason. He sat out with a strained right hamstring and remains day to day.

Joel Embiid scored 18 points for the Sixers in his return after he missed Game 2 with a sprained right ankle and a sore right hip.

Embiid's return from an appendectomy helped spur the Sixers' rally from a 3-1 deficit in the opening round to stun the Celtics.

Beating the Knicks four straight times — including twice in New York — seems like a much harder hill to climb for Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and the Sixers.

Kelly Oubre Jr. scored 22 points and Maxey added 17.

The Sixers tried to pull off the win in front of A-list Knicks fans and thousands from the five boroughs and beyond who circumvented Philadelphia’s ticket-buying tricks and filled the arena with “Let’s go Knicks!” chants in the waning moments.

The 76ers gamely tried to make it a series. Quintin Grimes hit his first two 3s of the game early in the fourth to trim the lead to 88-84.

The familiar faces in Philly — Brunson, Hart and Bridges all played for Villanova — seized control of the game.

Hart and Bridges made consecutive baskets that pushed the lead to 92-84. Brunson, the stone-cold shooter built for these moments, buried a 3 from the top of the arc that made it 95-86 during a 9-0 Knicks run, to the delight of the visiting fans.

Embiid openly pleaded with fans ahead of the series not to sell their tickets to New Yorkers.

“Don’t sell your tickets,” Embiid said ahead of the series. “This is bigger than you. We need you guys.”

Celebrity Row regulars at Madison Square Garden, Spike Lee, Timothée Chalamet, Tracy Morgan and Ben Stiller all made the trip to Philadelphia — along with thousands of less famous Knicks fans — and the split crowd erupted in cheers, boos and the occasional middle finger on just about every basket.

Chalamet rose from his seat and applauded when Landry Shamet buried a late 3 in the third that stretched the lead to 85-76. Shamet had 14 points this entire postseason before he scored 15 in Game 3.

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

Mike Matheson, Alexandre Carrier and Nick Suzuki, with an empty-netter, also scored for the Canadiens. Rookie goalie Jakub Dobes made 27 saves, and Montreal extended its trend of alternating wins and losses after doing so in a seven-game first-round series win over Tampa Bay.

Montreal advanced to the second round on Newhook's game-winner 11:07 into the third period of a 2-1 series-clinching win on Sunday. Meantime, the Canadiens' top offensive threats continue to struggle. Cole Caufield extended his point drought to five games, while Juraj Slafkovsky has one assist in his past eight outings.

Zach Benson scored for Buffalo, but Alex Lyon allowed four goals on 27 shots. He previously allowed seven goals in six-plus appearances since replacing Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who was was pulled after two periods in a 4-2 loss to Boston in Game 2 of their first-round series.

The series shifts to Montreal for Game 3 on Sunday night.

It’ll be the Canadiens' first trip home after being on the road since traveling to Tampa Bay last weekend. The team stayed in Florida for two days before flying directly to Buffalo on Tuesday.

The Sabres dropped to 2-3 at home this postseason, but they won all three games — including the Game 6 series clincher — at Boston.

After falling behind 2-0 in the first period of Game 1, Montreal flipped the script.

Peyton Krebs’ turnover in Buffalo’s zone led to Newhook scoring at 1:36 by sneaking a shot under Lyon’s blocker arm. Matheson scored 2:51 later by floating in a shot from the left point that beat Lyon over his right shoulder.

Buffalo’s power play came up empty on five chances after going 2 for 3 in Game 1. The Sabres have converted just three of 32 power-play opportunities this postseason.

Newhook’s second goal, scored 4:47 into the second period, came four seconds after the Sabres' power play failed to register a shot with Carrier off for hooking.

Carrier’s goal 3:54 into the third was emblematic of Buffalo's evening. With the Sabres buzzing the Montreal net, Tage Thompson kept the puck in at the right point only to lose his balance and spin down to the ice. Carrier picked up the loose puck and scored to put Montreal up 4-1.

Benson whiffed on a tip-in chance two minutes later. In the first period, Buffalo’s Alex Tuch had the puck roll off his stick while attempting a shot breaking up the right wing, and Jack Quinn shot over the top of the net after being set up alone in the slot.

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Three forensic document examiners who reviewed the notes at the request of The Associated Press concluded that they have or appear to have common authorship, with shared characteristics such as the same spacing, letter shapes, usage of capital letters and unique punctuation.

In the first note, made public this week, the writer states: “They investigated me for month — found nothing!!!” and talks about being able to choose the “time to say goodbye.” The other note, which has been public for years, is a list of grievances about conditions at the jail, including the showers, food and “Giant Bugs.”

While no one has definitively said Epstein wrote the notes, they point to his grim outlook before his death and echo some frustrations he conveyed to jail personnel about being confined in the crumbling Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan after living in luxury for decades. They also contain phrases he had used in the past.

Both notes, written in pen on notepad paper, include the underlined phrase “NO FUN” and end with double exclamation points — the first of which is bowed slightly with similar curvature. The first few words of each note are larger than the rest and each successive line slants away from the left margin.

“These are the kinds of things that would suggest that we're dealing with the same writer,” said Thomas Vastrick, the president of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners.

“They are written by the same person,” said Bart Baggett, who founded the forensic analysis firm Handwriting Experts Inc. and has testified in court as an expert witness more than 130 times.

“Both of those documents have the same author,” said Grace Warmbier, who worked for a decade for the New York City Police Department performing document examinations and handwriting analysis.

None of the experts were able to say definitively that Epstein wrote the notes, in part because there are few if any confirmed examples of his handwriting in the millions of pages of records the Justice Department recently released on the late financier.

In addition to the two jail notes, Warmbier and Vastrick also reviewed writing samples from the former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, including part of a note he sent to the New York Daily News in 2019 in which he denied any involvement in Epstein's death.

Warmbier ruled out Tartaglione as the author, finding “significant dissimilarities between his handwriting and the handwriting in question.”

Vastrick said Tartaglione's writing samples had “a wide range of variation from one to another” and that there were at least some similarities that require further examination.

“At this point, I certainly would not eliminate him as a potential writer,” Vastrick said. “I don’t at the same time want to suggest that he is the writer.”

For years, only a few people known about the note that Tartaglione claimed he found. Then, last summer, he mentioned it on writer Jessica Reed Kraus’ podcast. That piqued the interest of writers at The New York Times, who convinced a judge on Wednesday to release the note, which had been sealed in an unrelated case.

Tartaglione, an ex-police officer serving a life sentence for killing four people, said he discovered the note in a book in his cell after Epstein was found on July 23, 2019, on the floor with a strip of bedsheet around his neck. Epstein was placed on suicide watch and moved to a different cell. He had no cellmate when he was found dead on Aug. 10, 2019.

Epstein and Tartaglione shared a cell for about two weeks, beginning soon after Epstein’s July 6, 2019, arrest on sex trafficking charges and ending with the suspected suicide attempt. Both men were awaiting trials.

According to a chronology in the Justice Department's files on Epstein, Tartaglione told his lawyer about the note four days after the suspected July 23 attempt. There is no indication that anyone alerted jail officials or Epstein's representatives.

The note was later submitted as evidence in Tartaglione’s criminal case and placed under seal amid a dispute over his legal representation. It wasn’t mentioned in government reports examining the circumstances of Epstein’s death, nor did it surface in the Justice Department’s files. The other note, found after Epstein's death, was shown on CBS' “60 Minutes” in 2020 and is in the files.

Beyond handwriting analysis, the phrasing of the notes could give clues to their authorship. The note Tartaglione said he found contains the line: “Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!”

Epstein previously referenced that line, mimicking dialogue from a 1931 “Little Rascals” film, in three emails that were included in the Justice Department's files, including one he sent to his brother four months before going to jail.

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Associated Press videojournalist David R. Martin contributed.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org

In addition to GAESA and its leader, the sanctions announced Thursday include Moa Nickel, a Cuban joint venture with Canada's Sherritt International, which immediately announced it would withdraw from the business, ending a 32-year presence on the island.

The May 1 executive order and the new designations announced May 7 significantly expand the legal authority through which the U.S. government can levy sanctions on third-country nationals and firms, explained Lee Schlenker, a research associate at the Quincy Institute’s Global South program, a Washington think tank.

“Not only are they subject to having their assets frozen but their U.S. accounts as well as their travel to the U.S., that of their shareholders, investors or employees,” said Schlenker. “This is bound to have an extremely significant impact of the presence of foreign companies” in Cuba.

Economist Pavel Vidal, a Cuba expert at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia, told The Associated Press that the measures are “very concerning” for an economy already “practically paralyzed.” The U.S. has blocked fuel shipments to Cuba since January, further escalating the island's yearslong economic crisis. Vidal noted that the new sanctions would likely deter GAESA’s remaining partners, saying that “very few will risk defying them.”

The new measures amount to “total isolation,” said Vidal, driven by the fear they instill in international banks, insurers and corporations.

As an expert who has analyzed GAESA’s internal documents, Vidal noted that the conglomerate’s deep reach into nearly every sector of the Cuban economy makes any connection to the island a potential liability under the new U.S. rules.

According to Vidal, GAESA commands nearly 40% of Cuba’s gross domestic product. As of early 2024, the conglomerate held $14.5 billion in liquid reserves, with annual revenues triple the size of the entire Cuban state budget.

Family ties with the Castros

Established in the 1990s under military control, GAESA was the Cuban Armed Forces’ strategic response to the economic collapse that followed the Soviet Union’s fall and the tightening of U.S. sanctions in place at the time.

Despite being state-owned, GAESA’s accounts are exempt from audits by the Office of the Comptroller General. Gladys Bejerano, the entity’s director, admitted to this lack of oversight in a 2024 interview; shortly thereafter, she retired.

For years, until his death in July 2022, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja served as GAESA's general manager. As the son-in-law of former President Raúl Castro, he was a pillar of the family — a legacy continued by his son, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro. While the younger Castro officially serves as his grandfather’s chief bodyguard, he has recently emerged as a pivotal intermediary in sensitive discussions with the U.S.

This week's sanctions also added Ania Guillermina Lastres to the U.S. blacklist. As the successor to López-Calleja, she currently serves as GAESA’s executive president, overseeing the conglomerate’s vast international financial interests.

Based on the limited information available, GAESA oversees dozens of retail outlets — selling everything from food and clothing to home appliances — as well as a sprawling service network that includes car rentals and travel agencies. Notably, it also manages Cuba’s financial institutions, currency exchange bureaus, and the administration of the country’s major hotels.

In remarks to the press Friday, Rubio said the sanctions were not on the Cuban people and he referred to GAESA as a company that “is taking anything that makes money in Cuba and illegally putting it into the pockets of a few regime insiders.”

Cuban authorities maintain that the sanctions constitute “collective punishment” designed to strangle the island’s economy, arguing the Trump administration’s policies show a disregard for the welfare of the Cuban people in favor of political leverage.

The new sanctions on Havana come under the weight of a U.S. energy blockade that has caused sweeping water and power outages along with severe gas and water shortages.

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The vessel is expected to arrive Sunday at the Spanish island of Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa, and passengers will be taken to a “completely isolated, cordoned-off area,” said the head of Spain's emergency services, Virginia Barcones.

Both the U.S. and the U.K. have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens from the cruise ship.

While three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are known to be infected with hantavirus, cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions said Friday there were no people with symptoms of a possible infection on board the Dutch-flagged ship, the MV Hondius.

The World Health Organization considers the risk to the wider public from the outbreak as low.

On Friday, the WHO said a flight attendant on a plane briefly boarded by an infected cruise passenger has tested negative for hantavirus. Her possible infection had raised concerns about the virus’ potential transmissibility.

The flight attendant’s negative result should ease concerns among the public, said Christian Lindmeier, a WHO spokesman. “The risk remains absolutely low,” he said. “This is not a new COVID.”

Hantavirus is usually spread by the inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Health authorities across four continents were tracking down and monitoring more than two dozen passengers who disembarked the ship before the deadly outbreak was detected. They were also scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them.

Passengers on the ship worry about how people will treat them

In interviews with The Associated Press, two Spanish passengers — speaking on condition of anonymity because of fears they’ll be ostracized once on land — said that despite the outbreak, their days aboard have passed with relative tranquility. Some people are bird-watching, and others are gathering in common areas to read or attend talks, while wearing masks and social distancing. Both passengers told AP they’re worried about how they’ll be treated in Spain and once home.

“We’re scared by all the news that’s coming out, by how people are going to receive us, by how people see us,” one said. “We’re just normal people. We’ve heard that this is a millionaires’ cruise, and it’s the complete opposite of reality. And we’re scared by this.”

Officials sought to reassure the public in the Canary Islands about possible exposure to the virus among the general population.

Once the ship reaches Tenerife, passengers will be evacuated in small boats to buses only after their repatriation flights are ready to take them, Spanish officials said Friday. Passengers will be transported in isolated and guarded vehicles, officials said, adding that the parts of the airport they travel through will be cordoned off.

Countries scramble to track passengers who disembarked

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship's operator said Thursday.

It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a ship passenger, the WHO said.

The KLM flight attendant who tested negative for the virus was working on a flight headed from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25, and had later fallen ill.

The cruise passenger briefly aboard that flight — a Dutch woman whose husband died on the ship — was too ill to stay on the international flight to Europe and was taken off the plane in Johannesburg, where she died.

The Dutch public health service is undertaking contact tracing on passengers who had contact with the ill woman before she left the plane.

On Friday, U.K. health authorities said a third British national who had been a passenger on the ship is suspected of being infected with hantavirus. The U.K. Health Security Agency said the person is on the island of Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory in the south Atlantic where the ship stopped in April. There was no word on the condition of the person.

Spanish health officials said Friday a woman in the southeastern Spanish province of Alicante has symptoms consistent with ‌a hantavirus infection and is being tested.

She was a passenger on the same flight as the Dutch woman who died in Johannesburg after traveling on the cruise ship, Secretary of ⁠State for Health Javier Padilla told reporters.

Two other Britons who were on the ship have been confirmed to have the virus. One is hospitalized in the Netherlands and the other in South Africa.

Authorities in South Africa are working to trace contacts of any passengers who previously got off the ship. They have focused mainly on an April 25 flight from the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic to Johannesburg, the day after some passengers disembarked on the island.

Some state officials across the U.S. said they are monitoring a small number of residents who were on the ship and already went home, as well as people who may have come into contact with ship passengers. None has symptoms.

Health officials in the US detail plans for American passengers

The U.S. agreed to send a plane to repatriate about 17 Americans who are still on the ship. Those passengers will be quarantined at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medicine, the hospital said Friday. None have symptoms.

Doctors will determine how long the quarantine will last after assessing the passengers.

The dedicated biocontainment and quarantine unit in Omaha previously was used to treat Ebola patients and some of the first COVID-19 patients. Nebraska Medicine is one of a handful of hospitals in the U.S. with specialized treatment units for people with highly dangerous infectious diseases.

“We are prepared for situations exactly like this,” Dr. Michael Ash, CEO of Nebraska Medicine, said in a statement.

The British government said it will charter a plane to evacuate the nearly two dozen British nationals onboard.

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Associated Press writers Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, Stefanie Dazio in Berlin, David Biller in Rome and Molly Quell in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.

The Hurricanes and the Avalanche have put on a clinic for how to start the race.

The top two teams in the NHL during the regular season, seemingly on a collision course to meet in the Stanley Cup Final, have been performing on the ice with a force to match their natural-disaster-themed nicknames. Neither the Canes nor the Avs have lost a game in these playoffs.

With a 4-1 win at Philadelphia on Thursday to take a 3-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal series, the Hurricanes became the 13th team in NHL history to start a postseason with seven straight wins. Eight of the first 12 won the Stanley Cup.

The Hurricanes will send sizzling goalie Frederik Andersen out for Game 4 on Saturday to try to finish off the Flyers, seeking a sweep that would give them the league's first 8-0 start in the playoffs since 1985.

“I would anticipate we’re going to give it our best, because we’re going to need to,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We’re not going to win if we don’t put our best foot forward.”

Only three teams in NHL history have overcome a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series, but plenty of teams have managed to at least force a fifth game.

“The fourth one is the hardest one to win. No one wants to go home,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “It's going to be a brand-new challenge.”

Only two teams have started the playoffs 7-0 in the last three decades. Colorado, which has already scored 14 goals on Minnesota in their Western Conference semifinal series, would make it two in the same year by winning Game 3 on Saturday night. The NHL gave the Avalanche and Wild three days between games to sync up the schedules of the four ongoing series.

“For our team, the energy and pace that we want to play with on a nightly basis that helps us have success, it doesn’t hurt,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “It doesn’t hurt to be rested and recovered and still get a little practice time in to go out and feel good about your puck touches and your systems and everything. Meetings don’t have to get crammed in. You can take your time and get feedback from the guys."

The Hurricanes, who have made the playoffs in each of eight seasons under Brind’Amour, lost to eventual champion Florida in the Eastern Conference finals last year. They would tie for the 10th-longest winning streak in a single NHL postseason by beating the Flyers on Saturday. Twenty-three teams in league history have won eight or more consecutive playoff games in the same year, and 18 of them won the Stanley Cup.

One of the five that came up short was the 1992 Chicago Blackhawks, who matched the all-time record with 11 straight playoff wins. The Pittsburgh Penguins also staked claim to the record that spring, finishing with a four-game sweep in the Stanley Cup Final.

The Avalanche are aiming to emulate the way the Canes powered through the Philadelphia crowd noise to win a feisty Game 3. Minnesota has not hosted a game this late in the postseason since 2015.

“It will be a rockin’ environment,” Avs goalie Scott Wedgewood said. “That’s what makes playoff so fun, right?”

Carolina Hurricanes at Philadelphia Flyers

When/Where to Watch: Game 4, Saturday, 6 p.m. EDT (TNT, truTV, HBO Max).

Series: Hurricanes lead 3-0.

The Flyers have been unable to solve Carolina's stifling defense, with just three goals in three games. Their league-worst power play during the regular season has carried over, with just one goal in 12 opportunities in this series and a 3-for-29 showing in nine playoff games.

Colorado Avalanche at Minnesota Wild

When/Where to Watch: Game 4, Saturday, 9 p.m. EDT (TNT, truTV, HBO Max).

Series: Avalanche lead 2-0.

The Wild have spent the extra time off trying to shore up their penalty kill, which has been dearly missing center Joel Eriksson Ek and defenseman Jonas Brodin. But after dominating Dallas at even strength in the first round they've also struggled to contain Colorado's high-octane forwards in 5-on-5 situations. Minnesota might go back to rookie goalie Jesper Wallstedt after giving Filip Gustavsson the net for a 5-2 loss in Game 2.

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AP Sports Writers Dan Gelston in Philadelphia and Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this report.

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

Video posted on social media by U.S. Southern Command shows a black, boat-shaped image before what appears to be an explosion, followed by a column of fire rising from the ocean.

Southern Command said it “immediately notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivor.”

The White House announced Wednesday that President Donald Trump has signed off on a new U.S. counterterrorism strategy that sets eliminating drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere as the administration’s highest priority.

The Trump administration’s campaign of blowing up alleged drug-trafficking vessels in Latin American waters, including the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, has gone on since early September and killed at least 193 people in total. The military has not provided evidence that any of the vessels were carrying drugs. The strikes have ramped up again in recent weeks.

At the same time, Trump has sought to press regional leaders to work more closely with the U.S. to target cartels and take military action themselves against drug traffickers and transnational gangs that he says pose an “unacceptable threat” to the hemisphere’s national security.

Critics, meanwhile, have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes.

McIlroy said the answer will likely depend on what happens with LIV's financial situation in the coming months.

Last month, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund pulled the plug on future funding for LIV Golf, which had lured away stars including Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau with lucrative, guaranteed contracts. LIV's uncertain future raises new questions about whether some players should be allowed to return to the PGA Tour — and if so, under what set of rules or penalties.

The PGA Tour recently offered a temporary path back for some LIV players. Five-time major champion Brooks Koepka took advantage of the opportunity.

Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton are among the players who remain under contract with LIV beyond this season.

However, Rahm resolved his financial dispute with the European tour, known commercially as the DP World Tour. That move potentially gives him a place to compete in 2027 and beyond.

“If it is a scenario where they have the option to come back and play on the traditional tours, I think (PGA Tour CEO) Brian Rolapp has said anything that makes this tour stronger, anything that makes the DP World Tour stronger, I think everyone should be open to that,” McIlroy said after finishing his second round at the Truist Championship. “That’s just good business practice.”

For now, McIlroy, like most in golf, is in a wait-and-see mode — although he expressed skepticism about the rival tour raising enough money to continue in its current form.

“They’re going to go and try and find alternative investment, whatever that may look like,” McIlroy said. “But when one of the wealthiest sovereign wealth funds in the world thinks that you’re too expensive for them, that sort of says something.”

McIlroy, the No. 2 player in the world, has become the face of the game along with top-ranked Scottie Scheffler.

He has been an outspoken critic in the past of players who bolted for big paydays that came with joining the Saudi-backed tour.

“Obviously the guys over there are under contract and if they are able to keep it going and get a schedule together next year, it seems like those guys are still going to play the majority of their golf on LIV, in whatever form it takes,” McIlroy said.

DeChambeau’s contract with LIV is up after the season and he has reportedly asked for a new, $500 million deal.

McIlroy has softened his stance on those who moved on to LIV over the years, and reiterated on Friday that he was “probably too judgmental” in his opinions.

But he said LIV is “not for me.”

“I’m not going to judge anyone for not wanting to play on the PGA Tour,” McIlroy said. “I don’t know, does that mean that they go play DP World Tour, maybe; if that’s a pathway, that would make the DP World Tour stronger, and I would be delighted with that.”

But he also questioned why top players would not want to compete against the world's best every week.

“If you want to be the most competitive golfer you can be, this is the place to be,” McIlroy said of the PGA Tour. “And if you don’t want to play here, I think that says something about you.”

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

The two-time Cy Young Award winner is set to rejoin the rotation sooner than anticipated after teammate Tyler Glasnow left a start early this week because of back trouble. Glasnow was placed on the 15-day injured list Friday with low back spasms, and Los Angeles recalled right-hander Paul Gervase from Triple-A Oklahoma City.

Snell missed most of the 2025 regular season because of a lingering shoulder injury, making just 11 starts after signing a $182 million, five-year contract in November 2024. But the left-hander went 3-2 in six postseason games to help the Dodgers win their second consecutive World Series title.

Snell has been on the IL since late March with left shoulder fatigue. He had been scheduled to make one more minor league rehabilitation start for Class A Ontario on Saturday, but instead will face the Braves at Dodger Stadium.

Glasnow exited after one inning against the Houston Astros on Wednesday. He had an MRI that showed “nothing really significant,” manager Dave Roberts said Friday before the opener of a three-game series against Atlanta.

The 32-year-old Glasnow is 3-0 with a 2.72 ERA in seven outings this season.

The 6-foot-10 Gervase, 25, is 2-0 with a 3.65 ERA in nine games for Oklahoma City this year. He made one appearance for the Dodgers last season, striking out two batters in two innings. He also pitched in five games for Tampa Bay, compiling a 4.26 ERA.

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

However, in the Middle East, the shaky ceasefire in the U.S. war with Iran is being strained even further.

The U.S. said it thwarted attacks on three Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz and retaliated against Iranian military facilities. Hours later, U.S. Central Command said its forces disabled two more Iranian tankers that were trying to breach an American blockade on Iran’s ports.

Washington, meanwhile, awaits a response from Tehran in negotiations to end the war.

And in U.S. politics, Republicans are moving quickly to try to capitalize on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that significantly weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minorities. Alabama lawmakers passed a plan Friday for new congressional primaries if courts allow different districts this year, while Virginia’s top court struck down Democrats’ redrawn U.S. House maps, giving Republicans a win.

Here's the latest:

Justice Department sues to block ban on local immigrant detention agreements in New Mexico

The lawsuit says termination of a county agreement for the Otero County Processing Center would drastically limit the state’s capacity “to detain illegal immigrants.”

The county-owned facility — one of three privately operated immigrant detention centers in New Mexico — includes four immigration courtrooms and space for more than 1,000 detainees.

Federal prosecutors said the state and city laws infringe on federal authority by trying to regulate immigration policy and preventing longstanding cooperation between local and federal officials.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the Legislature was within its right in responding to “inadequate medical care, deaths in custody, and conditions that fell well below acceptable standards” at immigration detention facilities.

The Department of Justice has filed similar lawsuits targeting state or city policies seen as interfering with immigration enforcement, including those in Los Angeles, New York City, and Minnesota and cities there.

UN chief calls on all parties to abide by the ceasefire

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern at the reported exchange of fire between Iran and the United States in the Strait of Hormuz, his spokesperson said.

“He underscores that this is a critical moment for de-escalation and urges all sides to exercise maximum restraint to avoid further escalation,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday.

Guterres calls on all parts to refrain from action “that could lead to renewed escalation or undermine ongoing diplomatic efforts,” Dujarric said.

Iran’s envoy urges UN to ‘condemn unequivocally’ the US blockade and attacks on 2 Iranian oil tankers

Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said the “unlawful” U.S. actions “constitute a grave and dangerous escalation that further destabilizes an already fragile region and poses a serious threat to international peace and security.”

The Iranian envoy warned in letters Friday to the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the consequences of U.S. actions in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz “could be catastrophic” and extend far beyond the Middle East.

The U.S. “would bear full responsibility,” Iravani said. The U.S. military said Friday that its forces had disabled two Iranian tankers that were trying to breach an American blockade of Iran’s ports, part of U.S. efforts to get Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz.

He called on the secretary-general and Security Council to urge the U.S. “to comply with its obligations under international law and refrain from further provocative actions.”

Global food prices hit highest level in three years due to Iran war, UN says

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday its food price index was up 2% in April from the prior year, hitting its highest level since 2023. The index tracks international prices for commodities like grain, rice and sugar.

The FAO said vegetable oil saw the biggest increase. Higher crude oil prices are increasing demand from the biofuel industry for seed oils. Concerns about lower production in Southeast Asia is also raising prices, the FAO said.

Wheat prices were up 0.8% due to concerns about drought in the U.S. and Australia as well as high fertilizer prices tied to the war. The FAO said farmers may shift from wheat to less fertilizer-intensive crops this year, which would tighten wheat supplies and raise prices.

Qatar’s top diplomat and the US vice president discuss Mideast negotiations

The tiny, gas-rich Gulf Arab state of Qatar — which hosts the biggest U.S. military base in the Middle East — has a long track record as a mediator between Iran and its regional adversaries.

In March, the kingdom said it was not directly mediating between the U.S. and Iran, however it voiced support for all diplomatic channels to end the war.

In Friday’s meeting in Washington with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who is both Qatar’s prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, expressed the need for all parties to engage with the ongoing mediation efforts that would eventually lead to a “comprehensive agreement that achieves lasting peace” in the region.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Al Thani and Vance reviewed Pakistani mediation efforts aimed at de-escalation, without providing further details.

Vance’s office did not immediately comment on the meeting.

US won’t say whether Iran oil spill was caused by airstrikes

The Pentagon declined to comment Friday on whether there had been recent strikes on Kharg Island, Iran’s main crude export terminal.

Based on the imagery taken earlier this week, the spill occurred before the most recent round of U.S. strikes in the region. Kharg Island is on the other end of the Gulf from the Strait of Hormuz, hundreds of miles away.

Satellite images show oil is still spilling from an Iranian terminal

Satellite images taken Friday show an apparent oil spill covering about 71 square kilometers (27 square miles) off Kharg Island, Iran’s main crude export terminal, said Ami Daniel, CEO of maritime intelligence firm Windward AI.

The slick was first spotted on satellite images Tuesday.

Although the spill’s origin is unknown, cleanup efforts will probably not be launched in waters where the U.S. and Iran have been trading fire, Daniel said.

Nina Noelle, an international crisis operations expert with Greenpeace Germany, said it appears unlikely the spill will impact land, though it could still possibly affect some sensitive marine habitats.

Trump administration appeals court ruling against new global tariffs it imposed after a stinging Supreme Court loss

On Thursday, a split three-judge panel of the Court of International Trade in New York found that Trump’s 10% global tariffs were illegal after small businesses sued.

In a filing Friday, the Justice Department said it would appeal the 2-1 decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. The trade court had ruled that the tariffs are “invalid’’ and “unauthorized by law.’’

At issue are temporary 10% worldwide tariffs the Trump administration imposed after the Supreme Court in February struck down bigger double-digit tariffs the president had imposed last year on almost every country on Earth. The new tariffs, invoked under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, are set to expire July 24.

Trump’s Greenland envoy is expected to make his first visit to Arctic island this month

Later this month, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who is doubling as the president’s special envoy to Greenland, is expected to make his first visit the Danish territory that Trump has said the United States must take over for national security reasons, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The person, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Landry is scheduled to attend Future Greenland, a business conference, in the capital city of Nuuk, but did not provide any further details about the governor’s itinerary.

Trump announced earlier this year he was levying new tariffs against eight European nations to press for U.S. control over Greenland. But he quickly backed off the threat after global markets tanked.

The president has paid scant attention, at least publicly, to Greenland in recent months as he’s focused on the Iran war, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Greenlandic media outlet Sermitsiaq first reported on Landry’s expected visit.

—By Aamer Madhani in Washington

Alabama lawmakers pass plan for new US House primary if courts allow different districts

Republican state senators gave final approval to the legislation on Friday, sending it to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey.

The action in Alabama came on the same day that the Virginia Supreme Court dealt a major setback to Democrats by overturning a redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win as many as four additional House seats.

The Alabama bill could set aside the results of the May 19 primaries, if courts lift an injunction requiring it to use a map with two districts that have large Black populations.

Trump says Russia and Ukraine have agreed to his request for a 3-day ceasefire and a prisoner swap

The U.S. president said Friday that such a halt to hostilities could be the “beginning of the end” of the long war between the two nations.

Trump announced on social media that the ceasefire would run Saturday through Monday. Saturday is Victory Day in Russia, a holiday that commemorates its victory over Nazi Germany 81 years ago in World War II.

Trump says he’s “pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE.” The Republican president said the ceasefire includes a suspension of all kinetic activity and the exchange of 1,000 prisoners by each country.

Democrats had hoped to win as many as 4 additional US House seats under Virginia’s redrawn map

Don Scott, the Democratic speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, said Democrats respect the court’s opinion while noting the voters of the state had approved of the new congressional map.

“We gave this decision to the voters — exactly where it belongs — and they spoke loud and clear,” he said in a statement. “They voted YES because they wanted to fight back against the Trump power grab.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi criticizes recent US military actions against Iran

He said “every time a diplomatic solution is on the table, the U.S. opts for a reckless military adventure.”

In a post on X, Araghchi said “Iranians never bow to pressure” and questioned whether the U.S. actions were a crude pressure tactic or the result of “a spoiler once again duping POTUS.”

Araghchi also boasted that Iran’s missile inventory and launch capacity was at “120%” of prewar levels, attaching a screenshot from a U.S. newspaper report that said the CIA had found Iran managed to retain more of its weaponry after the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign than previously thought.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry says the US strikes were a ‘clear violation’ of the ceasefire

The violence came as Washington awaited a response from Tehran in negotiations to end the war. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters he expects to hear from Iran later Friday.

“I hope it’s a serious offer,” Rubio told reporters. “I really do.”

US military shows smoking oil freighters in latest confrontation with Iran

The U.S. military posted video of two Iranian oil tankers as their smokestacks were struck by an American fighter jet Friday, marking the latest confrontation between the U.S. and Iran.

Both countries exchanged fire off Iran’s coast on Thursday as U.S. Navy warships passed through the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. also disabled another Iranian ship earlier this week.

“U.S. forces in the Middle East remain committed to full enforcement of the blockade of vessels entering or leaving Iran,” Adm. Brad Cooper, the leader of U.S. Central Command, said in a statement.

Virginia Supreme Court strikes down Democrats’ redistricting plan, dimming party’s midterm hopes

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down the voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year’s midterm elections.

The court ruled the state’s Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court’s ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless.

“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” the court said in its opinion.

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US forces disabled two more Iranian tankers that were trying to breach an American blockade

That’s according to U.S. Central Command in a social media post.

In the social media post on Friday, it says a U.S. Navy fighter jet fired into the smokestacks of ships in the Gulf of Oman after they tried to pull into an Iranian port.

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The newly unveiled website housing documents on UFOs has a decidedly retro feel

It features black-and-white military imagery of flying objects displayed prominently on the page, with statements displayed in typewriter-like font.

The first release includes 162 files, such as old State Department cables, FBI documents and transcripts from NASA of crewed flights into space.

One document details an FBI interview with someone identified as a drone pilot who, in September 2023, reported seeing a “linear object” with a light bright enough to “see bands within the light” in the sky.

“The object was visible for five to ten seconds and then the light went out and the object vanished,” according to the FBI interview.

Another file is a NASA photograph from the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, showing three dots in a triangular formation. The Pentagon says in an accompanying caption that “there is no consensus about the nature of the anomaly” but that a new, preliminary analysis indicated that it could be a “physical object.”

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Rubio defended Trump after weeks of his criticisms of the pope

And Rubio said the U.S. believed it could still have a “productive and fruitful and important relationship” with the Catholic Church.

Rubio spoke to reporters in Rome, a day after his meeting with Pope Leo XIV during a fence-mending visit to Italy and the Vatican.

He was asked if he would recommend that Trump stop criticizing Leo’s position on the Iran war.

“The president will always speak clearly about how he feels about the U.S. and U.S. policy,” Rubio said. “The president of the United States is always going to act in what’s in the best interest of the United States.”

Rubio came to Rome after Trump repeatedly criticized Leo’s calls for peace and dialogue. The back and forth that ensued riled Italian leaders who came to Leo’s defense.

“The president’s perspective is clear. He thinks that Iran is a threat, and it needs to be addressed. And that position remains unchanged,” Rubio said.

US employers added a surprising 115,000 jobs last month despite economic shock from the Iran war

Hiring was better than the 65,000 forecasters had expected, though it decelerated from the 185,000 jobs created in March. The unemployment rate remained at a low 4.3%.

The Iran war has caused the biggest disruption of global oil supplies in history and sent average U.S. gasoline prices surging past $4.50 a gallon this week. But the conflict hasn’t done much damage to the American job market so far.

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Pentagon begins releasing new files on UFOs and says the public can draw its own conclusions

In addition to the Pentagon, the effort is led by the White House, the director of national intelligence, the Energy Department, NASA and the FBI.

The Pentagon said Friday in a post on X that while past administrations sought to discredit or dissuade the American people, Trump “is focused on providing maximum transparency to the public, who can ultimately make up their own minds about the information contained in these files.”

The Pentagon says additional documents will be released on a rolling basis.

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Rubio says Iran’s reported plan to create an agency to control Strait of Hormuz is ‘unacceptable’

And he warned that if Tehran attacks U.S. Navy ships “they’re going to get blown up.”

Rubio fielded questions at the end of a two-day fence-mending visit to Rome and the Vatican after sharp disagreements over the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and President Donald Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.

He was asked about reports from a shipping data company that said Iran has created a government agency to vet and tax vessels seeking passage through the strait.

“Is the world going to accept that Iran now controls an international waterway?” Rubio asked. “What is the world prepared to do about it?”

He also warned Tehran against attacking American maritime assets in the region. The U.S. said it thwarted attacks on three Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

“The red line is clear. They threaten Americans, they are going to be blown up,” he said.

Rubio says US expecting Iran response Friday

The secretary of state, traveling in Italy, said the U.S. is anticipating a response from Iran on the ongoing diplomatic discussions sometime later Friday.

“We should know something today,” Rubio, who doubles as the White House national security adviser, told reporters.

He added: “I hope it’s a serious offer. I really do.”

Judge rules Trump administration’s cancellation of humanities grants was unconstitutional

The Trump administration’s cancellation of more than $100 million in humanities grants to scholars, writers, research groups and other organizations was unconstitutional, and the Department of Government Efficiency had no authority to end the funding, a federal judge in New York ruled on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan sided with The Authors Guild, several other groups and several people who had their grants canceled and sued DOGE and the National Endowment for the Humanities. McMahon permanently barred the administration from terminating the grants and criticized DOGE’s use of artificial intelligence in nixing the funding.

Government lawyers had argued that the cuts of more than 1,400 grants of congressionally approved funds were legal moves to implement President Donald Trump’s directives, eliminate grants associated with diversion, equity and inclusion and reduce discretionary spending under the administration’s priorities.

The White House and Department of Justice, which defended against the lawsuit, did not immediately return emails seeking comment Thursday evening. It was not immediately clear if an appeal was planned.

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Federal court rules against new global tariffs Trump imposed after loss at the Supreme Court

A federal court ruled Thursday against the new global tariffs that Trump imposed after a stinging loss at the Supreme Court.

A split three-judge panel of the Court of International Trade in New York found the 10% global tariffs were illegal after small businesses sued.

The court ruled 2-1 that Trump overstepped the tariff power that Congress had allowed the president under the law. The tariffs are “invalid″ and “unauthorized by law,” the majority wrote.

The third judge on the panel found the law allows the president more leeway on tariffs.

If the administration appeals Thursday’s decision, as expected, it would first turn to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, based in Washington, and then, potentially, the Supreme Court.

At issue are temporary 10% worldwide tariffs the Trump administration imposed after the Supreme Court in February struck down even broader tariffs the president had imposed last year on almost every country on Earth. The new tariffs were set to expire July 24.

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Trump drives across Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to inspect new blue coating he’s putting on it

Trump on Thursday went on an unannounced trip to the Lincoln Memorial to see the Reflecting Pool after he had it coated in a color he calls “American flag blue.”

The Republican president was driven across the new coating before he got out of his SUV to make a statement and answer questions from reporters who had been taken there to await his arrival before the sun set.

The new blue coating will hide the pool’s gray stone, a color Trump said was “never good.” The project cost nearly $2 million, he said.

“It never had the color people wanted, but now it’s going to have the great color,” he said, standing in the pool surrounded by some of his Cabinet secretaries, including Doug Burgum of Interior and Markwayne Mullin of Homeland Security.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign affairs adviser, both confirmed the agreement.

“I asked and, President Putin agreed. President Zelenskyy agreed -- both readily," Trump said as he departed the White House to attend a dinner at his Virginia golf club. " And we have a little period of time where they’re not going to be killing people. That’s very good ”

Trump earlier Friday had announced on social media that the ceasefire would run Saturday through Monday. Saturday is Victory Day in Russia, a holiday that commemorates the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

“I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10th, and 11th) in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote. “The Celebration in Russia is for Victory Day but, likewise, in Ukraine, because they were also a big part and factor of World War II.”

The Republican president said the ceasefire includes a suspension of all kinetic activity and the exchange of 1,000 prisoners by each country.

Russia had announced a ceasefire for Friday and Saturday, but it quickly unraveled, with both sides blaming the other for the continued fighting, just as they had when Ukraine’s own unilateral ceasefire had swiftly collapsed earlier in the week.

Trump said he made his request for the ceasefire “directly” to the two presidents. “Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War," he said.

Trump added that talks continue over ending the war that began in February 2022 “and we are getting closer and closer every day.” Trump has gone back and forth over whether the war will end, at times expressing optimism and at other times saying Russia and Ukraine should be left to fight it out to the bitter end.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s decision on how to engage with those discussions was shaped in part by the prospect of freeing its prisoners. Ukraine has made the return of prisoners of war a central demand throughout the conflict.

“Red Square matters less to us than the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war who can be brought home,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. Red Square is where Russia holds its traditional military parade to celebrate Victory Day, one of the biggest holidays of the year.

After releasing his statement, Zelenskyy issued a formal presidential decree “authorizing” Russia to hold the parade, declaring Red Square off-limits for Ukrainian strikes for the duration of the event. The framing of the decree appeared designed to underscore Kyiv’s claim that it holds effective targeting reach over the Russian capital, while publicly tying Ukrainian restraint to the ceasefire terms.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later shrugged off Zelenskyy’s decree as a “silly joke.”

“We don’t need anyone’s permission to be proud of our Victory Day,” Peskov told reporters.

Zelenskyy said the deal for a ceasefire was reached through a U.S.-mediated process and thanked Trump and the American team for what he called effective diplomatic engagement. He said Ukraine expected Washington to hold Russia to the terms of the agreement.

“We are counting on the United States to ensure that Russia fulfills its commitments,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy said he had instructed his team to prepare everything necessary for the exchange without delay.

Trump's announcement came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a much more somber tone about negotiations to halt Russia’s 4-year-old war in Ukraine, saying U.S. mediation efforts have not led to a “fruitful outcome” so far.

“While we’re prepared to play whatever role we can to bring it to a peaceful diplomatic resolution, unfortunately right now, those efforts have stagnated,” Rubio told reporters at the end of a visit to Rome and the Vatican. “But we always stand ready if those circumstances change.”

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Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed to this report.

The point of contention: The popular show “The View," and whether it's subject to equal time rules.

ABC’s filing to the Federal Communications Commission, made public Friday, came in a dispute involving one ABC station in Houston, KTRK-TV. But the wording indicated the network was embarking on a broader battle with the administration.

“The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” said the filing on behalf of both KTRK-TV and ABC.

The commission replied, in a statement emailed to The Associated Press, that equal time law “encourages more speech and empowers voters to decide the outcome of elections. The FCC will review Disney’s assertion that ‘The View’ is a ‘bona fide news program’ and thus exempt from the political equal time rules.”

The ABC filing appeared to be the latest volley inside and outside the legal arena between the U.S. media and the Trump White House over what journalists perceive as the president’s attack on free speech and the media’s ability to do its job. Trump has been critical of media outlets whose journalism runs counter to his agenda and sensibilities.

Among legal battles in the courts: a dispute between the Pentagon and The New York Times over access; a battle between the White House and The Associated Press over how to refer to the Gulf of Mexico; and Trump’s anger at The Wall Street Journal over reporting about Jeffrey Epstein.

The dispute concerns content on “The View,” ABC’s long-running morning talk show, which combines entertainment and political interviews and often features commentary critical of Trump. The filing referenced the FCC’s revisiting, with legal action, the question of whether “The View” should fall under equal time rules. The rules require granting equal airtime to competing candidates for office.

At issue: Whether ‘The View’ is subject to equal time rules

News programs are exempt from the rules. Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, has indicated he intends to argue that “The View” is not a so-called “bona fide news program.” The issue could affect other shows that similarly combine entertainment and politics.

In its filing, ABC argued that “‘The View’ has been broadcasting under a bona fide news exemption granted to it more than twenty years ago, consistent with longstanding Commission interpretations designed to minimize the serious First Amendment problems inherent in the equal time regime.”

The network also argued that the decades-old equal time doctrine was not attuned to the realities of the present day, when “the broadcast airwaves account for a slice of the numerous media options through which Americans get their political information. Indeed, the marketplace of ideas has never been more robust, and people can hear virtually any brand of political commentary by listening to a podcast, watching cable, scrolling social media, or streaming on a phone, computer or connected TV. The free flow of ideas flourishes on these non-broadcast platforms even though the equal opportunities rule does not apply there.”

ABC argues that free political discourse is needed now more than ever

Narrowing the FCC’s longtime approach to so-called “bona fide news exemptions,” it said, “would risk restricting political discourse exactly when it is needed most.”

The administration’s criticism of “The View” echoes its displeasure with late-night news hosts who criticize Trump – especially ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel.

Donald and Melania Trump recently both called for ABC to fire Kimmel for a joke in which the comic described the first lady as having “the glow of an expectant widow.”

The joke came two nights before the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which was cut short when a man armed with guns and knives tried to enter the Washington ballroom where the Trumps were gathered along with much of the nation’s leadership and Washington media. Kimmel said the joke was a light roast about the couple’s age difference — and certainly not a reference to assassination.

In a footnote, ABC noted that “The View” has long featured a panel including women of different backgrounds to discuss issues of the day.

“Although the lineup of the co-hosts has changed over the years, ‘The View’ has consistently prioritized having a panel of women from different backgrounds in order to facilitate interesting discourse and the exchange of divergent perspectives,” it said.

“I knew I was capable of doing it preseason,” said Szefc. “Putting in all the work in the offseason and really finishing my product has been good for me. I think it’s up to my standard. I could always play a little better, but that’s almost impossible to ask for, so I’m happy.”

There’s no reason not to be. Sam Szecf leads his team in every major offensive category—hits, batting average, home runs, etc.

His family is deeply rooted in baseball. His father, John Szecf, serves as Virginia Tech’s Head Coach and has accumulated more than 600 career wins. It’s a big reason why Sam has developed into not only a great player, but an outstanding teammate.

“He’s another coach on the field. He’s an extension of our staff on the field,” said Jonathan Hagee, Blacksburg’s Head Coach. “Being from the family he was raised in, they’ve raised him the right way. He’s been around [baseball] since he was a young guy. Just a great family. We can talk about all the things Sam does on the field, on the mound, in the field, at the plate, but it’s ultimately his leadership and the kind of person he is. He’s the ultimate teammate. Every guy in that dugout would tell you they love him and that they would go to bat for him.”

Szecf doesn’t just shine on the diamond. A 1st and Ten Trophy Tour winner, he also excels on the football field. His skills transfer from sport to sport, but it’s his mindset that separates him from other dual-sport athletes.

“I try to, after a bad at-bat or an error, take the rest of the inning or the next batter and think about what I could have done better, then just move on,” said Szefc. “You’re going to make mistakes—that’s baseball. You just have to move on and be better for it.”

Thanks to video game-like numbers, Szefc has verbally committed to Virginia Tech to play under his father. However, he’s not done at the high school level just yet.

“I sleep really well knowing he’s going to be back next year. In my mind, there’s not a better player in the state of Virginia. I think his stats reflect that. We’re glad he’s a Bruin for sure.”

Current and former officials in the archipelago at the southernmost point of South America insist that the virus did not originate from the trash heap in Ushuaia that national health authorities named earlier this week as the most likely place two Dutch tourists contracted it while bird-watching.

“I believe we are facing a smear campaign against this destination,” Juan Facundo Petrina, the province’s director of epidemiology, told reporters Friday in a press conference from Ushuaia.

Federal officials didn’t contact local authorities initially — instead, they discovered the purported Ushuaia connection via media reports, he said. Additionally, Tierra del Fuego has never recorded a case of the hantavirus — let alone the Andes variant involved in the ship outbreak — unlike Argentine provinces further north.

The Dutch couple — both of whom died — spent just two days in Tierra del Fuego during their four-monthlong trip through Argentina and Chile, he added, which “dramatically reduces the likelihood that the infection happened here.”

As the main gateway to Antarctica, the remote town of Ushuaia drew over 157,000 cruise passengers last year — almost double its local population. Deep-pocketed cruisers have increasingly grown vital to Tierra del Fuego's economy as its core electronic manufacturing sector reels from libertarian President Javier Milei's slashing of trade barriers and subsidies.

“Now the whole world is associating Ushuaia, and cruise travel, with a lethal virus, and if this continues, reservations for next season are honestly going to plummet because nobody will want to be exposed,” said Rubén Rafael, the former health minister of Tierra del Fuego. “Ushuaia’s reputation as a tourist destination is suffering badly."

Argentine investigators have yet to arrive

When asked Friday whether the Argentine Health Ministry still favored the outbreak origin theory of the Ushuaia landfill, a ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk about the investigation, said that nothing had changed and that Ushuaia was the only place where the ministry was sending investigators, adding that it remained possible the virus originated elsewhere in Argentina.

The Health Ministry announced on Wednesday that it would dispatch experts from the state-backed Malbran Institute to trap rats at the Ushuaia trash heap and nearby areas and test them for the Andes strain of the hantavirus.

Over two days later, the investigators have yet to arrive. The official dismissed the delay as normal for Argentina’s slow-moving bureaucracy.

In Tierra del Fuego, Petrina said he hoped national investigators would clear Ushuaia's name. He said it was taking a while “to determine all the exact locations where trapping and analysis will take place."

Others in the left-leaning province complained that the government's delay and lack of transparency came as part of a wider pattern ever since Milei took his chain saw to the country's health system, withdrawing his country from the World Health Organization weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump did the same and defunding national programs responsible for tracking infectious diseases.

“The health system in Argentina is going through a serious crisis,” said Rafael, the former provincial health minister. “The system is weakened, and as a result, the response to this outbreak has been very slow. That exposes all of us.”

Outside Argentina, public health experts said that the investigation is a critical step so that a similar situation can be avoided.

“It's not an extreme emergency, but it's still of urgency in terms of collecting the data,” said Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist who serves as editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News and previously advised the Biden administration on the coronavirus pandemic.

“If there is an Andes virus that is more infectious locally you’d want to know that so that you can warn local residents and take measures to prevent their infection. And if they haven’t started that process yet, that would be concerning.”

A daunting hunt for answers

The Dutch couple that the WHO has identified as the first cruise passengers infected with the Andes variant — the only hantavirus that may be able to spread from person-to-person in rare cases — arrived in Argentina last November, according to the Argentine Health Ministry.

The couple, 70 and 69 years old, spent weeks driving up and down the country before making a series of border crossings between Argentina and Chile over months. They also traveled between Argentina and Uruguay in March before embarking on the Antarctic cruise from Ushuaia on April 1.

The governments of Chile, which has seen deadly outbreaks of the Andes variant before, and Uruguay, which hasn't, declared the couple couldn't have become infected while visiting based on the virus' up-to-eight-week incubation period. They didn't offer details.

Because the couple died, retracing their steps through the country is exceedingly difficult, said Argentine health officials, adding that they're working to fill in some gaps in the couple's travels.

Many independent Argentine epidemiologists believe that the hantavirus outbreak most likely emerged from the woodlands of central Patagonia, another major tourist destination where authorities have recently recorded hantavirus cases and long-tailed rats known to carry the Andes variant run rampant — unlike in Ushuaia.

“With the media pressure now, it wouldn’t surprise me if the government's response has been more about quieting criticism by appearing to act,” said Raul González Ittig, genetics professor at the National University of Cordoba.

Raymond Epps, a former Marine, was falsely accused by Fox of being a government agent causing trouble near the Capitol that day so that it would be blamed on Trump fans. He said he and his wife sold an Arizona ranch where they lived and moved into a recreational vehicle because of the harassment they faced after Fox's reports.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Hall in Delaware granted Fox's motion to dismiss the case, finding Epps failed to show enough evidence to prove that Fox knew its statements were false.

The judge previously dismissed the case in 2024 but gave Epps a second chance to file his case. Her Friday ruling said he still fell short.

Epps had named Tucker Carlson, who was fired from Fox in April 2023, as being the most active promoter of the conspiracy theory. At the time, Carlson hosted Fox’s most popular show. Epps was featured in more than two dozen segments on Carlson’s prime-time show, the lawsuit said.

“In the aftermath of the events of January 6th, Fox News searched for a scapegoat to blame other than Donald Trump or the Republican Party," lawyers for Epps wrote in their lawsuit. "Eventually, they turned on one of their own.”

In a statement Friday night, Fox News said it was "pleased with the federal court’s ruling, further preserving the press freedoms of the First Amendment.”

Epps pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge related to the Jan. 6 riot and was sentenced to a year of probation. He was later pardoned by Trump alongside 1,500 others who received clemency for their roles in the insurrection.

Federal prosecutors have backed up Epps’ vehement denials that he was a government plant or FBI operative. They say Epps has never been a government employee or agent beyond serving in the U.S. Marines from 1979 to 1983.

Just seeing the comparison from 24 hours ago of our temperature change is shocking. The cooler air is settling in for now, that is, until a ridge moves over our area for the second half of the weekend. This will bring much warmer temperatures just in time for Mother’s Day weekend!

However, we have a change on the way! We have been tracking this ridge out towards the west that is now moving towards the Midwest! This is good news because it means we are next! The East Coast will warm up through Mother’s Day weekend before our next weather maker moves in during the start of next work week.

We also need to address our drought monitor. We have now extended our extreme drought condition towards the Southside, Lynchburg, and now portions of the New River Valley. Be sure to stay fire weather aware for the next month as we deal with these very dry conditions.

Rainfall is back in the forecast for Mother’s Day with a few widely scattered showers and storms. Be sure to pack the umbrella when you are headed out and about. Have a great Mother’s Day weekend!

The Alabama legislation, which was signed quickly into law by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, is part of an effort by Republicans in Southern states to capitalize on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that significantly weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minorities.

At the Alabama Statehouse, a chaotic scene erupted as one protester was dragged from the packed House gallery by security officers. Republican lawmakers in Louisiana and South Carolina also faced staunch opposition from civil rights activists and Democrats as they presented plans Friday to redraw their congressional districts.

The action came just a day after Tennessee enacted new congressional districts that carve up a Democratic-held, Black-majority district in Memphis. The state Democratic Party sued on Friday, seeking to prevent the districts from being used until after this year's elections because of the tight time frame

Even before last week's Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana case, Republicans and Democrats already were engaged in a fierce redistricting battle, each seeking an edge in the midterm elections that will determine control of the closely divided House. That battle tilted further toward Republicans when the Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday that Democratic lawmakers had violated constitutional requirements when placing a redistricting amendment on the ballot.

Since President Donald Trump prodded Texas to redraw its congressional districts last summer, Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from new districts in several states while Democrats think they could gain up to six seats. But the parties may not get everything they sought, because the gerrymandering could backfire in some highly competitive districts.

Alabama primaries could be in flux

Demonstrators outside the Alabama Statehouse on Friday shouted “fight for democracy” and “down with white supremacy.”

“I was out there in 1965 marching for the right to vote, and now we are back here in 2026 doing the same thing,” Betty White Boynton said.

During debate inside the statehouse, Black lawmakers said the Republican legislation harks back to the state’s shameful Jim Crow history. The new law would ignore the May 19 primary results for some congressional seats and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under revised districts, if a court allows it. Lawmakers also approved a similar bill related to state Senate districts.

“What happened here today is that we were set back as a people to the days of Reconstruction,” Democratic state Sen. Rodger Smitherman said after the vote.

Senate Democrats shouted “hell no” and “stop the steal” as senators voted.

The special primary would happen only if the courts agree to lift an injunction that put a court-selected map in place until after the 2030 census. That order required a second district where Black voters are the majority or close to it, resulting in the 2024 election of Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures, who is Black. If a court lifts the injunction, Republican officials want to put in place a map lawmakers drew in 2023 — which was rejected by a federal court — that could allow them to reclaim Figures’ district.

“With this special session successfully behind us, Alabama now stands ready to quickly act, should the courts issue favorable rulings in our ongoing redistricting cases," Ivey said in a statement.

Virginia ruling centered on timing of election

Democrats had hoped to gain as many as four additional U.S. House seats under new districts narrowly approved by voters in April. But the state Supreme Court invalidated the measure because it said the Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements.

To place a constitutional amendment before voters, the Virginia Constitution requires lawmakers to approve it in two separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between. The legislature’s initial approval of the redistricting amendment occurred last October — while early voting was underway but before it concluded for the general election. The legislature’s second vote on the amendment occurred after a new legislative session began in January.

The state Supreme Court said the initial legislative approval came too late, noting that more than 1.3 million ballots already had been cast, about 40% of the total votes ultimately cast.

Louisiana lawmakers look at map options

A Louisiana Senate committee considered several redistricting options Friday from Republican state Sen. John “Jay” Morris that would eliminate either both or one of the current Black-majority U.S. House districts.

“Every one of these maps reduces Black voting power in every one of the districts. And I think that’s a problem,” Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins told Morris.

Morris denied that the proposed redistricting maps were racially discriminatory. He said his goal was to be “respectful of the traditional boundaries” of the state’s six congressional districts.

“I don’t think we should care that much about race,” Morris said.

The only four Black congressmen who have represented Louisiana since the end of the Reconstruction era appealed to state senators to keep two majority-Black districts in a state where one-third of voters are Black.

Leona Tate said she was escorted as a 6-year-old girl by federal marshals through a racist white mob trying to prevent her from desegregating a New Orleans elementary school. She told lawmakers she felt they were taking a step backward in time by reducing Black political power.

“You have a choice in front of you: You can draw a map that reflects what Louisiana actually is -- a state where Black voices belong in the halls of Congress," said Tate, 71. "Or you can draw a map that tells my grandchildren that their votes don’t count, that their faces don’t matter and that the progress I helped build with my own two feet as a 6-year-old can be erased at will.”

South Carolina considers a House map

South Carolina lawmakers held a rare Friday meeting to discuss a proposed new congressional map intended to allow Republicans a clean sweep of the state’s seven U.S. House seats.

The House hearing was the first step in redistricting. But its future remains murky. The state Senate has yet to agree to consider new districts later this month, an action that requires a two-thirds vote.

The new map has some Republicans nervous. Breaking up the 6th District, represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, makes the other six districts less Republican.

At Friday’s subcommittee meeting, lawmakers heard hours of testimony, almost all against the new map. The hearing included a consultant who reviewed the map, saying it appeared to be legal under the Supreme Court's decision in the Louisiana case.

“I agree if the law allows us to do it, then we can do It,” Democratic state Rep. Justin Bamberg said. “But I can slap somebody’s mama and it’s not the right thing to do.”

Some absentee ballots already have been returned for the state's June 9 primary elections. The legislative subcommittee advanced a plan to delay the congressional primary to August and reopen a candidate filing period, if a new map is approved.

___

Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina; Brook from Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri. AP reporter Travis Loller contributed from Nashville, Tennessee.

The No. 2 player in the world heated up on the back nine Friday at Quail Hollow and finished with a 4-under 67 to climb into contention at the Truist Championship, four shots behind 36-hole leader Sungjae Im, who was at 9-under 133.

Playing his first tournament since winning the green jacket for a second time on April 12 at Augusta National, McIlroy was 1 under and buried on the leaderboard eight shots back when he made the turn.

But birdies at No. 10 and 11 got him rolling and he seemed to feed off the energy from the crowd, just as he’s done in his previous four wins in Charlotte, where he has a large following.

McIlroy’s approach shots got closer and closer, and he added birdies on Nos. 13, 15 and 16. He shot 32 on the back nine despite lipping out his par putt on the par-4 18th hole after finding a greenside bunker.

“It was a good day to get myself back in the hunt, and feel like I have a real chance going into the weekend,” McIlroy said.

At one point, McIlroy hit 14 straight greens in regulation — a personal course record.

“I started to make some good swings, especially with the irons,” McIlroy said. “I played one tournament in seven weeks, so I think just getting the reps under my belt a little bit and getting a scorecard in my hand. I feel like your patterns on the golf course are always a little bit different than your patterns on the range, or it is for me anyway.”

McIlroy isn’t the only big name in contention.

Tommy Fleetwood shot 67 for the second straight day and trailed Im by one shot. Justin Thomas was two back along with PGA Tour newcomer Alex Fitzpatrick, the brother of Matt Fitzpatrick.

Rickie Fowler vaulted into the mix with the day’s low round of 8-under 63, which included nine birdies.

Cameron Young, a two-time winner on the PGA Tour this year, shot 70 and was five shots back.

Fleetwood said he scored well despite not having his best stuff.

“It’s just nice to even get a couple of days where you have something to show for your work, I guess,” said Fleetwood, who will play in the final pairing with Im on Saturday. “Just a nice reminder that it will come good at some point if you keep doing the right things. So that’s been great. I just hope it continues.”

For Im, the season hasn’t gone as well he’s hoped. He’s battled through a wrist injury and has only one top-40 finish.

Now healthy, that may be about to change.

The South Korean followed an opening round 7-under 64 with a 69 as he looks for his first tour win since 2021 in Las Vegas.

“I know this course very well, so I’m taking advantage of that,” Im said. “And then the scrambling, because of the play with the Presidents Cup, I know where to miss the greens, I’m very familiar with this golf course. But I didn’t putt very well today, but I’m happy with where I’m at.”

Thomas won the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow in 2017 and said this is the best he’s felt physically since having surgery to treat a herniated disk in his lower back in November.

He would have posted back-to-back 67s had he not missed a birdie putt on his final hole Friday.

“I felt like I’m close,” Thomas said. “I’ve really been pleased the last couple weeks.”

Chandler Blanchet had the shot of the day, a hole-in-one on the par-3 17th hole. It was the fourth ace on No. 17 in tournament history and the first since Mark Hubbard in 2023.

___

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

When a property is flagged for inspection, the city sends a letter giving the homeowner 10 days to bring the lawn into compliance. If nothing is done, the city can hire a contractor to mow the property and charge the cost back to the owner.

Neighbor Julie Cyrus says maintaining a lawn takes consistent effort.

“We have to cut the grass, we have to put down fertilizer, weed killer, you have to do the work,” Cyrus said.

Staying ahead of the rule

Four of the 13 properties recently flagged for inspection were located on the same street. 10 News knocked on doors along that block seeking tips on lawn maintenance, but no one was available to speak on camera.

Still, other Lynchburg residents offered advice for neighbors across the Hill City. Harold Stoliker says staying on a schedule is key.

“I make sure it’s scheduled; I don’t let it get too wild or out of control, I try to keep my equipment in good shape,” Stoliker said.

Affordable options for every budget

For residents who can’t handle lawn care on their own, there are low-cost options available. Hiring a neighborhood teen, contracting a local lawn service, or swapping chores with a neighbor are all practical ways to stay compliant without breaking the bank.

Cyrus says the choices are plentiful.

“There’s plenty of lawn services out there that you can hire. Some are really good, some are hit or miss but there are so many options out there now,” Cyrus said.

10 News has reached out to Lynchburg Neighborhood Services and Community Development for additional recommendations and is awaiting a response.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement Friday that authorities boarded eight cruise ships in late April and determined that 27 people, mostly from the Philippines, were involved in “the receipt, possession, transportation, distribution, or viewing” of child sexual abuse images.

The agency canceled the visas of those involved and returned them to their home countries, the statement said.

The agency did not say if any passengers aboard the ships were believed to be victims. It also did not say which ships agents boarded, why those ships were targeted or where the operations took place. The statement said no additional information was available.

At least some of the ships had docked in San Diego.

Disney Cruise Line in a statement said the company has a “zero-tolerance policy for this type of behavior and fully cooperated with law enforcement. While the majority of these individuals were not from our cruise line, those who were are no longer with the company.”

Immigrant and workers' rights groups said they had been trying, without success, to obtain information about the status of the workers and the reason behind the enforcement action. Benjamin Prado, with one of the groups, Unión del Barrio, said they held a news conference Tuesday in San Diego after previously receiving a generic statement from Customs and Border Protection.

The statement the agency subsequently released to news organizations this week did not appear to be on the agency's website, he said. That information should be readily accessible, he said.

Prado said his group wants to better understand what kind of monitoring or surveillance might have been occurring ahead of the workers being detained and whether due process rights were followed. He acknowledged skepticism around information released by agencies like Customs and Border Protection.

“At this point, we doubt, we question their claims and so we do want to follow up with some of these workers to find out exactly what took place,” Prado said.

Customs and Border Protection has said that a criminal charge is not required for someone's visa to be revoked.

Tyler Robinson's attorneys argued potential jurors could be biased by slanted news reports and online comments that depict the defendant as unremorseful based on how he looks and acts in court. They said live broadcasts were fueling those stories and interfering with Robinson's right to fair proceedings.

State District Judge Tony Graf said some news outlets have used courtroom footage as “a springboard to discuss out-of-court commentary” by public officials, opine on the existence of evidence that has not been presented in court and “generally vilify the defendant," but he declined to ban cameras.

“Electronic media coverage provides a means to facilitate the public’s right of access to court proceedings for those who cannot physically occupy the limited space available in a courtroom," Graf said. "Livestreaming in particular allows as many people as are interested to observe the justice system at work and hold our branches of government accountable.”

Media organizations, prosecutors and Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, had urged the judge to allow cameras. They said transparency is the best way to guard against conspiracy theories that have circulated since Kirk's assassination on Sept. 10, when the 31-year-old conservative activist was shot in the neck while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem.

The defense and prosecution did not immediately respond to requests for comment after Graf read the ruling via video call.

Graf has said repeatedly that he cannot control the spread of misinformation outside court, but he has taken steps to protect Robinson’s rights during hearings. He tightened rules for cameras after members of a media pool violated a courtroom order by showing Robinson’s shackles and capturing close-ups of him talking to his attorneys. Graf relocated cameras to the rear of the courtroom, behind Robinson, making it harder to get images of him.

The judge also approved a defense motion to push back Robinson’s preliminary hearing, which was scheduled for mid-May. Prosecutors during that hearing, now set for July 6-10, must show they have enough evidence to proceed to trial. Graf said he set a time frame that balances Robinson’s rights with those of Erika Kirk, who is entitled to a speedy resolution.

Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if Robinson, 23, is convicted. He is charged with crimes including aggravated murder and has not yet entered a plea.

Prior to his death, Kirk and the conservative youth movement he founded, Turning Point USA, emerged as a major force in U.S. politics that was considered instrumental in getting President Donald Trump elected to a second term.

Authorities have said DNA consistent with Robinson’s was found on the trigger of the rifle, the fired cartridge casing, two unfired cartridges and a towel used to wrap the rifle. Robinson’s attorneys have argued his preliminary hearing should not take place until federal law enforcement agencies turn over more details about their DNA analysis.

Prosecutors say they have sufficient proof beyond DNA, including surveillance video and a handwritten note Robinson allegedly left for his romantic partner confessing to the crime.

Accusations that Robinson targeted Kirk over his political views have amplified interest in the case, which in turn has stoked the long-running dispute over cameras inside major cases.

Photos and videos have exposed the inner workings of some of America’s most spectacular criminal cases, from the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial to O.J. Simpson’s double murder trial. They've also created tensions between advocates for transparency and defense attorneys eager to shield clients from bad publicity.

The stakes are especially high in death penalty cases such as Robinson's, where a jury can consider the defendant's character as part of its determination. Footage of Robinson apparently smirking while talking to his attorneys during a December hearing elicited comments on Fox News that he treated Kirk “like a trophy.”

The Constitution gives greater weight to a defendant’s rights to a fair trial than the public’s right to know what’s happening in a case. Nevertheless, cameras have become much more common in state courts in recent years.

They are generally barred in federal criminal trials. Under a New York state law, Trump’s trial and 2024 conviction in a hush money case was famously closed to cameras while court was in session. Media organizations used sketch artists to capture the scene.

Judges typically retain broad discretion over which parts of a case can be broadcast and who can be filmed or photographed. ___

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

The petition filed to remove Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors Member Tim Dudley has advanced to Pittsylvania County Circuit Court. So far, no date has been set for any hearings.

May 1 UPDATE:

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

ORIGINAL STORY:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Embiid struggled through a short night in the Knicks’ 137-98 romp in Game 1, scoring 14 points on 3-for-11 shooting before the starters were benched with the game out of reach.

Embiid had been listed as probable to play in that game and the Knicks repeatedly took advantage of his lack of mobility to create open shots.

He had been expected to play Game 2 but was ruled out hours beforehand.

Embiid had an appendectomy late in the regular season. He returned during Game 4 of Philadelphia’s first-round series against Boston and helped the 76ers overcome a 3-1 deficit to eliminate the Celtics.

___

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

Michelle Chatfield started things off with a solo home run in the first inning. Not to be outdone, Nora Abromavage hit her 18th home run of the season in the second inning. The Hokies earned some late insurance runs in the final two innings--a solo home run from Rachel Castine in the sixth and a two-run shot from Kylie Aldridge in the seventh.

While the Hokies bats were hot, the Blue Devils were cold at the plate thanks to Appomattox County native Bree Carrico. The ACC Freshman of the Year, pitched 5.2 innings racking up four strikeouts. She exited after an apparent arm or hand injury.

From there, Tech turned to Emma Mazzarone. She had a career-high 14 strikeouts in the Hokies quarterfinals win over Virginia on Thursday night. She picked up where she left off. Facing 6 batters, Mazzarone had three strikeouts to pickup the save.

Virginia Tech advances to the ACC Softball Championship game for the first time since 2012, where it will face Florida State Saturday at 2:30 p.m.

They will be in the counties of Botetourt and Roanoke between mile markers 143 and 150 beginning Monday, May 1. There is a 30-day warning period for drivers to make them aware.

After that, drivers seen going over the posted limit in the work zones may receive a civil citation by mail.

“The cameras are just like an officer sitting in the work zone, but they’re getting everybody instead of just one at a time. The goal is to slow people down so the contractors and VDOT can work on the roadways safely,” VSP Sergeant Rick Garletts said.

There will be signage indicating the cameras are present along the roadways The associated fine will be $100 with no impact on the person’s driving record or insurance.

Any fines collected will go to the Virginia Literary Fund.

The 14-page lawsuit was filed by former medication technician Cynthia Cobbler, who worked at Sobrius from November until March. The suit alleges Cobbler was fired after reporting the alleged misconduct to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

According to the complaint, Cobbler witnessed patients being given medications that were not prescribed to them shortly after beginning work at the facility.

The lawsuit alleges employees took leftover medications from former patients and placed them in a cabinet labeled “house stock.” Cobbler claims coworkers told her they would use medications from the cabinet when a patient needed a certain drug but did not have a prescription for it.

Court filings state the medications remained in their original pill bottles, but labels were covered with paper listing the drug name and the words “house stock.”

Cobbler alleges patients became hostile and cursed at her when she refused to distribute medications from the cabinet.

According to the lawsuit, Cobbler was later reassigned to kitchen duties after refusing to give patients medication from the “house stock” supply. The suit claims she was terminated after documenting the incidents and sending evidence to the DEA, which her attorneys argue violated Virginia whistleblower protection laws.

Cobbler’s attorneys provided a statement to 10 News saying, “These are very serious allegations, but we believe the complaint speaks for itself. Our client looks forward to her day in court. We are confident the jury will reach the right decision after reviewing the evidence.”

Sobrius denied the allegations in a statement from its legal team.

“Sobrius is aware of the lawsuit that has been filed and takes all actions impacting patient care and compliance seriously,” the statement read in part. “Sobrius disputes the claims advanced and will defend itself through the appropriate legal process.”

The statement continued, saying the facility remains committed to “safe, ethical, and high-quality care for individuals seeking treatment for substance use disorders” and maintains medication management and compliance procedures designed to meet state and federal standards.

10 News reached out to the DEA and the Virginia State Police to ask whether either agency is investigating the allegations but did not receive a response.

Whether it works will depend on how fast three-time defending race winner Alex Palou and the other starters adapt — and, naturally, how much risk they're willing to take on the first lap of the race.

The move comes in the wake of last month's software failure at Long Beach, where a dozen drivers illegally used extra turbo boost during a midrace restart. That led series officials to make the modification that allows drivers to use their push-to-pass on all restarts once the race has started and they've reached the alternate start-finish line in Turn 11 on the first lap. An early push will result in a penalty, even if there is another malfunction.

And that's caused confusion in Gasoline Alley.

“If I push it and it works because someone else does a mistake, it’s my fault? Yes?” Palou asked, jump-starting a minutes-long debate among the top five drivers in the standings. “I didn’t read the rule, sorry.”

Drivers will still get 200 total seconds of green-flag racing to give their cars a boost of about 60 horsepower throughout the race, though the button is not supposed to be operable until they pass the alternate start-finish line, potentially making the race into Turn 11 as harrowing as the first turn of the race. Then drivers can allocate their turbo boost however they choose around Indianapolis Motor Speedway's 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course.

The change essentially eliminates a possible repeat of the 2024 controversy that cost two-time series champ Josef Newgarden a season-opening victory at St. Petersburg when officials determined he used push-to-pass on a restart.

At Long Beach, nearly half the field took advantage of the software error. Others insisted they weren't even aware the push-to-pass button was working on the restart.

During last week's test session on Indy's 2.5-mile oval, Santino Ferrucci told reporters he realized the button worked only when he tried to fend off Marcus Armstrong's pass on a Lap 61 restart. Ferrucci said he tried it and continued using it. Neither Armstrong nor Ferrucci was penalized and Palou wasn't either, even though he said he used it three times on the restart. Palou wound up winning his third race of the season.

“Let’s set the record straight,” Kyle Kirkwood said. “Everybody would have used it if they’d known it was active. Every driver would have. I wish I’d have known it was on. I would have used it.”

On Saturday, everyone has — or should have — a strategy for how to deal with the new rule.

Palou, the four-time series champ from Spain, begins race weekend as the favorite. He has a 17-point lead over Kirkwood, an American, after winning the last two races, has six straight top-five finishes at Indy including last year's sweep of the grand prix and Indianapolis 500, and is trying to become the second driver in Brickyard history to win the same race four straight times.

The only other driver with four straight wins is seven-time Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher. He won the U.S. Grand Prix every year from 2003-06 and his son, Mick, is scheduled to make his Indy debut Saturday albeit on a differently configured road course.

Palou had the fastest lap in both of Friday’s practice sessions, posting a top speed of 124.953 mph in the morning and a best lap of 124.632 in the afternoon before rain arrived, forcing qualifying to be moved to Saturday. Kirkwood had the second-fastest lap in the afternoon, 124.443, as he tries to change his road-course reputation.

“So why do I suck on road courses?” Kirkwood joked Thursday. “That’s a good question. Appreciate that. Quite honestly, we just haven’t been that good on road courses. That’s been across all of our cars in recent years. But Barber was much better. I can’t say there’s been any other ones, but I feel like we’re constantly improving.”

And getting a little power boost on Saturday's restarts certainly won't hurt.

“You might want to save it a little bit more and maybe not use it as much on in-and-out laps, trying to overtake people knowing if a restart comes at any point, you need to have it, or else you’re going to get passed,” Kirkwood said. “So people might be hoarding it a little bit more.”

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In a sweeping 46-page decision, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled the General Assembly did not follow the required constitutional process when it put the redistricting amendment before voters.

“The Virginia Supreme Court said you rushed this, you didn’t follow proper procedures,” Former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia John Fishwick said.

We sat down with Fishwick to go over the landmark opinion. The court writing, “This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void.”

“An election had to take place between when it was proposed and when it was approved. And so they said, ‘You did not follow those procedures, and therefore the election should never have taken place,’” Fishwick said.

The decision means the millions of votes cast in April are now void - despite voters narrowly approving the amendment just weeks ago.

“The proposed congressional districts are out the window. They’re null and void the Virginia Supreme Court said today [Friday], so we are back to where we were in 2021,” he said.

The close 4-3 split also shows just how divided the court was on whether the referendum should stand.

“I think the fact that it’s so split, and really there’s a little snippiness between the justices describing their position. I think we would’ve been better off 7-0 as opposed to 4-3,” Fishwick said.

Attorney General Jay Jones, responding to the court’s opinion saying in part, “This decision silences the voices of the millions of virginians WHO cast their ballots in every corner of the Commonwealth, and it fuels the growing fears across our nation about the state of our democracy.”

Jones went on to say his team is evaluating every legal pathway forward, but Fishwick says there may not be a pathway.

“I think this is the end of the legal options. The United States Supreme Court would not take up this case. This deals with just Virginia’s, our own constitution, there’s not a federal or national constitutional question here,” he said.

Supporters of the lawsuit are praising the decision.

Ninth district Congressman Morgan Griffith saying in part, " I believe they decided correctly and set aside the redistricting efforts by the state legislature. I commend the supreme court for its diligence and fortitude."

You can read more responses from lawmakers here.

Anunoby was injured late in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, in which he scored 24 points.

The Knicks hold a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Anunoby was having another strong game Wednesday before appearing to suffer a leg injury and motioning to come out of the game. He went to the locker room area and did not return to the bench before the end of the Knicks’ 108-102 victory.

Anunoby is averaging 21.4 points per game in the postseason while shooting 61.9% from the field and 53.8% from 3-point range.

The 6-foot-7 Anunoby, who is considered the Knicks’ top defender, injured his hamstring two years ago in the second round as the Knicks were taking a 2-0 lead over Indiana. He missed the next four games and played just a few minutes in Game 7 as the Pacers rallied to win the series.

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

The court ruled 4-3 that the state's Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment on April 21, but the court's ruling renders the vote’s result meaningless.

Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote that the legislature submitted the proposed constitutional amendment to voters “in an unprecedented manner.”

“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” he wrote.

Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia's redrawn map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. Later Friday, Virginia Democrats said in a filing that they intended to file an emergency appeal of the state high court's decision with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Friday's ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged Republicans' congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year's midterm elections.

“Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia,” Trump said about the decision on his social media account.

Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the ruling was another sign of GOP momentum heading into the midterms.

“We’re on offense, and we’re going to win,” he said in a statement.

Don Scott, the Democratic speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, said Democrats respect the court’s opinion but lamented that it overturned the will of the voters: “They voted YES because they wanted to fight back against the Trump power grab.”

Suzan DelBene, chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, criticized the court majority for what she said was a decision that “cast aside the will of the voters,” but she said the people will have the final say.

“In November, they will, and they’ll power Democrats to the House majority,” she said in a statement.

A longshot Democratic appeal

Democrats are taking a legal longshot in asking the nation’s highest court to reverse the Virginia ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court tries to avoid second-guessing state courts’ interpretations of their own constitutions. In 2023, it turned down a request by North Carolina Republicans to overrule a state Supreme Court decision that blocked the GOP’s congressional map.

Still, even an unsuccessful appeal would let Democrats try to blame their failure on the conservative majority that dominates the nation's highest court, which has already infuriated the party and civil rights groups by neutering the Voting Rights Act.

Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade after each census to account for population changes. But Trump sparked an unusual flurry of mid-decade redistricting last year by encouraging Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts in a bid to win several additional U.S. House seats and hold on to their party's narrow majority in the midterm elections.

California responded with new voter-approved districts drawn to Democrats' advantage, and Utah's top court imposed a new congressional map that also helps Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans stand to gain from new House districts passed in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. They could add even more after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Voting Rights Act case, which has prompted some other Republican states to consider redrawing their maps in time for this year’s elections.

Virginia is currently represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans, all elected from districts imposed by a court following a bipartisan redistricting commission’s failure to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts could have given Democrats an improved chance to win all but one of the state's 11 congressional seats.

The state Supreme Court's majority was critical of the state’s redrawing of the congressional maps to benefit one political party. Those justices noted that 47% of the state’s voters supported GOP congressional candidates in 2024, but the new map could result in Democrats making up 91% of the state’s House delegation.

What was in the Democrats' map

Under the Democratic-drawn map, five districts would have been anchored in the Democratic stronghold of northern Virginia. Revisions to four other districts across Richmond, southern Virginia and Hampton Roads would have diluted the voting power of conservative blocs in those areas. And a reshaped district in parts of western Virginia would have lumped together three Democratic-leaning college towns to offset other Republican voters.

The state Supreme Court’s seven justices are appointed by the state legislature, which has toggled back and forth between Democratic, Republican and split control over recent years. Legal experts say the body doesn’t have a set ideological profile.

The case before the court focused not on the shape of the new districts but rather on the process the General Assembly used to authorize them.

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

The legislature’s initial approval of the amendment occurred last October, during early voting for the general election, before it concluded. The legislature’s second vote on the amendment occurred after a new legislative session began in January. Lawmakers also approved a separate bill in February laying out the new districts, subject to voter approval of the constitutional amendment.

Arguments over the definition of ‘election’

Judicial arguments focused on whether the legislature’s initial approval of the amendment came too late, because early voting already had begun.

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

But in its ruling, the Supreme Court said, “this view appears to be wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history.”

An attorney for the plaintiffs, Thomas McCarthy, argued an “election” should be interpreted to cover the entire period during which voters can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia. If that’s the case, he told justices, then the legislature’s initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to comply with the state constitution.

The Supreme Court agreed with that argument, writing: “The General Assembly passed the proposed constitutional amendment for the first time well after voters had begun casting ballots during the 2025 general election.”

By the time lawmakers initially endorsed the amendment, voters already had cast more than 1.3 million ballots in the general election, about 40% of the total votes ultimately cast, the court said.

The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms a decision by a judge in rural Tazewell County, in southwestern Virginia. The court had placed a hold on that ruling and allowed the redistricting vote to proceed before hearing arguments on the case.

In the dissent to Friday's ruling, Chief Justice Cleo Powell said the election for the purpose of considering the amendment does not include the early voting period.

“The majority’s definition creates an infinite voting loop that appears to have no established beginning,” she wrote, “only a definitive end: Election Day.”

Those are some of the details in a new batch of files on UFOs that the Pentagon began releasing on Friday as President Donald Trump taps into the public's long-held curiosities about "unidentified anomalous phenomena” in the broader universe. Though the Pentagon has been working on declassifying the documents for years, Trump put attention back on the topic months ago by teasing a major UFO document dump.

“Whereas previous Administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’ Have Fun and Enjoy!” Trump wrote Friday in a Truth Social post.

Trump's Republican administration says the public can draw its own conclusions with the information in the files, which includes old State Department cables, FBI documents and transcripts from NASA of crewed flights into space. A new Pentagon website housing the documents on UAPs has a decidedly retro feel, with black-and-white military imagery of flying objects displayed prominently on the page, with statements displayed in typewriter-like font.

The files reflect cases that the government deems unresolved, meaning that for a variety of reasons they couldn’t be explained with certainty. The Pentagon described the files as new and “never-before-seen,” though some had been made public years ago.

Experts urge caution around the release of the new files, warning that UAP videos are often misinterpreted and mischaracterized by those unfamiliar with military technology. A 2024 Pentagon report rebutted claims that the U.S. government has recovered alien technology or confirmed evidence of alien life.

Files describe numerous sightings of UAPs

The initial release is a trove of videos, other imagery and testimony that is sure to stir more speculation among those who believe we are not alone in the universe.

For instance, a State Department cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan in 1994 details how one Tajik pilot and three Americans saw a brightly lit UAP while flying a jet over Kazakhstan. The object, according to the cable, was “making 90 degree turns, doing corkscrews and maneuvering in circles at great rates of speed.”

That's not the only instance of erratically moving objects cited in the document release. A military report from the Aegean Sea in 2023 cited a UAP flying just above the surface of the ocean and making “multiple 90-degree turns at an estimated 80 mph" (129 km/h).

One interview with a U.S. intelligence official details an incident last year in which the official, doing a search on a helicopter, encountered a “super-hot” orb hovering over the ground, traveling about 20 miles (32 kilometers) at a speedy clip, then spotted four or five more orbs that flared up and down.

In a 1969 debriefing of Apollo 11 crew members, the astronaut Aldrin recalled spotting several unusual sights, such as a “sizeable” object close to the moon and a “fairly bright light source” that the crew felt could be a laser.

One document details an FBI interview with someone identified as a drone pilot who, in September 2023, reported seeing a “linear object” with a light bright enough to “see bands within the light” in the sky.

“The object was visible for five to ten seconds and then the light went out and the object vanished,” according to the FBI interview.

Another file is a NASA photograph from the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, showing three dots in a triangular formation. The Pentagon says in an accompanying caption that “there is no consensus about the nature of the anomaly” but that a new, preliminary analysis indicated that it could be a “physical object.”

The documents include more than 20 video files showing unidentified objects captured by military sensors in locations from Syria and Japan to North America. The objects range from fast-moving specks captured in the distance to a football-shaped object spotted over the East China Sea in 2022. The most recent video is from Jan. 1 of this year and appears to show two circular lights flying against an inky black backdrop in North America.

Several files include military videos from the past several years that showed small ambiguous dots moving above the landscapes of Iraq, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. The white objects sometimes streaked across the screen in less than a second, while others slowly glided through the air or were followed by the camera.

Other files include written reports from U.S. military service members who were surveilling locations in the Middle East. One report described an object that was “shaped as a bouncy ball” and traveling 483 mph (777 km/h) consistently for at least seven minutes over Syria in 2023.

The object was later determined to be benign.

Among the files are hundreds of pages detailing reported sightings dating to the 1940s. A 1948 report from U.S. airmen in the Netherlands raised concerns about recurring flying saucer sightings. Swedish counterparts saw them, too, and believed they did not come from “any presently known culture on earth,” the report said.

One military video that quickly caught attention on Friday appears to show an aircraft shaped like an eight-pointed star weaving through the air. The video, from 2013 in the Middle East, is probably nothing more than a hot jet engine producing a diffraction pattern in the camera, said Sean Kirkpatrick, a former director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which investigates UAP.

Kirkpatrick said there’s nothing unexpected in the release and warned that without analysis it will “only serve to fuel more speculation, conspiracy and arm-chair pseudoscience.”

Some call for even more transparency on UFO files

Trump has previously released records related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. that revealed little beyond what was already known.

The Pentagon has been working on declassifying documents related to UFOs for years, and Congress created an office in 2022 to declassify material. Its 2024 debut report revealed hundreds of new UAP incidents but found no evidence that the U.S. government had ever confirmed a sighting of alien technology.

A small group of Republicans in Congress has pressed for further transparency, accusing the Pentagon of holding documents back. A March letter from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., demanded 46 UAP videos identified by whistleblowers. Luna said Friday those videos will be released later by the Pentagon.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., thanked Trump for “keeping his word” on transparency and disclosure.

“I would like to remind people that transparency won’t all happen at once, it will take some time,” Burchett said in a statement.

Others used Friday's release to urge further transparency into what the government knows about UAPs. The Sol Foundation, a research group focused on UAPs, pushed for passage of legislation that would force a “thorough” review of classified UAP records "with the aim of providing Americans with the full truth about longstanding government knowledge and programs concerning technologies and vehicles not of human origin.”

“While today’s new step toward a full disclosure of government knowledge concerning UAP is welcome, many more need to be taken to bring an end to the decades of secrecy by which the American people were kept in the dark,” said Peter Skafish, the foundation's executive director, and retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, a former acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.

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Associated Press writer Ben Finley in Washington contributed to this report.

Paysour has spent 14 years on the Vikings’ coaching staff and played a role in all three of the program’s state championships during that span. He has served in several positions, including junior varsity assistant coach, junior varsity head coach and varsity head assistant coach.

Northside officials praised Paysour’s impact on the program and expressed confidence in his ability to continue the team’s winning tradition.

“In his time on staff, our program has had tremendous success, and looks to continue our culture of winning,” the school said in its announcement. “We look forward to seeing Coach Paysour take our program forward into a new era.”

Paysour said he is honored for the opportunity to lead the Vikings program.

“Over the years Northside basketball has come to mean something special — we play harder, we always compete, and we have more fun doing it, and it’s drawn so many people together in our community,” Paysour said. “It’s been a privilege to be a part of that family for the past 14 years, and I am honored, humbled and incredibly excited to be the next head coach of the Northside Vikings.”

Paysour also emphasized his commitment to maintaining the standards established by the program.

“I promise you that we are going to strive every single day to keep the standard of Northside basketball and keep playing for more,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”

The local and regional elections were widely seen as an unofficial referendum on Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted since he led the center-left Labour Party to power less than two years ago.

Voters have grown impatient for economic growth and dramatic change after 14 years of Conservative government, and many Labour lawmakers have become despairing at the government's failure to deliver.

Starmer said he took responsibility for the “very tough” results, which saw his party lose more than half the seats it was defending, but would not quit.

“The voters have sent a message about the pace of change, how they want their lives improved,” he said. “I was elected to meet those challenges, and I’m not going to walk away from those challenges and plunge the country into chaos.”

Reform UK, led by the veteran nationalist politician Nigel Farage, won hundreds of local council seats in working-class areas in England’s north, such as Sunderland, that were solid Labour turf for decades, and also made gains from the Conservatives in areas like the county of Essex, east of London. Reform, which ran on an anti-establishment and anti-immigration message, did particularly well in areas that backed the U.K. to leave the European Union in the historic Brexit vote in 2016.

Farage said the results in England, as well as those in Scotland and Wales, where elections to their semiautonomous parliaments were held, marked a “historic change in British politics.”

Labour also lost ground to the Green Party, whose popularity has risen under self-described “eco populist” leader Zack Polanski. The Greens beat Labour to win the mayoral race in London’s Hackney borough and gained hundreds of council seats in urban centers, including in London and Manchester, as well as university towns, such as Cambridge. The Conservative Party also lost ground, with the centrist Liberal Democrats making some gains.

A handful of Labour lawmakers urged Starmer to quit but Cabinet ministers cautioned the party not to topple the prime minister, while acknowledging the results were a wake-up call for the party.

Results reflect fragmentation of UK politics

Tony Travers, professor of government at the London School of Economics, said the elections show established parties struggling “to respond to populists on the left and right who appear to provide painless and simple solutions to intractable political and economic problems.”

The results reflect a fragmentation of British politics after decades of domination by Labour and the Conservatives, and make the outcome of the country's next national election hard to predict.

John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said Britain is entering a new political era.

“Even Reform are probably not quite at 30% of the vote, so the fracturing of British politics is underlined by these results,” he told the BBC.

Scotland and Wales go their own way

In Scotland and Wales, nationalist parties came first in elections to the Parliaments in Edinburgh and Cardiff, which have an array of powers, including on health and tax.

In Scotland, the Scottish National Party, which has governed since 2007 and campaigned on a promise to hold another referendum on Scotland leaving the U.K., won the most seats. Because it fell short of a majority, analysts said it's less likely it will push for one during the coming five-year parliamentary term. With just a handful of seats remaining to be allocated, Labour is vying with Reform for second.

And in Wales, Plaid Cymru secured a historic breakthrough, bringing an end to Labour's unbroken 27-year run in power since the legislature was formed. The party, which has an ambition for Wales to leave the U.K. but no plan to do so anytime soon, fell short of a majority but will likely form the new government.

The huge reverse for Labour in Wales, which saw its leader lose her seat and the party drop to third behind Reform, is perhaps the party's most striking reverse and the one that may hurt the most.

“Welsh Labour has today suffered a catastrophic result,” said outgoing Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan. “It ends a century of Labour winning in Wales and the party will have to take a really hard look at itself.”

Starmer's future is under threat

Starmer’s popularity has plunged after repeated missteps and policy U-turns such as welfare reform. His government has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living — tasks made harder by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which has choked off oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

The prime minister has been further hurt by his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.

The election results could trigger a challenge from a high-profile rival such as Health Secretary Wes Streeting, former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner or Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham. Alternatively, Starmer could face pressure from the party to set a timetable for his departure.

“I don’t think Keir Starmer should survive these results,” said Labour lawmaker Jonathan Brash, who represents Hartlepool in Parliament. “We have to be bolder, and we have to go further. And quite frankly, we need new leadership in order to achieve that.”

Even if Starmer survives for now, many in the party doubt he will lead the party into the next national election, which must be held by 2029.

The expansion of March Madness and the $300 million in extra revenue that comes with it through opening sponsorships to beer, wine and liquor companies offered a brief reprieve from the steady drip of headlines that underscore big-picture problems confronting college sports in an era of tightening budgets and revenue sharing with athletes.

Among them:

— A title-contending tennis program at Arkansas is disbanded, while golf teams at Wichita State also get the ax as part of the purge of multiple sports programs nationwide.

— The Big 12 taps into private equity for loans, while Duke cuts a streaming deal with Amazon expected to bring millions more to the Blue Devils.

— The College Sports Commission, which is in charge of making sure everyone follows the rules regarding the hundreds of millions of dollars now being paid to players, gets challenged in court and in arbitration while waiting for schools to sign off on a long-awaited agreement that cements its authority.

All of those issues have one thing in common: money. The NCAA's move to expand its tournament brackets to 76 teams is about that, too. Of the $300 million in extra revenue projected over the next six seasons, about $131 million will be distributed to the conferences whose schools make the tournaments.

“The NCAA and conferences and schools generating revenue in responsible ways is important in the current environment with revenue sharing,” said Dan Gavitt, who oversees Division I basketball at the NCAA. “That wasn't the sole reason, I can assure you that. But it was an important consideration.”

Is a tennis program more valuable than a wide receiver?

One of the most trenchant questions sports attorney Gabe Feldman asked North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham during a recent podcast was if Arkansas, after cutting its tennis programs, “can't find a way to make it work, how can Arkansas State and everybody else?”

Cunningham's basic answer was that the ultimate solution will involve a system in which the money flows in both directions.

“One is you will be paid to play your game and other is you’ll have to pay if you’re going to play your game,” he said.

If recent headlines are any indication, tennis and golf players will be among those who will be paying to play.

The tennis programs at Arkansas joined those at North Dakota, Saint Louis and Illinois State (men's only) that were discontinued this season. The cuts at Arkansas stood out because this involves a team in the Southeastern Conference, the second-richest conference in college sports behind the Big Ten.

The Razorbacks' tennis programs cost about $2.5 million — around the cost to sign a high-profile wide receiver — men's coach Jay Udwadia told Front Office Sports.

“My initial reaction was, ‘That’s funny. April fools, right?'" Udwadia said of his reaction upon hearing the news.

Turns out, his was one of about 20 programs eliminated this year across all college sports — a cutback that figures to hit Olympic sports, and the U.S. Olympic pipeline, the hardest.

“You want to see Olympic sports survive and thrive,” said Paia LaPalombara, a former college administrator who is now partner at the Church, Church, Hittle and Antrim law firm specializing on college sports deals. “But those are going to be the ones generally on the chopping block.”

Schools are tapping into different ways to expand revenue

Schools and conferences are showing an endless willingness to discover new ways to make ends meet.

Last week, Duke signed a landmark deal to stream three of its basketball games on Amazon — a deal believed to be worth millions and one that could be a sign of things to come.

When Georgia and Florida State abruptly canceled their home-and-home football series set for 2027 and ‘28, they said they were seeking to reschedule a neutral-site game. Reporting emerged that the schools were looking to cut a deal with a streamer, as Duke had done. It’s the sort of arrangement a smaller school could never make, and one that further separates the haves from the have-nots in college sports.

“Ultimately, it’s about revenue generation,” said James Strode, a professor of sport management at Ohio University who focuses on changes in college sports. “We're now in a situation where the separation and divide between big programs, Power Four programs, and Group of Six programs is even getting wider."

In another move that felt novel a mere three years ago but now seems like business-as-usual, the Big 12 inked a deal with private equity firms that availed its 16 schools of up to $30 million each in a line of credit.

Texas Tech was among the Big 12 schools not interested. The school's regent chair, Cody Campbell, is a billionaire who last year said equity deals were not a permanent solution and basically amounted to a “payday loan.”

NIL regulator off to a bumpy start with more questions looming

Who's keeping track of it all?

That's supposed to be the College Sports Commission — the entity formed out of the House settlement that is tasked with vetting most of the payments going from schools and their affiliates to the players.

The CSC has introduced an approach that LaPalombara said “has growing pains at the moment.” The difficulty comes in two places:

— Schools' reluctance to sign a “participation agreement” that was intended to cement the CSC's status as the main regulator when it comes to NIL compensation.

— Arbitration cases stemming from deals the CSC has rejected. The most important one involves 18 football players at Nebraska over whether the CSC can exercise oversight over third-party NIL deals cut through schools' multimedia-rights holders, the likes of which are an increasingly popular way to execute the deals. A ruling in favor of the CSC could trigger litigation.

“That's the true test of the efficacy of the CSC as an actual governing body,” LaPalombara said. “If an institution or a student-athlete doesn't receive the outcome they desire, it's whether they sue and what the outcome of the lawsuits will be. That will be the true test of whether the CSC can continue in its current form.”

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AP March Madness: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

U.S. District Judge Douglas Rayes in Phoenix on Friday accepted an agreement in which Preston Henry Tolth pleaded guilty to robbing Begay. Under the agreement, Tolth was credited with three years’ time served and prosecutors dropped an assault charge and agreed not to prosecute him in the future if Begay’s case develops.

The sentencing effectively closes a yearslong case that has been troubled by a lack of physical evidence and the suppression of a confession from Tolth, who also is Navajo.

During Friday's hearing, family members urged Rayes to reject the agreement. Begay's niece tearfully reiterated that they didn’t want Tolth released without him leading investigators to Begay.

“A 62-year-woman is still nowhere to be found. No amount of time is enough if he won’t tell us where she is,” said Seraphine Warren, who later left the courtroom when it was apparent the judge was moving forward with the sentencing.

A beloved grandmother of nine and talented weaver of Navajo-style pictorial rugs, Begay was 62 when she vanished from her home in Sweetwater, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation in June 2021. Tolth’s sentencing comes amid a week of awareness for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples movement, which highlights the disproportionate number of Native Americans who are missing or have been killed.

In the years since Begay went missing, her family members have organized searches, pushed law enforcement for answers and even walked across the country to keep a public spotlight on her case. Advocates have compared Begay’s case to that of Gabby Petito, a young white woman whose disappearance the same summer drew a frenzy of news coverage, social media attention and law enforcement action that ultimately led to the discovery of her remains in Wyoming.

Navajo Nation police and FBI agents identified Tolth as a suspect within days of her disappearance. Tolth, whose father was dating Begay’s sister, initially denied any involvement. In a later interrogation, an FBI agent lied to Tolth, telling him police found Begay’s truck and were processing evidence that would implicate him. In response, Tolth waived his right to remain silent and confessed to stealing Begay’s pickup truck, beating her and leaving her for dead on the side of the road.

It is typically legal for U.S. law enforcement to fabricate evidence during interrogations. But Rayes ruled that in this instance, the FBI agent failed to “scrupulously honor” Tolth’s initial refusal to speak and threw the confession out. A panel of appellate court judges agreed.

In the absence of that confession, U.S. Attorney Tracy Van Buskirk said Friday that the plea agreement was the government's best attempt at securing a reasonable sentence. Speaking about Tolth’s effort to help investigators find Begay, Van Buskirk said Tolth wasn’t familiar with the Sweetwater area and had been drinking alcohol on the night when he robbed her.

In court Friday, Begay’s son Gerald Begay called the agreement a “failure.”

“It shouldn’t be that way,” Gerald Begay told the judge.

Jane McClellan, a lawyer for Tolth, said her client acknowledged robbing Begay, showed officers where he thought he might have left her on the night of the crime and doesn't have further information.

“He is remorseful for his actions,” McClellan said. “He has taken responsibility for his actions.”

In an unusual move, Rayes rejected a previous plea agreement that called for Tolth to be released after three years of time served, saying it was overly lenient. Begay's family members had presented anguished testimony and said they would prefer to the case went to trial.

Navajo Nation public safety director Michael Henderson said finding Begay is still a priority for tribal law enforcement.

“One of the hindrances is that the federal investigation is still pending,” Henderson said.

Once federal law enforcement officially close the case, Henderson said, Navajo Nation police may gain access to information that will aid their search.

April Curley, a former Google employee, had sued the tech giant for racial discrimination, saying it engages in a “pattern and practice” of unfair treatment for its Black workers. The suit claimed the company steered them into lower-level and lower-paid jobs and subjected them to a hostile work environment if they speak out. Other former Google workers also joined the suit, which later received class action status.

“This case is about accountability, plain and simple,” said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represented the plaintiffs, in a statement. “For far too long, Black employees in the tech industry have faced barriers that limit opportunity. This settlement is a significant step toward holding one of the world’s most powerful companies accountable and making clear that discriminatory practices cannot and will not be tolerated.”

The settlement was announced in May 2025 and granted final approval this week. Google said when the settlement was reached that it strongly disagrees with the allegations that it treated anyone improperly and remains "committed to paying, hiring, and leveling all employees consistently.”

The lawsuit, echoed years of complaints from Black employees at the company. That includes prominent artificial intelligence scholar Timnit Gebru, who said she was pushed out in 2020 after a dispute over a research paper examining the societal dangers of an emerging branch of artificial intelligence.

The 2022 lawsuit claimed that Mountain View, California-based Google viewed Black job candidates “through harmful racial stereotypes” and claimed that hiring managers deemed Black candidates “not ‘Googly’ enough, a plain dog whistle for race discrimination.”

In addition, according to the suit, interviewers “hazed” and undermined Black candidates and hired Black candidates into lower-paying and lower-level roles with less advancement potential based on their race and racial stereotypes.

The settlement, which does not constitute admission of liability by Google, also includes a commitment to pay equity analyses, pay transparency measures, and limits on mandatory arbitration for employment-related disputes through at least August 2026, according to Crump.

Elizabeth Polo was in a creative writing class at the University of Maryland late Thursday afternoon when a classmate shouted, “Canvas got hacked.” A message from a hacking collective flashed on her computer screen.

“Our whole class just like was like freaking out about it,” said Polo, a junior. “Our poor professor was trying to get everyone to calm down but it was just kind of chaos.”

Across academia, the outage set off panic and confusion as students and faculty members found themselves locked out of a platform they rely on to manage grades and access course notes and assignments. Colleges scrambled to reschedule final exams as students lost any way to access materials they needed to study.

Instructure, the company behind Canvas, said in an update late Thursday that the system was available for most users.

“Instructure discovered the unauthorized actor involved in our ongoing security incident made changes to the pages that appeared when some students and teachers were logged in,” Instructure said Friday in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, we immediately took Canvas offline to contain access and further investigate.”

Instructure also said it confirmed that the unauthorized actor exploited an issue related to its Free-For-Teacher accounts. The company has temporarily shut down those accounts.

Instructure did not say whether it paid a ransom nor has it said what happened with the compromised data.

Rich in digitized data, the nation’s schools are prime targets for far-flung criminal hackers, who are assiduously locating and scooping up sensitive files that not long ago were committed to paper in locked cabinets. Past attacks have hit Minneapolis Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Hackers breached data days before the outage

A hacking group called ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach at Canvas, said Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. The hacking group posted online that nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were affected, with billions of private messages and other records accessed, Connolly said.

The message that flashed on Polo's computer screen urged individual schools to reach out directly to the hacking group to negotiate a settlement and threatened to leak data if they didn’t. She said that Canvas later took that message down, replacing it with a message saying the site was undergoing scheduled maintenance.

Just before 1 a.m. Friday, Polo was able to submit an assignment on Canvas, but she now worries personal data has been compromised.

Canvas went down just as deadlines were hitting

The outage happened just as a deadline arrived for semester-long projects in one of Gwyneth Doland’s journalism classes at the University of New Mexico.

“They were a little hyperventilating,” recalled Doland, who extended the deadlines. “None of these platforms are fail-proof. I’m glad that they got that lesson.”

That the attack came with finals looming came as no surprise to Huseyin Can Yuceel, the security research lead at Picus Labs.

“Timing is everything, because they want to inflict pain as much as possible,” he said, “so they can extort money out of it.”

Teachers said they had to find workarounds to help students study for exams and submit final assignments. Some schools, such as the University of Texas at San Antonio, announced they were pushing back finals scheduled for Friday in response to the outage.

Rod Uzat, a professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Texas Permian Basin, pushed back the posting of grades by a day.

“The concern is for those of us who were doing the grading if there’s anything left,” Uzat said.

Rhongho Jang, a computer science professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, was finalizing grades for a class of 94 students when the system went down. He keeps paper copies of the student exams, but all of the semester assignments, which make up half of the final grade, are done online.

If those assignments and grades could not be recovered, Jang would have given his students full credit.

“I didn’t want to penalize them,” he said. “We cannot judge based on the data we don’t have. The final responsibility is still on the server.”

A reliance on tech makes schools vulnerable

The breach underscored how much schools depend on outside companies' digital platforms to keep their operations running.

“What it boils down to is concentration risk,” said Joseph Blankenship, a vice president and research director at Forrester. He said any space, including education, is particularly vulnerable when there’s only one or maybe two key providers hosting essential technology.

Allan Liska, of the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, said the outage did appear deliberate, not a glitch, and that Instructure was trying to figure out how widespread the problem was and make sure the hackers were no longer inside its system.

“There’s no indication at this point that any ransom has been paid,” Liska said. “And it likely is still a little too early for a ransom to have been paid. You know, normally these negotiations kind of drag on for a while.”

Connolly described ShinyHunters as a loose affiliation of teenagers and young adults based in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The group also has been tied to other attacks, including Live Nation’s Ticketmaster subsidiary. ShinyHunters posted online that it was not commenting on the Canvas incident.

ShinyHunters, or an offshoot, also was behind a previous smaller breach of Instructure, Liska said. Sometimes small breaches reveal weaknesses that threat actors later exploit in future leaks, said Yuceel, who likened it to a leak in a boat.

“You fixed it, but you already have the water in the boat,” he said.

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This story has been updated to correct the name of the cybersecurity company to Emsisoft, not Emisoft. ___

Associated Press writer Wyatte Grantham-Philips 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.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.8% to an all-time high after a report said U.S. employers added 115,000 more jobs than they cut last month, even though the war with Iran is raising fuel costs and uncertainty for everyone. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up by 12 points, or less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.7% to its own record.

While hiring slowed from March’s level, it was still nearly double what economists expected. And it helped the S&P 500 close out a sixth straight winning week, its longest such streak since 2024. The U.S. stock market has been blasting higher since late March, in part on hopes that the war will not mean a worst-case scenario for the global economy and that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to allow oil tankers to deliver crude from the Persian Gulf again.

It’s still to be determined if those hopes are warranted or just wishful. U.S. forces fired on and disabled two Iranian oil tankers on Friday after exchanging fire with Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz overnight. It’s the latest flare-up in fighting to raise doubts about the tenuous month-old ceasefire that the United States has insisted is still in effect.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil rose 1.2% to settle at $101.29 following the latest volleys of fire. That’s below its heights above $119 during the war, but it’s still much more expensive than its roughly $70 level from late February before the fighting began.

One big factor helping to support the U.S. stock market despite the war’s uncertainties is the strong profits that companies have been reporting for the start of 2026.

Monster Beverage jumped 13.6% after the energy drink maker joined the parade of companies topping analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue for the latest quarter. It benefited from strong growth outside the United States, and total net sales from there made up about 45% of its total, the highest percentage ever for the company.

Akamai Technologies leaped even more, 26.6%, after its results squeaked past expectations. It announced a $1.8 billion deal to provide cloud infrastructure services to an unnamed client over seven years. The cybersecurity and cloud computing company is benefiting from the surge in investment in artificial-intelligence technology.

Voracious demand for AI helped CoreWeave report revenue for the latest quarter that was more than double what it was a year earlier, but its net loss was worse than analysts expected. It also gave a forecasted range for revenue in the current quarter whose midpoint fell below analysts’ expectations. The stock of the company, which offers AI computing power to customers over the cloud, fell 11.4%.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 61.82 points to 7,398.93. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 12.19 to 49,609.16, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 440.88 to 26,247.08.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe and Asia. Germany’s DAX lost 1.3%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.9% for two of the bigger losses.

South Korea’s Kospi was an exception, and it inched up 0.1% to another all-time high.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased and remained lower after a preliminary report suggested sentiment among U.S. consumers is stuck near its lowest level since 2022. Consumers told the survey from the University of Michigan they’re concerned about both high gasoline prices and tariffs, though their expectations for inflation in the coming year softened by a bit.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.36% from 4.41% late Thursday and from 4.45% early this week.

Lower yields can bring down rates for mortgages and other kinds of loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which in turn can give the economy a boost. Lower yields also tend to push upward on prices for stocks and other kinds of investments.

The 10-year Treasury yield, though, remains well above its 3.97% level from just before the war.

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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

The announcement gives Schmitz the title Nico Harrison held until he was fired in November, nine months after trading Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in a move that backfired badly on the franchise.

The Mavericks said Schmitz would oversee day-to-day management and strategic alignment in the club's basketball operations department.

The move comes with Dallas still not having provided any clarity on the future roles of Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi. They were named co-interim GMs when Harrison was fired and engineered the trade of Anthony Davis, the centerpiece acquired by Dallas in the Doncic deal, to Washington.

Schmitz and the Nigerian-raised Ujiri have strong ties to Africa. Schmitz has spent time working on youth basketball development in Ujiri's homeland and has served as an assistant coach with the Ugandan national team.

Schmitz joined the Trail Blazers in 2022 after spending five years as a draft analyst at ESPN.

“I have tremendous respect for Masai, this ownership group and the vision they have for the future of the franchise,” Schmitz said. “I'm excited to get to work alongside the talented people already in place and help build a championship-caliber organization.”

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

Canvas has since been restored. All final exams scheduled for May 8 have been postponed.

Students make the most of an unexpected break

Reading day at Virginia Tech is traditionally reserved for studying before finals. With Canvas offline, many students found themselves with an unplanned day off.

“Gave me a reason not to study,” said Jake Benn, a VT student. “My reading day kind of went down the drain. Usually used for studying, but I kind of just really didn’t do anything.”

For some, the disruption came as a welcome, if unplanned, reprieve.

“I thought it was perfect timing,” said freshman Abigail Sapon. “I got to pack up all my things. I didn’t think I would have time for that. A lot of stress has been taken off of me.”

Freshman Juliana Cigularova had an exam scheduled for 7:45 that morning and spent the previous day waiting for answers. She later learned all Friday exams were moved to Sunday.

“We grabbed dinner and it was nice cause everyone’s leaving too,” Cigularova said. “We finally got to all get together. No one had to study.”

Senior Thomas Mauck had his own take on a potential silver lining.

“I was kind of hoping that exams would get canceled or like teachers would offer us to just keep our final grades as is,” Mauck said. “I would’ve been fine with that. Go home a little earlier.”

Professors and TAs also felt the disruption

The outage wasn’t limited to students. Senior Sean Fleming, who works as a teaching assistant, said the disruption hit both sides of the classroom.

“It’s also unfortunate for me to have to prepare for that class and not have that material to prepare and test out the finals,” Fleming said. “I know on the back end side that my professor was struggling as well. So it’s not only for students, but professors.”

Fleming added that the shared frustration helped build a sense of community on campus.

“Although it was unfortunate, it was a little come together as a community moment,” he said.

Senior Madison Mulhern said her professor found a workaround quickly. “My teacher just emailed everyone and said just email it to me if it doesn’t work out,” Mulhern said.

Data breach concerns loom over campus

Beyond the academic inconvenience, some students expressed serious concern about the security implications of the attack.

“It was also still concerning when I realized, oh, this could be a giant data breach for literally hundreds of thousands of people,” said sophomore Emilie Verton.

Senior Sydney Peterson echoed that worry.

“I know there’s a lot of data being leaked, which is a little scary — especially with Virginia Tech, a lot of our passwords are the same,” Peterson said.

Freshman Kiersten McEacheron pointed out that this was not Canvas’s first outage at Virginia Tech.

“It shut down last semester. Obviously, it’s a different situation, but the fact that this is the second time that happened — I feel like some change needs to happen somehow,” McEacheron said.

Some students scrambled to adjust

Not every student took the outage in stride. Freshman Jordan Walters said the timing complicated her study plans.

“I couldn’t study for my finals because all my notes were on Canvas,” Walters said. “I feel like I would have been more nervous if my finals were sooner, cause mine are Monday and Tuesday next week.”

Freshman Leila Aguilar had been scheduled to leave campus the same day her exam was affected.

“I was supposed to go home today. So that was definitely an issue,” Aguilar said. “But luckily my professor was able to let me take it this morning. She was so considerate about it.”

Sapon, who had prepared in advance, said the outage cut short work she had already completed.

“I already pre-wrote my essay and everything. I spent all day doing that and then the hacker stopped that,” Sapon said.

The attacks cast more doubt on a tenuous month-old ceasefire that the United States has insisted is still in effect. Washington is awaiting an Iranian response to its latest proposal for a deal to end the war, reopen the strait and roll back Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he hopes to receive “a serious offer” from Iran later Friday.

The U.S. military said Friday that its forces had disabled two Iranian tankers that were trying to breach an American blockade of Iran’s ports. Hours earlier, the military said it thwarted attacks on three Navy ships and struck Iranian military facilities in the strait.

Iran has mostly blocked the critical waterway for global energy since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28, causing a global spike in fuel prices and rattling world markets. The U.S. has imposed its own blockade of Iran's ports.

The UAE’s Defense Ministry meanwhile said three people were wounded after air defenses engaged two ballistic missiles and three drones launched by Iran. It was not clear if all were successfully intercepted.

US says it responded to an attack in the strait

The U.S. military posted video of the two Iranian tankers as their smokestacks were struck by an American fighter jet on Friday. Earlier in the week, an American military jet shot out the rudder of a tanker the U.S. military said was attempting to breach its blockade.

Late Thursday, the U.S. military said it thwarted Iranian attacks on three Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz and struck Iranian military facilities in response. It said no American ships were hit.

“They threaten Americans, they are going to be blown up,” Rubio told reporters Friday.

Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned what it called “hostile” U.S. military action, saying it violated the ceasefire. “Every time a diplomatic solution is on the table, the U.S. opts for a reckless military adventure,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X.

A U.S. strike overnight killed at least one sailor and injured 10 others aboard a cargo vessel that caught fire, a news agency affiliated with Iran's judiciary reported. It was not clear if the ship was one of the two tankers the U.S. acknowledged striking.

U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted the ceasefire is holding. He also has reiterated threats to resume full-scale bombing if Iran doesn’t accept an agreement to reopen the strait and roll back its nuclear program.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country has been in contact with the U.S. and Iran “day and night” in an effort to extend the ceasefire and reach a peace deal.

Images show apparent oil slick off Iranian terminal

Satellite images reviewed by The Associated Press show what appears to be an oil slick in the Persian Gulf emanating from the western side of Kharg Island, Iran’s main crude export terminal.

Images taken Friday show the slick covering about 71 square kilometers (27 square miles) and appear to show oil still leaking from the terminal, said Ami Daniel, CEO of maritime intelligence firm Windward AI.

Daniel estimated that the equivalent of roughly 80,000 oil barrels has spilled from Kharg Island since the slick was first detected by satellite images Tuesday. It’s unknown whether the spill was caused by a malfunction, an airstrike or something else.

“This is the risk of fighting in an oil-rich area,” said Daniel, adding that it’s unlikely any cleanup efforts will be launched in Gulf waters that have become an active war zone.

He said the spill appears to be spreading southwest and within the next two weeks could potentially reach the shores of the UAE, Qatar or Saudi Arabia.

Nina Noelle, an international crisis operations expert with Greenpeace Germany, said Friday that preliminary assessment and recent images show the spill beginning to disperse and it appears unlikely that it will impact land. She said depending on wind, waves and current conditions, parts of the slick could still possibly affect some sensitive marine habitats.

“More likely, it will dissipate offshore under prevailing conditions,” Noelle said.

The Pentagon declined to comment on whether the U.S. military was tracking the spill or whether there had been recent strikes on the Iranian island. Based on the imagery taken earlier this week, the spill occurred before the most recent round of U.S. strikes.

Rubio says `unacceptable' for an Iranian agency to control strait

Rubio said Friday that it's “unacceptable” for Iran to have a government agency that vets and taxes ships seeking passage through the strait.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a shipping data company, reported Thursday that Iran has created such an agency, known as the Persian Gulf Strait Authority.

The Iranian effort to formalize control over the channel raised new concerns about international shipping, with hundreds of commercial vessels bottled up in the Persian Gulf and unable to reach the open sea.

“Is the world going to accept that Iran now controls an international waterway?” Rubio said. “What is the world prepared to do about it?”

Iran has effectively closed the strait, a vital waterway for the shipment of oil, gas, fertilizer and other petroleum products, while the U.S. is blockading Iranian ports.

A Chinese-crewed oil tanker was attacked near the strait. China has continued to import oil from Iran despite the effective closure of the waterway.

China's Foreign Ministry expressed concern, saying the tanker was registered in the Marshall Islands with Chinese crew on board. There were no casualties reported.

An oil tanker that passed through the Strait of Hormuz in mid-April arrived off South Korea’s coast on Friday with 1 million barrels of crude. South Korea, which last year imported more than 60% of its crude through the strait, has capped prices of gasoline and other petroleum products.

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Finley and Biesecker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia; Giada Zampano and Nicole Winfield in Rome, Seung Min Kim in Washington, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, and Simina Mistreanu in Bangkok contributed.

Even as unilateral ceasefires declared by Ukraine and Russia earlier this week failed to hold, with both parties blaming each other, Trump said Friday that the leaders of Russia and Ukraine agreed to his request for a ceasefire running Saturday through Monday and an exchange of prisoners. Trump added that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war that has dragged into a fifth year.

Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov confirmed that Russia has accepted Trump’s initiative for a three-day ceasefire and an exchange of 1,000 prisoners of war on each side.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine's consent to the U.S.-brokered agreement was driven by the prospect of freeing its prisoners. At the same time, he issued a decree mockingly allowing Russia to hold its Victory Day celebrations on Saturday, declaring Red Square temporarily off-limits for Ukrainian strikes.

“Red Square matters less to us than the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war who can be brought home,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov shrugged off Zelenskyy’s decree “authorizing” the Red Square parade as a “silly joke.”

“We don’t need anyone’s permission to be proud of our Victory Day,” Peskov told reporters.

Earlier, a unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine that Russia announced for Friday and Saturday quickly unraveled. Moscow and Kyiv blamed each other for the continued fighting, just as they did when Ukraine’s own unilateral ceasefire swiftly collapsed earlier in the week.

The accusations reflect the deep-seated lack of trust between the two sides more than four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor. That has thwarted U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to find a peace settlement.

Ukraine's new drone and missile technology has helped it hit deep inside Russia frequently and accurately in recent months, especially major oil facilities.

Meanwhile, rumblings of unhappiness with some of the Kremlin’s wartime policies have put the spotlight on Putin, who is due to make a speech on Saturday to mark Victory Day, commemorating victory over Nazi Germany 81 years ago.

The Russia-Ukraine war rages unabated

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Friday that its forces in Ukraine “completely ceased combat operations and remained at their previously occupied lines and positions” from midnight, when Putin’s unilateral ceasefire came into force.

But it accused Ukrainian forces of continuing to strike Russian positions as well as civilian infrastructure in border areas of the Belgorod and Kursk regions.

Air defenses shot down 390 Ukrainian drones and six Neptune long-range guided missiles aimed at Russia after midnight, according to the ministry.

A Ukrainian drone strike hit the administrative building of the Southern Russia Air Navigation branch in Rostov-on-Don, forcing 13 airports in the south of the country to suspend operations, Russia’s Transport Ministry said. Flights resumed Friday afternoon, but officials said it would take up to three days to fully restore air travel in the area.

Speaking during a meeting of Russia's Security Council, Putin called the strike a “terrorist” attack and hailed traffic controllers for helping to avoid tragic consequences.

Zelenskyy had a different story. Russian forces continued attacking on the front line overnight, he said, while Ukrainian air defense forces shot down 56 Russian drones.

“All this clearly shows that there was not even a pretense of a ceasefire attempt from the Russian side,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine also claimed Friday more long-range strikes on Russian oil facilities. Zelenskyy said one hit the Yaroslavl region, more than 700 kilometers (430 miles) from the border, although he didn’t specify when the attack happened. Ukraine’s Security Service said a separate strike hit a major Russian oil refinery and pipeline pumping station in the Perm region, more than 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away.

Difficulties mount for Putin

Putin, who has ruled Russia for more than 25 years, has used the USSR’s victory in World War II to rally support for him and the war in Ukraine, as well as to project Russia’s global clout.

That made it surprising that the traditional parade will take place without tanks, missiles and other military equipment, aside from war planes in a traditional flyover, for the first time in nearly two decades. Officials put the move down to the “current operational situation,” without elaborating.

Russia’s bigger and better-equipped army has been engaged in a slow, hard slog in Ukraine, while Ukraine’s long-range attacks deep inside Russia targeted Russian oil production as well as manufacturing plants and military depots, rattling the Kremlin.

Some Russians are disgruntled about internet censorship and government control over online activities, including the blocking of the popular messaging app Telegram.

All mobile internet access and text messaging services will be restricted in Moscow on Saturday, according to the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media. It said the drastic measures were to ensure public safety.

“A military parade is intended as a demonstration of strength and bravery, but if it is held furtively … and with the internet jammed (to reduce the chances of a Ukrainian attack drone being able to navigate to the site), it demonstrates nothing but fear and weakness,” Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, a Berlin-based think tank, wrote in an analysis this week.

Russia warns of heavy retaliation if Moscow is attacked

Russian officials have repeatedly warned that Moscow would take decisive action — including a potential mass strike on Kyiv — if Ukrainian attacks disrupt official events scheduled for Saturday.

Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, Laos President Thongloun Sisoulith, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko were due to attend Victory Day celebrations in the Russian capital.

Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia, a European Union member, laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial just outside the Kremlin walls after arriving in Moscow on Friday. He was set to meet with Putin but will stay away from the Red Square parade.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry advised foreign embassies and international organizations located in Kyiv to evacuate their offices in case such a strike did take place, and the Defense Ministry urged civilians to evacuate, too.

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Associated Press writer Hanna Arhirova contributed to this story from Kyiv, Ukraine.

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

According to officials, the assault took place in the Macgill Village, and the suspect is described as a white male approximately 6 ft tall, weighing 200-250 pounds. The man had green eyes, dark eybrows and had a raspy voice and was wearing all black.

The department encourages the public to be aware of the public to be aware of their surroundings and take proper safety precautions. If you have any information regarding the incident, contact Detective Sergeant McmMillan at 540-994-8680.

“After an extensive search, I am pleased to welcome Brandon Johnson to the PHamily. He brings extensive experience stewarding excellence and enhancing the student-athlete experience, all while fostering a community-wide culture of collaboration and belonging,” said Patrick & Henry Community College President, Dr. Greg Hodges.

In Johnson’s new role, he will lead a division comprising approximately 125 student-athletes across ten men’s and women’s programs. Johnson steps into an athletics program that has built significant momentum across its teams, competed on the national stage, won conference titles, and established a culture of excellence on the field and in the classroom.

“I have admired Patrick & Henry and the way it develops student-athletes both in competition and in life, so, when this opportunity arose, it felt like a perfect fit,” Johnson said, adding, “There is a strong foundation at P&H, and I look forward to building on it in partnership with the world-class athletics staff and the student-athletes we will have the honor of supporting. My family and I are thrilled to be a part of the PHamily.”

Johnson has been a leader in local athletics for more than 15 years. Most recently, he served as head football coach at Bassett High School (BHS), where he oversaw a comprehensive program rooted in total student development. He also held an administrative role at BHS and has spoken at schools and professional development workshops across the region.

Throughout his career, Johnson has established himself as one of the most respected athletic leaders in the area. He led the Bengals football program through transformative growth — building revenue streams, modernizing facilities, elevating school culture, and positioning students for long-term success.

A lifelong resident of Henry County, Johnson is a graduate of Guilford College, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in Education and of Averett University, where he earned his Master’s in Educational Leadership.

The agreement, which was approved by the union's board of directors and ratified by a vote of the membership, runs through the 2032 NFL season.

“We see this new CBA as a partnership with the league that benefits our membership but also seeks to make our game better. It is good to get these negotiations behind us so we can focus on preparing for the 2026 season,” union President Carl Cheffers said.

The NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with the referees association had been set to expire on May 31, and the two sides began negotiating in the summer of 2024.

The league began the onboarding process for replacement officials last month because negotiations weren’t progressing. But they won’t be necessary.

The league and the union said in a joint statement that the deal covers a wide range of issues including economics, performance and accountability.

“This agreement is a testament to the joint commitment of the league and union to invest in and improve officiating,” said Troy Vincent, NFL executive vice president of football operations. “It also speaks to the game officials’ relentless pursuit of improvement and officiating excellence. We look forward to working together for the betterment of the game.”

Detailed terms weren't released.

The NFL had sought increased access to officials in the offseason, a practice squad or bench of officials, a new formal training program and control of playoff assignments based on performance. A person with knowledge of the new deal told The Associated Press those priorities were met in the agreement. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because contract details weren't publicized.

A stalemate in 2012 resulted in a 110-day lockout and replacement referees were used.

That led to several high-profile mistakes, including the Fail Mary when Russell Wilson completed a desperation pass to Golden Tate in the closing seconds to lift Seattle over Green Bay in a Monday night game. Tate pushed off so he should’ve been penalized for offensive pass interference. He appeared to wrestle the ball away from a Packers defender and was given credit for a catch even though two officials had called it differently.

There weren’t as many glaring errors when the NFL also used replacement officials for one week of exhibition games and the opening week in 2001 before the labor dispute was resolved shortly after 9/11, and the regular officials returned in time when the season resumed following a one-week break.

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South Florida served as a central location for planning and financing the plot to oust Moïse and replace him with someone of the conspirators’ choosing, U.S. prosecutors alleged.

Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla and James Solages were found guilty of conspiring to kill or kidnap Haiti’s elected leader and providing material support for the plot. They were also convicted of violating the U.S. Neutrality Act and could face possible life sentences.

“These defendants pursued power, influence, and profit through violence," U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Reding Quiñones said in a statement. "They supported a conspiracy that crossed borders, destabilized a friendly nation, and ended with the murder of a sitting president. The jury has spoken, and the rule of law has answered.”

Prosecutors argued that the men had their own leader in mind and had hoped to enrich themselves with a new government.

Moïse was killed on July 7, 2021, when about two dozen foreign mercenaries, mostly from Colombia, attacked his home near Port-au-Prince. Moïse’s wife, Martine, was wounded during the attack and flown to the U.S. for treatment. In Haiti, meanwhile, gang leaders have grown increasingly violent and empowered.

Martine Moïse was the first witness at trial, which began in March in Miami's federal court, describing through a Creole interpreter how she awoke to the sounds of gunfire after midnight. She told jurors that she turned to her husband in bed next to her to ask what was going on.

“Honey, we are dead,” Jovenel Moïse replied, according to his wife's testimony.

Ortiz and Intriago were principals of Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy and Counter Terrorist Unit Security, collectively known as CTU, and Veintemilla was a principal of Worldwide Capital Lending Group. Both companies were based in South Florida.

Christian Sanon is a dual Haitian-American citizen whom investigators say was initially favored by the conspirators to replace Moïse. Solages was a CTU representative in Haiti who coordinated with Sanon and others, officials said. Sanon will face trial at a later date.

Defense attorneys argued at trial that the investigation into the assassination was a mess and that the four were manipulated into taking blame for an internal coup. They said the men believed they had a legitimate warrant signed by a Haitian judge and that they were liberating Haiti from Moïse, who had overstayed his term as president.

At least five others have pleaded guilty in the conspiracy and are serving life sentences.

Separately, 20 people, including 17 Colombian soldiers, face charges in Haiti. Gang violence, death threats and a crumbling judicial system have stalled an ongoing investigation.

The Jets and Hall agreed Friday on a three-year extension worth $45.75 million, according to a person familiar with the deal. The team had used the franchise tag on Hall, whose contract — which will pay him $15.25 million per year — makes him the third-highest paid running back in the NFL.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the Jets didn't announce the deal.

“Cried for the first time since I tore my ACL,” Hall posted on X, referring to his season-ending injury as a rookie in 2022. “This day really hit different for me man.”

Based on annual salary, Hall’s $15.25 million per year is behind Philadelphia’s Saquon Barkley ($20.6 million) and San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey ($19 million). It’s slightly higher than the $15 million Baltimore’s Derrick Henry is scheduled to make.

Hall rushed for a career-high 1,065 yards last season despite missing the final game with a knee ailment, becoming the first Jets player to top 1,000 yards rushing in a season since Chris Ivory in 2015. Hall has 1,000 yards from scrimmage in three straight seasons, just the sixth player — and fifth running back — in franchise history to accomplish that feat.

Hall, who turns 25 on May 31, was a second-round pick in the 2022 draft out of Iowa State. He didn’t receive a contract extension from the Jets last offseason when first-rounders Sauce Gardner and Garrett Wilson did, causing some uncertainty about Hall’s future with the franchise. He was also mentioned in trade rumors leading up to last year’s deadline.

But coach Aaron Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey both insisted they wanted to keep Hall.

“He’s a playmaker and we want to keep playmakers around on both sides of the ball,” Mougey said at the NFL combine in February. “He’s a proven playmaker and a good player, a good person, so want to find a way to keep Breece around.”

New York planned to use a three-running back approach with Hall, Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis sharing carries last season, but Allen hurt a knee and landed on injured reserve and Davis served as a clear No. 2 to Hall.

With a new offensive coordinator in Frank Reich and quarterback in Geno Smith, the Jets decided to use the franchise tag on Hall to give them an opportunity to retain him and negotiate during the offseason.

Hall and the Jets had until July 15 to reach an agreement or the star running back would've had to play this season under a one-year contract for the franchise tag amount of $14.3 million.

After the draft two weeks ago, Mougey indicated that contract talks would pick up — and the Jets got the deal done a few weeks before voluntary organized team activities begin and more than a month ahead of their mandatory minicamp.

The Jets' revamped offense is expecting to be more productive this year after a dismal season with Smith under center, Wilson healthy from a knee injury that limited him to seven games and the addition of a pair of first-rounders in tight end Kenyon Sadiq and wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr.

But Hall's dual-threat ability to run the ball out of the backfield or catch it anywhere on the field made keeping him this season and beyond a priority for the Jets.

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

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami filed a civil denaturalization complaint Thursday that would complete the Colombian-born Rocha's fall from grace, stripping him of the citizenship he attained after moving to New York City at age 10 with his widowed mother and two siblings.

Rocha, 75, was arrested in late 2023 and later sentenced to 15 years in federal prison after admitting he worked for decades as a secret agent for communist Cuba. He was secretly recorded by an undercover FBI agent praising Fidel Castro as “El Comandante” and bragging about his work for Cuba’s communist government, calling it “more than a grand slam” against the U.S. “enemy.”

The plea to 15 federal counts averted a trial that would have shed new light on what, exactly, Rocha did to help Cuba even as he held prestigious State Department postings such as ambassador to Bolivia and top posts in Argentina, Mexico, the White House and the U.S. It’s not even clear when federal prosecutors first suspected Rocha was spying for Cuba.

As part of his plea agreement, Rocha acknowledged that he first connected with Cuban intelligence agents in 1973 — five years before applying for U.S. citizenship — while attending a student program in Chile at the end of socialist President Salvador Allende's rule. Shortly after, at the direction of Havana, he enrolled in master's programs at Harvard and Georgetown Universities on his way to getting hired by the U.S. State Department.

The government generally faces a high burden of proof in revoking citizenship, as federal law requires prosecutors to show convincing evidence that an individual attained citizenship illegally or procured naturalization by “concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.”

Prosecutors alleged in court filings that Rocha lied under oath that he “believed in the U.S. Constitution” and had no affiliation with the Communist Party of Cuba while applying for citizenship in 1978.

“The Southern District of Florida helped take down one of the most prolific Cuban spies ever uncovered in the United States,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida. “This civil denaturalization case is about finishing the job.”

The Justice Department has significantly increased its focus on denaturalization cases in recent years, and last year issued an internal memo to prosecutors directing them to prioritize cases against people who “pose a potential danger to national security,” including those involving terrorism and espionage.

The Trump administration moved this week to denaturalize 11 other people accused of crimes, including child sexual abuse and providing material support to terrorists. The denaturalization process was used in only about a dozen cases per year between 1990 and 2017.

An Associated Press investigation into Rocha found several red flags overlooked along the way, including a warning that one longtime CIA operative received nearly two decades ago that Rocha was working as a double agent. Separate intelligence revealed the CIA had been aware as early as 1987 that Cuban leader Fidel Castro had a “super mole” burrowed deep inside the U.S. government, and some officials suspected it could have been Rocha.

Over the past two years, the FBI, U.S. State Department and CIA have been working to decipher the case’s biggest missing piece: exactly what the longtime diplomat may have given up to Cuba. Rocha spent the first several months of his imprisonment being debriefed by federal officials, but it's not clear what new information was gleaned from those sessions.

San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson said they cannot say whether the remains are those of Smart or whether authorities will seek another warrant to start digging on Susan Flores' property. Her son, Paul Flores, was convicted in 2022 of killing Smart, whose body has never been found.

The search began Wednesday after authorities served a warrant Wednesday at the home in the central coast town of Arroyo Grande more than 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles. Authorities have not specified what prompted the search, but scientists specializing in human decomposition and soil took samples from the ground.

“We believe that based on what we’re looking at evidence-wise -- scientific evidence -- that a human’s remains were there at one time -- or still there. We can’t call it Kristin, but there’s evidence to support human remains,” Parkinson said during a news conference.

Smart went missing from California Polytechnic State University in May 1996 after returning from an off-campus party. Prosecutors alleged she was killed during an attempted rape and that the last person she was seen with was Paul Flores, a fellow student. She was declared legally dead in 2002.

The decades-old case has captivated the public, fueled in part by a podcaster who helped investigators by bringing forward additional witnesses. Chris Lambert of the “Your Own Backyard” podcast first reported the search of the home.

“We remain hopeful that this current search will be successful and look forward to the outcome," the Smart family said in a statement, adding that they "continue to feel the amazing support of the local community which provides us with great strength to continue this journey to bring Kristin home.”

Parkinson, the sheriff, said Friday he was not sure how long they would search the property, but that Susan Flores could not return until investigators felt they were finished.

“We are not leaving that house until we are sure that we have checked everything,” he said.

Attempts to reach Susan Flores for comment this week have not been successful. She has never faced criminal charges related to the case.

Parkinson said the property has changed over the years and investigators have to move items to deploy ground-penetrating radar, which can detect anomalies. He said they might need multiple search warrants to dig, including excavating cement.

Tim Nelligan, an expert in soil vapor testing, confirmed by phone Thursday that he was on the premises, gathering samples from the yards of Flores and a neighbor. He said his team has, in general, “come up with a methodology to assess soil vapor" and its relation to “human cadaver decomposition,” but that he could not discuss the current investigation.

Soil vapor sampling, which is an evolving science, involves collecting underground gas samples to detect volatile organic compounds associated with human decomposition.

Lambert, the podcaster, said he did not know much about the search, but was optimistic investigators could locate Smart's body. He said past searches of Susan Flores' home have never been thorough.

“This property in particular has been overlooked for quite some time," he said Thursday in front of the house.

Paul Flores and his father, Ruben Flores, were arrested in 2021.

Prosecutors alleged Smart’s remains were buried on Ruben Flores’ property and later moved. He was acquitted of accessory charges. That property is different from the one currently being searched.

Paul Flores was sentenced in March 2023 to prison, where he has been physically attacked at least twice. In 2024, a judge ruled that he must pay just over $350,000 to Smart's family for costs they incurred after her death.

The family has said it would forgo restitution if Flores would tell them where the woman's body was. Flores’ attorney, Harold Mesick, said in 2024 that the defense did not know where her remains are. Flores maintains his innocence.

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This story has been updated to correct a word in Parkinson's quote and the distance from Arroyo Grande to Los Angeles.

Owen Gleiberman, writing for Variety, called it “a cutting, audacious, and at times astonishing movie.”

Perhaps it makes more sense to understand that “Our Hero, Balthazar,” which is currently in theaters, comes from a filmmaker known for his collaborations with the Safdie brothers. Filmmaker and producer Oscar Boyson has been on the ground making independent films for nearly 20 years, from “Frances Ha” to “Uncut Gems.”

The idea for “Balthazar,” which he co-wrote with Ricky Camilleri, just felt electric, like the movies that made them want to make movies when they were younger. It’s also the kind of that seems to be disappearing from American cinemas and has the makings of a cult classic.

“There’s a trend towards sameness and safety and familiarity that is making the movie industry a really uninteresting world to play and create and collaborate in,” Boyson said. “I felt like because the industry was saying no to it, it was exactly what I should be doing. And that really fired me up.”

Boyson has come up against a lot of obstacles in the industry with “Balthazar,” from festivals to distributors, who told him they loved it but couldn’t market it. That resistance just made him even more emboldened to do it his own way. Besides, he learned long ago not to look for permission from the establishment.

Bringing back the slow burn release

“We don’t have the marketing budget, but we do have tremendous energy,” Boyson said.

And, through their grassroots campaign, involving a fake social media account for Martell's character Balthazar that has over 84,000 followers (more than most film accounts), and old-fashioned word-of-mouth, audiences are finding the film, which will be in New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Diego, Encino, Santa Cruz and Westbrook, Maine, this weekend. At the Village East in New York, where it’s entering its seventh weekend, there are people who’ve seen it six times. And it’s not just the hard core cinephiles either: It’s younger audiences too.

Boyson wishes the industry could get away from the “big opening weekend” mentality and give movies time to find their place and audience.

"So much of it’s about word-of-mouth, and you need time in order for that to work,” he said. “When it does, it’s actually not that expensive. You just gotta make something good.”

Don’t get hung up on the budget

“Frances Ha” was the first New York City-based feature Boyson got to work on. Their primary location was the apartment he shared with Greta Gerwig and the production designer, and their crew was small enough to fit in a van.

“The thing that really stuck with me was that nobody talked about how small the production model was,” he said.

“Movies are about the emotional response that they get from the audience and that has nothing to do with how expensive or how cheaply they were made. When you feel what it’s like to work on something that felt like you were just making something that felt so intimate and small and you feel it resonate with a big audience of people who could go see a Marvel movie or could go see a hundred million dollar David Fincher movie, that’s so empowering. That really informs everything I do, that belief that that can happen.”

On “Our Hero, Balthazar,” he wanted to surround himself with 20-somethings, like he was on “Frances Ha,” because, he said, “they keep me honest.”

Actors love to work

“Our Hero, Balthazar” is full of up and coming and veteran character actors. Jennifer Ehle is Balthazar’s distracted socialite mother; Noah Centineo is his life coach. In Texas, “Sex Education’s” Asa Butterfield plays Solomon, the struggling kid Balthazar tries to befriend, Becky Ann Baker is his loving grandmother and Chris Bauer (“The Wire”) is his estranged dad.

“Actors love to work, you know? And actors love to be surprised, and actors love to challenge themselves,” Boyson said. “Especially if you’re in New York, ‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ is a testament to the fact that a low budget movie, if you get lucky on the timing, you can have some of the greatest actors in the world popping up in your movie.”

A sense of place is important

Shooting in New York City wasn’t just convenient for its talent pool; It’s also a vital part of the texture of the film, which also shot its Texas portions in Texas.

“All too often the first thing that you’re asked to do when you write a story that takes place in America is shoot it somewhere else,” Boyson said. “It’s what I value as a viewer when I watch movies, but it’s also it comes from the experience of shooting movies in America and feeling what you lose when you pretend that when you play one place for another. I think a sense of place is something that is really missing or fading from American movie culture.”

The audience and the gatekeepers have nothing to do with each other

Perhaps the most important lesson Boyson has learned over the years, and that seems to be playing out with “Balthazar,” is that the gatekeepers aren’t the ones who make your movie into thing: The audience and the fans do.

“The people who are showing up for the movie are young people and people who are who are like ‘this isn’t fringe, this is the reality I’m living,’” he said. “I don’t know that that makes the movie commercial, but we worked really hard to make it fun, entertaining and accessible.”

The 20-year-old Dino Prižmić defeated the record 24-time Grand Slam champion 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 with an ace on his first match point.

The 38-year-old Djokovic hadn’t played since March when he lost to Jack Draper in the fourth round in Indian Wells, California.

Djokovic had taping on his right shoulder that was revealed when he changed shirts between sets.

He declined to talk about any ailments, not wanting to take any focus from Prižmić. But Djokovic admitted he wanted more than one match at his only warmup for the French Open.

Djokovic didn't surprise himself in his only competitive clay-court match before the French, though he thought the second set was forgettable.

“I see what I'm missing,” he said. "Late half a step. I'm not definitely where I want to be for the highest level and to compete at the highest level and to be able to get far.

“Eventually you have to play. You have to start somewhere. I wanted to start earlier but I couldn't. The situation is as it is. You make the most out of it. I train hard. I train as much as the body allows me to. Then how it turns out on the court, that's really unpredictable.”

Asked if he was confident he'll be in good shape for the French Open which starts in 16 days, Djokovic said, “I don't know.” With a smile he added, “I hope so.”

In Djokovic’s only other tournament this year, he reached the Australian Open final and lost to Carlos Alcaraz.

The 79th-ranked Prižmić lost a four-setter to Djokovic in their only previous match at the 2024 Australian Open. Djokovic told him on Friday his forehand had improved and he'll go far if he can stay healthy. Prižmić beat No. 6 Ben Shelton at the Madrid Open last month.

“He’s my idol,” Prižmić said of Djokovic. “I just played unbelievably today.”

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

During the program’s first year, it will be offered at about 65 to 75 hospitals that handle about a quarter of births in the state and largely serve low-income patients, Newsom's office said. The initiative will expand to more hospitals statewide, though the governor's office did not say how many. The state has partnered with nonprofit Baby2Baby to manufacture the diapers under the label “Golden State Start.”

Newsom said the plan builds on California's effort to make living in the notoriously expensive state a little easier for families. He highlighted policies in recent years to provide students with free meals at school and make preschool free for all.

“Every baby born in California deserves a healthy start in life — and that means making sure parents have the basics they need from day one,” the Democrat said in a statement.

The state set aside $7.4 million in last year's budget to roll out the initiative, and this year's budget proposal includes an additional $12.5 million to implement the program for the upcoming fiscal year ending in June 2027.

It will allow each family to receive 400 diapers in sizes for newborns and babies up to 14 pounds (6 kilograms) when they are discharged from a hospital after birth. That's a little more than a month’s worth, since newborns on average require eight to 10 diapers a day.

Baby2Baby provides families in need with essential items. The nonprofit built a manufacturing system that allows them to produce diapers for 80% less than the retail price, co-CEO Kelly Sawyer Patricof said.

“California is once again setting the standard of what it means to show up for mothers and babies,” added co-CEO Norah Weinstein.

The announcement comes two years after Tennessee and Delaware became the first U.S. states to offer free diapers to families enrolled in their Medicaid programs, which provide healthcare to low-income families. Tennessee families can go to pharmacies to pick up 100 diapers per month for children under two. The Delaware program, which began as a pilot before the state extended it in 2024, provides individuals with up to 80 diapers and up to one pack of baby wipes per week in the first 12 weeks of life.

California's Medicaid system doesn't cover diapers for newborns, but it does cover the items for enrollees ages 5 and older if they have a medical need for them.

Diapers are a large, ongoing expense for many families. They typically spend about $100 a month on the items per child, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. The cost burden can lead some parents to leave their child's diapers on for too long or reuse disposable diapers, which can result in rashes and urinary tract infections, the center says.

California officials are touting the new effort as a way to ease that financial strain.

“The first days at home with a newborn should be focused on the love, connection, and joy of an expanded family, not stress about affording diapers,” said Kim Johnson, the state's health secretary. “This program helps ensure families can begin that journey with greater stability and peace of mind.”

A National Theatre production has landed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music starring Hiran Abeysekera. There’s a movie version set in London’s South Asian community starring Riz Ahmed. Anthony Hopkins, at 88, is delighting fans on TikTok with some of Prince Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy. The movie “Hamnet” — the fictionalized story of loss that inspired the creation of “Hamlet” — earned Jessie Buckley an Oscar. Taylor Swift's “The Fate of Ophelia” — that's Hamlet's ex — went to No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart. Eddie Izzard is taking her one-person production of the play on a worldwide tour.

Four hundred years on, “Hamlet” — whose seemingly quite modern antihero is endlessly mulling over what to do after his uncle murdered his father and married his mother — is still giving.

Want even more? There’s even a “Hamnet” play, adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s original novel, and the Royal Shakespeare Company is taking it on a U.K. tour. Shakespeare & Company will stage a “Hamlet” this August in the Berkshires. There’s a Canadian production of “Hamlet, Sweet Prince,” using a queer, contemporary lens. The Acting Company in New York will have a modern-verse version led by a woman, and the Peruvian theater company Teatro La Plaza recently presented a version off-Broadway starring eight Spanish-speaking actors with Down syndrome.

Harvard's Jeffrey R. Wilson, a Shakespeare scholar, says “Hamlet” is perfect for our era, when the crush of bad news has triggered constant, existential check-ins, like: “Hey, how’s everyone hanging in there?”

“People are exhausted from the onslaught of awfulness in the world,” he says, “and ‘Hamlet’ gives audiences both permission to ‘go there’ to explore those emotions and a tool kit of ideas to help us process angst.”

A neurodiverse ‘Hamlet’

The plethora of works are markedly vibrant and fresh, from the Hamlet in Brooklyn who wears a beanie to the one who enjoys Bollywood-style dances in London.

“Great plays survive not because they remain untouched, but because they can continue to be transformed,” says director and playwright Chela De Ferrari, from Teatro La Plaza, whose neurodiverse “Hamlet” is a visceral and urgent call from those often excluded from cultural narratives.

“Working with actors with Down syndrome and cognitive disabilities brought me back to something essential in ‘Hamlet’: that beneath its philosophical brilliance there is an exposed human being asking, in one way or another, how to exist in a world that keeps misreading him,” she said.

In one of the show’s most potent moments, an actor attempts to imitate Laurence Olivier’s delivery of Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy with an image of the famous actor projected on a screen. It takes on a new urgency when spoken by someone whose very right to be in public or artistic spaces is often questioned.

“I like to imagine a kind of continuity between our actors and all the great actors who have carried the play before. I believe Shakespeare lives in all of them,” says De Ferrari.

Shakespeare in a BMW

On school trips to see Shakespeare plays, filmmaker Aneil Karia always felt like they were an arm's length away.

“I felt like I was primarily watching an intellectual experience unfold and I had to use my brain to keep up with the plot and the language and everything like that,” he says.

He teamed up with Ahmed and screenwriter Michael Lesslie for a stripped-down, modern-day retelling of “Hamlet” that leans into the title character's unease at being complicit in a corrupt business system.

“That feels so pertinent to the moment we’re in politically and everything. It feels like the question a lot of people are asking,” says Karia. “It feels like these stories are actually a conversation through time itself.”

Hamlet here parties at a neon-drenched nightclub and delivers his soliloquy while hurtling down rain-slicked London streets in a BMW, taking his hands off the wheel as a truck approaches head-on. To be, or not to be, indeed.

“The best best-case scenario here is that it’s opening up Shakespeare to audiences who didn’t think it was for them, or who struggled with it previously,” says Karia, whose film starts streaming Tuesday. “This is a big call, but I feel like Shakespeare would approve. I feel his whole thing was like, ‘Take this stuff and do your thing.’”

A more clownish prince

The “Hamlet” in Brooklyn leans into the humor of the play for one good reason: The guy playing Hamlet is naturally funny.

Abeysekera is manic and mischievous as he pulls out the play's physical humor, addressing the audience directly in his soliloquies, sometimes sitting at the edge of the stage and making eye contact.

“It’s a very self-aware play. It sort of really knows that it’s a play, if that makes any kind of sense,” says director Robert Hastie. “Hamlet knows he’s in a play called ‘Hamlet,’ like Deadpool knows he is in a film called ‘Deadpool.’”

Abeysekera tackles his “To be, or not to be” speech as an errant thought, a wisp of an idea, instead of the traditional foot-planted, actor-y, big-thing-coming approach.

“Rather than thinking, ‘Oh, here’s the big speech coming up and that's freaking me out,’ I started thinking, ‘It’s such a thought that most of us kind of have,’” he says. “Sometimes, in front of the mirror, we just see ourselves and go, ‘Oof. Today’s a tough day.’”

Hastie believes “Hamlet” is one of those works that reveals something new all the time. Grounded in the human condition, it speaks fresh things to each audience and we discover new things that have always been there.

“One of the reasons I think why we’re still talking about Shakespeare, and this play in particular, is that whenever those words fuse with a new actor or a new group of actors, it becomes a different play,” he says. “Maybe that’s a good working definition of a classic.”

An extremely online bard

Caitlin Cardile is doing her best to keep the 400-year-old playwright alive in the TikTok era. She and her three-person troupe Mad Spirits Theatre Company are on virtually every social media platform spreading the word.

“We wanted to bring Shakespeare to a modern audience and make it understandable,” Cardile says. “We want people to feel more comfortable with Shakespeare and not think that it’s old English and such a hard thing to understand.”

They post live readings and commentary of the plays on YouTube but it's on Instagram and TikTok where the true coolness starts. They find trending audio snippets — of everything from dialogue on “The Office” to a Lady Gaga song — and assign a Shakespeare character to say them.

So Kitty Forman's popular line “I may have been a little irrational today” from “That '70s Show” is lipsynced by an actor playing Ophelia. A section of dialogue between Scar and Simba from “The Lion King” is put in the mouths of actors playing Claudius and Hamlet.

“We’re like, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if we took these silly trending sounds that everybody’s doing and what if we put them to Shakespeare characters?'” says Cardile. “This has ended up being so much fun.”

The Marlins sure hope that will become a new norm for their No. 2 pitching prospect, who was called up this week from Triple-A Jacksonville to make his MLB debut Friday against the Washington Nationals.

“It's pretty surreal,” Snelling said in Miami's clubhouse Thursday before walking over to the dugout where fans yelled for his signature. “Still trying to just kind of soak it in and get acclimated with all the guys again that I was around in spring and really take it all in and not let the moment get too big.”

The left-handed Snelling, selected 39th by San Diego in the 2022 amateur draft, was dealt to Miami in a 2024 package that sent left-hander Tanner Scott and righty Bryan Hoeing to the Padres.

Snelling did not make the Marlins' initial 40-man roster despite impressing coaches during spring training. He called that both frustrating and motivating.

“I was upset and not necessarily at anybody in general,” Snelling said. "Just being told that you’re not going to get to do what you really had wanted to do as early as you wanted to do is a tough pill to swallow.

“But then you kind of come back down to earth and realize, ‘Alright, what do I need to do to get to that point where I want to be?’”

So he worked on lowering his walks, in part by improving his first-pitch strike rate. In six starts with Triple-A Jacksonville this season, Snelling went 3-1 with the second-best ERA (1.86) among qualified pitchers. He walked more than three batters only twice in those six starts.

“It’s exciting because Robby’s a great competitor," said Marlins manager Clayton McCullough. "He’s worked really hard. He’s performing in a manner that he’s very deserving of this opportunity.”

A spot opened up in the Marlins' rotation after struggling pitcher Chris Paddack was designated for assignment on Tuesday.

The 30-year-old Paddack signed a one-year, $4 million free agent deal with the Marlins in the offseason and was targeted for an end-of-the rotation role. But Paddack struggled in his seven starts, posting an 0-5 record and 7.63 ERA and completing six innings in only one of his appearances.

There were other experienced options Miami could have inserted there, including left-hander Braxton Garrett, but Snelling's recent performance showed the team he was ready for the opportunity.

“Coming into it we were certainly very high on Robby," McCullough said. “He performed incredibly well last year. This spring, he came into it in competition potentially for a spot in our rotation. Robby’s done well down there and continued to perform.”

The Jumbo Shrimp were coming off a walk-off win on Wednesday when Snelling got the news he was called up. He was summoned to manager David Carpenter's office afterward, where he was praised for his focus throughout the week with the uncertainty on whether his major league shot would come.

“I was like, 'Man, it’s really hard to keep my sanity knowing that potentially it was an option for me to go up,’” Snelling recalled telling Carpenter, who responded with a rather nonchalant question.

“He’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re still good to go on Friday right?'” Carpenter said, referring to Snelling's scheduled Triple-A start. "I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And he goes, 'Well, you’re going to be throwing in Miami.'"

Snelling described the past couple of days as a sort of reunion with players he became close with during the spring, including catcher Joe Mack, another highly-rated prospect who was called up this week. Mack scored the winning run on a throwing error in the ninth inning of the Marlins' win over Baltimore on Thursday.

It has also made Snelling grateful for the journey that brought him here.

“It was always fun competing with those guys (in the minors)," he said. “It didn’t really matter where I was in my mind. Obviously this is the goal — being up here and staying up here is the goal.”

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

The recall includes model year 2024-2026 Cybertrucks with 18-inch steel wheels. In its report, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that rough roads and cornering may strain the stud hole in the wheel rotor causing cracks to form and with continued driving the wheel stud could eventually separate from the wheel hub.

Wheel stud separation may affect vehicle controllability, increasing the risk of a collision.

On affected vehicles, Tesla will replace the front and rear brake rotors, hubs, and lug nuts with more durable ones at no cost to vehicle owners.

The manufacturer's recall number is SB-26-33-003. Owners may contact Tesla customer service at 1-877-798-3752.

Tesla is also recalling more than 200,000 Model Y, Model S Model X and Model 3 electric vehicles because of a software issue that renders the rearview camera inoperable for a short period of time.

Loss of the rearview camera image may affect the driver’s view, increasing the risk of a crash.

Tesla’s number for this recall is SB-26-00-016.

Tesla is not aware of any accidents, fatalities or injuries related to either of the problems in the above recalls.

D-backs manager Torey Lovullo's jaw dropped almost to the dugout floor.

“Twenty years old and driving the ball off the center field wall,” Lovullo said. “Let's go back to being 20 years old. I was just getting hair under my armpits, and this guy's in a big-league baseball game. It's impressive.”

Griffin — who just turned 20 a few weeks ago — is part of an MLB rookie class that's made an instant impact as the calendar turns to May. He's batting .256 with two homers, 16 RBIs and is 8 for 8 on stolen bases, all while playing shortstop at a high level for a Pirates team that has a 21-17 record.

No wonder the Pirates were comfortable handing him a $140 million, nine-year deal in April.

Lovullo has been the manager of the D-backs for 10 seasons and said he's noticed a huge difference in the readiness of young players when they get to the big leagues.

The data backs that up, too. As measured by Wins Above Replacement, three of the five most productive classes of rookie hitters since 1950 graduated in the past four years, in 2023 (67.5 WAR), 2022 (53.7) and 2024 (49). Through Thursday's games, this year's class is on pace for 47, which would rank fifth.

Even the 2025 class, which wasn't as deep, featured examples of players ready to make an unusually fast impact. Nick Kurtz got just 210 at-bats in the minor leagues before joining the Athletics, then batted .290 with 36 homers and 86 RBIs over 117 games to win American League Rookie of the Year in 2025.

“Everything is fast-forwarded now, everything's on speed dial, everything happens really quick,” Lovullo said. “These kids are developing. It's the same message I send to our group about player development. We aren't going to be the L.A. Dodgers or the Padres. Spots won't be filled by Player ‘X’ coming off of free agency. Spots will be filled by someone in this clubhouse."

Here's a look at some of the other top rookies in the big leagues through the season's first 1 1/2 months:

Kevin McGonigle, SS, Detroit Tigers

The 21-year-old made the big-league club with a strong spring performance and continues to impress, batting .299 with two homers, 16 RBIs and an .845 OPS while splitting time between shortstop and third baseman. He's been arguably the best player on a Tigers' team that's otherwise underachieved so far this year. That's exactly why the franchise was comfortable signing him to a $150 million, eight-year deal in April.

JJ Wetherholt, 2B, St. Louis Cardinals

Another highly-regarded prospect who was the No. 7 overall pick in 2024 out of West Virginia, Wetherholt has popped seven homers for a Cardinals team that's been a pleasant surprise in the NL Central. He looks like a mainstay in St. Louis for years to come.

Chase DeLauter, OF, Cleveland Guardians

DeLauter actually made his MLB debut last season when he became one of the few players in big league history to get his first call-up in the playoffs. So far this spring, he's showed why the Guardians had enough confidence to bring him up for those pressure-packed games, batting .306 with six homers and 23 RBIs.

Munetaka Murikami, 1B, Chicago White Sox

The veteran Japanese slugger has made an instant impact in the big leagues, crushing 14 homers in just 37 games. He needs to cut down on the strikeouts and may never consistently hit for high average, but there's no doubt the power is legit and he's still just 26 years old.

Kazuma Okamoto, 3B, Toronto Blue Jays

The 29-year-old is older than all of the other players on this list and had a slow start while making the transition from Japan. But he's picked up the pace over the past few weeks and is batting .246 with 10 homers and 23 RBIs.

Sal Stewart, 1B, Cincinnati Reds

The 22-year-old made a good impression during a short stint last season and has continued to hit in the big leagues so far this spring. Playing mostly first base, he's batting .245 with 10 homers and 30 RBIs.

Nolan McLean, RHP, New York Mets

The Mets have been one of the biggest disappointments in the big leagues, but McLean has been one of few bright spots. He dazzled in an eight-start cameo last season and has pitched well so far in 2026. The 24-year-old has a 2.97 ERA and 51 strikeouts in 39 1/3 innings through seven starts.

Parker Messick, LHP, Cleveland Guardians

The Florida State product has been one of the best pitchers in the American League this season with a 3-1 record and a 2.40 ERA through seven starts. The left hander is a big reason the Guardians are currently at the top of the AL Central.

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

CCSO said they recovered stolen property that was connected to a series of thefts occurring between September 2025 and April 2026.

Authorities said the property was recovered around the Spring Mill Road and New Chapel Road areas. A Kubota tractor that was reported stolen in Amherst County was also found.

The Campbell County conducted this investigation with various local agencies, including the Amherst County and Appomattox County Sheriff’s Offices. This stemmed from several thefts involving heavy equipment, including the following:

• John Deere 35P Excavator (yellow in color), stolen September 2025 from the vicinity of the Double Bridges Road/New Chapel Road area
• 2022 16-foot Big Tex Dump Trailer, stolen between January 14–15, 2026, from the 3700 block of Spring Mill Road
• Bobcat T-595 Skid Steer with attached Montana Post Driver, stolen April from the 3000 block of Spring Mill Road

As a result of the investigation, 48-year-old Todd Christopher Torrence was arrested and charged with one count of Receiving Stolen Property Greater Than $1,000.

If you have any information regarding these incidents, please contact one of the following:

• Campbell County Sheriff’s Office at (434) 332-9574;
• Appomattox County Sheriff’s Office at (434) 352-2666;
• Central Virginia Crime Stoppers at (888) 798-5900; or at www.cvcrimestoppers.org; or
• Enter a tip online at http://p3tips.com, or by using the P3 app on mobile devices.

Alghoula has lived in the U.S. since 2016, and his current visa will expire in September if his application is denied.

But last week, Alghoula and doctors like him got a potential lifeline when the administration quietly made an exemption for physicians with pending visa or green card applications. It's a move physicians, organizations and immigration attorneys had sought for months, citing widespread shortages and a high proportion of foreign-trained doctors, who disproportionately work in underserved areas, according to the National Library of Medicine.

The lack of doctors is top of mind for Alghoula, a pulmonologist and Intensive Care Unit doctor who serves a mostly rural population spanning parts of Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky.

“It is about four to five months wait to get the pulmonologist here,” he said.

Still, applicants and immigration attorneys say it's unclear how big a difference the exemption will make. The change means doctors can have their cases reviewed, but it doesn't guarantee their green cards or visas will be renewed. It is also unclear whether U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will be able to process those applications in time to meet immigration deadlines like Alghoula's — especially as many doctors with pending applications still haven't heard any updates from the federal government directly since the announcement was first made.

Despite his qualifications, Alghoula said he is still concerned about his upcoming appointment, given stories circulating about immigrants being detained at appointments to renew their paperwork.

“I’m still scared to go to my interview,” Alghoula said Wednesday. That uncertainty intensified on Friday when he learned that his interview, scheduled for early June, had been canceled without any explanation. He said he doesn’t know what that means for his application.

Meanwhile, the pause remains in effect for thousands of others, including researchers and entrepreneurs from 39 countries, including Iran, Afghanistan and Venezuela. While they’re on hold, many can’t legally work, get health insurance or a driver’s license. If they leave the U.S., they won't be let back in.

Immigrants unable to work or see family

The Trump administration decided last year to stop reviewing green card and visa applications for people from a list of countries deemed high-risk and this year stopped reviewing visa applications for citizens of more than 75 countries over concerns they would seek public assistance. The moves came amid the U.S. government's broader crackdown on immigrants.

The pause followed the shooting of two National Guard troops by an Afghan citizen, which the administration said highlighted “what a lack of screening, vetting, and prioritizing expedient adjudications can do to the American people.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration officials, didn’t answer questions about the pause or recent changes to exempt physicians but said in an email it wants to ensure applicants are properly screened after determining the prior administration failed to do so.

“There are lots of bans and lots of pauses that are happening right now,” said Greg Siskind, an immigration attorney based in Memphis, Tennessee. “It is all about making life miserable for people who are here legally so they will choose other countries.”

It isn’t clear how many doctors have been affected by the pause, according to a spokesperson for the American Academy of Family Physicians, who said several doctors have reached out to the organization asking for help.

Some doctors have already been denied

Before the exemption, many immigrants filed federal lawsuits demanding that the government issue decisions on their cases.

One of them was Iranian Dr. Zahra Shokri Varniab, who came to the United States three years ago to conduct radiology research. She was waiting for a green card to attend a residency program but her application got stuck in the pause. She filed a lawsuit demanding an answer to her application and a federal judge ordered immigration officials to review her case.

They did — and denied her. The 33-year-old doctor said she believes it was in retaliation for her lawsuit.

“I feel completely confused,” Shokri Varniab said.

In court filings, U.S. government lawyers wrote that Shokri Varniab's application contained inconsistencies about whether she plans to become a practicing doctor or researcher. She said she plans to do both.

She said the exemption doesn't appear to apply to her since her case was decided but is seeking relief in court.

Immigration policy compounding war abroad

Immigrants who hold prestigious jobs in science and technology said they currently can't work due to the pause because they're waiting on employment authorization documents. Some said they are running out of money for rent and groceries and worry their careers could be thwarted if they're forced to leave the country.

Those from Iran are especially worried about returning home during the ongoing war with U.S. and Israeli forces. They said they can't regularly reach family due to the Iranian government's internet blackout or count on them for financial support.

Kaveh Javanshirjavid came to the United States from Iran seven years ago to study for his doctorate in agriculture. He was supposed to start a lab job in January but needs employment authorization and his application is on hold.

The 41-year-old said he’s borrowing from friends to pay rent and relying on his wife’s doctorate stipend for basic necessities. But he doesn’t know how long that will last because she’s also Iranian and will need work authorization to get a job after graduating this summer.

“The whole of my life is on hold,” he said.

Hiring beat the 65,000 jobs forecasters had expected, though it decelerated from the 185,000 jobs created in March. The unemployment rate remained at a low 4.3%, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The Iran war has caused the biggest disruption of global oil supplies in history and sent average U.S. gasoline prices surging past $4.50 a gallon this week. But the conflict hasn’t done much damage to the American job market so far. And the import taxes — tariffs — that President Donald Trump imposed last year haven't turned out to be as high and as damaging as originally feared.

“The labor market is not booming, but it is proving harder to break than` many feared,’’ said economist Olu Sonola of Fitch Ratings.

Healthcare added 37,000 jobs last month and transportation and warehousing companies 30,000. However, manufacturers cut 2,000 jobs in April and have shed 66,000 jobs over the past year despite Trump’s protectionist policies aimed at creating factory jobs.

“Businesses to some extent are viewing the conflict in Iran as temporary,'' said Gus Faucher, chief economist at the financial firm PNC. ”We’re seeing strong business investment, particularly around tech and AI. The economy continues to expand. We’ve weathered some shocks. The worst of the tariff impact is likely over.''

Still, Faucher cautioned that "the longer conflict in Iran lasts, the higher energy prices go, the longer they stay elevated the greater the drag on the economy.''

Among those worrying is Michael Cramer, co-founder and CEO of online retailer Adagio Teas. He expects to freeze hiring this year. He typically adds anywhere from five to six workers per year to help pack up online tea orders at the company’s warehouse in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Adagio Teas, which has about 50 workers, has seen a slight drop in sales after the Iran war drove up gasoline prices and squeezed shoppers, particularly those in lower-income brackets. Cramer is worried that shoppers are opting for less expensive supermarket tea to cut costs.

“You only hire when you have more orders that you can fill,” he said.“I don’t envision us being in that position for the remainder of the year. I think the remainder of this year is going to be fairly bumpy.”

Labor Department revisions shaved 16,000 jobs from February and March payrolls.

Average hourly earnings rose 0.2% from March and 3.6% from April 2025, consistent with the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target.

The number of people in the U.S. labor force dropped last month, and the share of those working or looking for work — the so-called labor force participation rate — dropped to 61.8%, lowest since October 2021.

After the U.S. and Israel launched their attacks Feb. 28, Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes. The disruption has caused a painful increase in the price of energy and led many economists to downgrade their estimates for global and U.S. economic growth.

But the job market keeps chugging along this year.

The economy is getting a boost from big tax refund checks this spring, arising from Trump’s tax cut legislation last year; the refunds allow consumers to spend more freely, giving companies an incentive to add workers in response to rising sales.

The job market is showing intermittent signs of recovery after a bleak 2025. Employers last year created just 9,700 jobs a month, fewest outside a recession year since 2002. High interest rates and uncertainty over Trump’s economic policies held back hiring.

The March and April hiring figures marked the first consecutive months of job growth above 100,000 since the end of 2024.

The recent uptick in hiring raises hopes that the job market will break out of a recent rut – in which Americans who have jobs are relatively secure from layoffs but jobseekers struggle to find work.

Angela Paniccia, 33, of Queens in New York City was laid off by an educational travel company in December. The job search can be frustrating. “You’ll never hear back or you’ll get just a generic ‘We’re moving on with someone else’ without feedback,’’ she said.

Many of the openings at colleges and other employers in her field simply don’t pay enough to support someone living in one of the country’s most expensive cities. To help with the rent, she’s been working part-time for a caterer. “I’ve always had a full-time job,’’ she said. “Admittedly, I’m struggling with the loss of daily routine.’’

U.S. hiring has been dominated by one industry: Healthcare companies, catering to an aging American population, have added 456,000 jobs over the past year; other employers have combined to cut 205,000 over the 12 months that ended in April.

Still, Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, noted that last month's job gains extended beyond healthcare. Retailers, for example, added 22,000 jobs and construction companies 9,000. “America’s hiring recession appears to be over,'' she wrote. "Average job gains in 2025 were an anemic 10,000 a month. So far in 2026, the average is 76,000.''

Simbe Robotics Inc., which deploys five-foot tall robots that scan shelves for out-of-stock items in more than 1,000 stores worldwide, is eager to hire. Co-founder Brad Bogolea started the company with a handful of workers and now has 100, many of them software and artificial intelligence engineers. Simbe has its pick of candidates. Applications more than doubled over the past year, partly because of layoffs elsewhere in the technology industry. Applications for robotics software engineer jobs are up 127% over that time period, Bogolea said.

The Labor Department's monthly jobs report consists of two parts.

For the so-called household survey, the government collects data from 60,000 households to calculate the unemployment rate and the share of people who are working or looking for work, among other things.

For the so-called establishment survey, the government gathers information from about 119,000 businesses and government agencies, representing 622,000 worksites, to calculate the number of jobs in the economy, how many hours Americans work and the hourly wages they receive.

The establishment survey is subject to revisions — sometimes big ones — because some employers submit their responses late or have to correct what they already sent in. The Labor Department — like government statistical agencies in other countries — has also been contending with a drop in the share of employers that respond to the survey, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the revisions and problems collecting the data, most economists, businesses and investors consider the monthly jobs report to be a reliable gauge of how the labor market is doing.

Friday's jobs data will likely keep the Fed on the sidelines, as it holds its key rate unchanged while evaluating the economic impact of the Iran war. Fed officials are increasingly focused on inflation, which has risen quickly since the war, driven higher by spikes in gasoline prices.

Inflation jumped to 3.3% in March, a two-year high and far above the Fed’s target. The Fed typically keeps its rate unchanged -- or even raises it -- to combat inflation, while it cuts rates to spur more growth and hiring. Early this year many Fed policymakers were worried the job market was stalling and leaned toward rate cuts. But in more recent months hiring has stabilized, undermining the case for cuts.

Friday's jobs report, PNC's Faucher said, “actually makes it less likely that we see a rate cut anytime soon because the Fed can say, ‘The job market is solid. Let’s get inflation back down to 2%. This is not the time to cut rates.’"

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AP Retail Writer Anne D'Innocenzio in New York and AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber in Washington contributed to this story.

So far, it is just a single person from Virginia who was on the boat, but five others may have been exposed. We have confirmation from five states, including Virginia, that passengers who were aboard the cruise ship with the outbreak are back in the country.

One person in Virginia, two in Georgia, two in Texas, another in Arizona, and an undisclosed number of people in California. Health departments in all of these states tell NBC News that the former passengers, whose identities are being withheld, are not showing any symptoms.

The State of Texas explained that the passengers have agreed to monitor themselves for symptoms, with daily temperature checks. The other states declined to share how the passengers are being monitored. All five states declined to answer whether the passengers are quarantining.

Arizona said their resident is not quarantining.

Dr. Sabra L. Klein, a microbiologist at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the residents should be quarantining.

“Yes, at least for the duration of the six weeks since a known exposure.”

Dr. Sabra L. Klein, microbiologist at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Dr. Klein says the six weeks is how long it could take for symptoms to show up if a passenger was exposed and contracted the virus.

The confirmed Andes strain of the virus is usually transmitted through rodents, but in the rare case of human-to-human transmission, Klein says there must be a high level of the virus and very close contact.

“In order for human to human transmission to occur, this requires intimate contact, like sharing a bed, like sharing utensils.”

Dr. Sabra L. Klein, microbiologist at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

She says that, unlike COVID-19, hantavirus is not readily transmissible.

“People in the United States do not need to be worried. This is not another pandemic. This will never have pandemic potential.“

Dr. Sabra L. Klein, microbiologist at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Health officials largely believe the risk to the general public is low.

Those shaded areas in our yards are a welcome break from summer sun, but they’re also the spots that ticks like to hide out, says Consumer Reports’ Paul Hope.

“Ticks carry a lot of illnesses, including Lyme disease, so it’s important to keep them out of your yard. They tend to like cool, shady areas under tall grass, so don’t let your grass grow too tall. Cutting to a height of 3 inches ensures that ticks won’t like it, but it also isn’t so short that it will harm your grass.”

Paul Hope, Consumer Reports

CR typically recommends mulching your grass clippings to add extra nutrients to your lawn. But if you live in an area with a high tick population or you miss a week of mowing and the grass gets tall, consider bagging those clippings instead; that eliminates some hiding spots for ticks.

Trim tall grasses and weeds, especially around walkways and other high-traffic areas. Get rid of leaves, brush, and other debris in your yard and lawn that ticks can use for shade.

If your yard butts up against wooded areas, create a three-foot barrier with dry wood chips or gravel to deter ticks from entering.

Discourage animals that transmit ticks, such as deer and mice.

“Ticks travel on other animals like mice and deer, so if you want to get rid of ticks, try to keep those other animals out of your yard. For deer, a high fence can deter them from coming in. For mice, bait boxes can kill the ticks they carry without harming the mice themselves.”

Paul Hope, Consumer Reports

Getting rid of areas that can harbor ticks also exposes you to them, so always check yourself after doing yard cleanup and maintenance.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re anxious or upset, you tend to call your mom first?

There’s a good reason for that.

“Babies are able to hear and become familiar with their mother’s voice even in the womb. This is why the feeling is so comforting, even from the start, when you hear your mother’s voice. The brain is wired early on to make a connection between safety and security and her voice, which can last into adulthood,” said Susan Albers, PsyD, psychologist at Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Albers said hearing your mom’s voice can release a hormone called oxytocin, which can make you feel loved and connected.

At the same time, it can also reduce your stress level.

She adds that when you’re upset, it’s best to pick up the phone and call your mom if you can’t see her in person.

Studies show that texting does not have the same soothing effect.

That’s because our brain responds to the warmth and comfort of our mom’s voice, not just her words.

“Save a voicemail from your mother. This is something that you can pull out in moments when you’re feeling stressed and she is not available. You can also imagine your mother’s voice if she is not around. Your brain stores the memory of her voice and turns it into an internal dialogue that can be comforting in moments that you’re feeling stressed,” she said.

Dr. Albers said your voice can also be calming for your mom.

So, the mental health benefits go both ways.

F1 started the year with big changes including a 50-50 split in power between a traditional engine and the onboard battery pack, but driver criticism was immediate.

Governing body the FIA said it met with teams and F1 officials in an online session Friday and that the changes were agreed in principle.

“The measures agreed in principle today for 2027 would see a nominal increase in internal combustion engine (ICE) power by (tilde)50kW alongside a fuel-flow increase and a nominal reduction of the energy recovery system (ERS) deployment power by (tilde)50kW,” the FIA statement said.

The changes, it added, will be “intuitive for drivers and teams.”

After just three grands prix this season, tweaks were made that slightly curbed the influence of the electrical power. They answered driver criticism by promoting pure driving skill over electrical recharging, especially in qualifying.

Last weekend's Miami Grand Prix was the first under those changes. Sunday’s race was one of the most wide open in recent F1 history with drivers from four different teams leading before Kimi Antonelli took his third win of 2026 for Mercedes.

F1 has used V6 engines with electrical hybrid power since 2014 and an increase in the amount of electrical power has forced drivers to adjust. Timing the electrical boost and recharging is the key to tactical racing. Four-time world champion Max Verstappen loathes it so much he’s questioned his future in F1.

The FIA said Friday's session began with a review of the changes put in place before Miami.

“The conclusion from the deployment of modifications in Miami, designed to improve safety and reduce excessive harvesting, was that they resulted in improved competition and were a step in the right direction,” it said.

“Evaluation of the Miami package is ongoing with a view to the introduction of further adjustments at future events.”

Next on the calendar is the Canadian Grand Prix on May 24.

___

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

As of Friday, May 8, the average price for regular gasoline in Virginia is $4.328 per gallon, according to AAA. Premium is averaging $5.159 per gallon, while diesel sits at $5.613.

Closer to home, AAA says drivers in Botetourt County are paying the most for gas in Southwest Virginia, with an average price of $4.327. Drivers in Highland County are also seeing prices around $4.449

There are still some deals if you know where to look.

According to GasBuddy:

• The lowest price for regular gas in the Roanoke area is $3.93 per gallon at the Walmart on Dale Avenue
• Walmart on Dale Avenue is offering mid-grade (super) gas for $4.14 per gallon
• Sam’s Club on Towne Square Boulevard has premium gas for $4.29 per gallon (membership required)

In Roanoke, gas prices have been trending upward in recent weeks.

The average price for regular gas is now around $4.23 per gallon—up around 19 cents in the past week, according to AAA. Prices are also higher than they were a month ago and significantly above this time last year.

With prices fluctuating, experts say it pays to shop around before filling up. Count on 10 News to bring you the latest prices at the pump every morning.

To find out where the lowest fuel prices are near you, visit GasBuddy’s website.

Since the U.S. and Israel launched a joint war against Iran on Feb. 28, the cost of crude oil, the main ingredient in gasoline, has spiked and swung rapidly. That’s because the conflict has caused deep supply chain disruptions and cuts from major oil producers across the Middle East.

“I couldn’t really bend my arm. I couldn’t button a shirt,” the New York Yankees left-hander said. ”I couldn't scratch my face. I couldn't take a drink of water. ... I could definitely never comb my hair."

Seven months after elbow surgery, the 33-year-old is set to return to a major league mound Sunday at the Milwaukee Brewers. While he feels a lot better, it's not like when he reached the major leagues with the Chicago White Sox a decade ago.

“That’s almost a virgin arm then,” he quipped.

Rodón is 93-72 with a 3.73 ERA in 11 major league seasons, including 37-26 since signing a $162 million, six-year contract with the Yankees in December 2023.

He was 18-9 with a 3.09 ERA last season despite an ailing arm. His four-seam fastball velocity, which averaged 95.3 mph in his first season with the Yankees, was 94.4 mph in the first half last year and dropped to 93.8 mph in the second half.

“He was great last year. So, just had to do it a different way. He didn’t have the range of motion,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “But I think if you talk to major league pitchers, especially ones that have done it for a while, you’re kind of always dealing with different stuff. So credit to him for being able to navigate it last year and with excellence.”

Rodón's fastball velocity dropped to 93.4 mph in his Division Series start against Toronto, when he allowed six runs and lasted just 2 1/3 innings.

“They were mending to him every day to get him to post,” pitching coach Matt Blake said.

Rodón said his elbow deterioration occurred over three-to-four years. He was willing to tolerate the pain to get through last season.

“Did it hurt? Sometimes sure, pitching, but I’d rather go out there and compete," he said. “I was throwing well, so I couldn't just say, 'Oh, I can't pitch,' but it was manageable.”

Rodón had surgery Oct. 15 to remove loose bodies in his left elbow and shave a bone spur, then had a setback in late March when he felt tightness in his right hamstring while throwing at the Yankees’ Florida complex.

As part of his rehabilitation, he had a pair of platelet-rich plasma injections.

“The first one was early. I really remember it because it was vivid because my arm felt like it got ran over by a bus,” he said.

He reported to spring training in the mid-to-upper 250-pound range, about 10 pounds above his target, but figured the weight would come off as he readied for his return.

“I guess a happy offseason," he said with a laugh. "I enjoy food.”

Rodón made three starts during a minor league injury rehabilitation assignment that started April 24 and had a 3.38 ERA and 16 strikeouts while allowing three walks and three homers in 16 innings.

He threw 83 pitches in his last outing and will have a limit of about the same against the Brewers.

“Not as daunting as Tommy John’s surgery,” said Rodón, who had his UCL repaired in 2019. “You never want to go under the knife, for sure, but it’s good to be at the end of the road.”

Blake notices the difference in Rodón's mechanics.

“You can see there’s just a little more freedom of motion in the arm action,” he said. “It looks a little easier. It’s not as much body creating the power.”

But with that added motion, Rodón has to work to regain command.

“I’m happy with the recovery,” he said. “So just keep going.”

___

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

After voters approved a congressional map that would have likely given Democrats a major advantage, various candidates across the state shifted to run in differing districts - including Tom Perriello, a former U.S. Representative, former U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and 2017 gubernatorial candidate.

The night of the election, Perriello stated his intention to run in the 6th Congressional District, which set up a contested primary that would have seen the nominee go up against incumbent Republican Congressman Ben Cline. After the recent decision from the Supreme Court of Virginia, however, he is now shifting back to run in the 5th District, which he previously represented for one term after being elected in 2008.

“From the moment we launched, I have focused on bringing down costs, increasing pay, and restoring common sense. I have also been clear that I would respect the will of the voters and the courts, because families across Virginia are getting screwed by Washington, and that has to stop now.

Folks around here want change. They are sick and tired of Washington kicking them when they are down. Because of Rep. McGuire and this Clown Car of a Congress, we’re all paying way too much for gas and groceries, not to mention healthcare and electric bills. I won this district by focusing on cutting costs, increasing paychecks, and putting common sense back in the driver’s seat. McGuire has voted to take money out of our pockets to support the corruption and kickbacks for the Mar-a-Largo set. People here are working harder than ever just to stay afloat, and they deserve leadership focused on lowering costs and fighting for them.

For months, I have been listening to families across Danville to Charlottesville who are struggling to make it paycheck to paycheck. I have been hearing from farmers hit by tariffs and fertilizer prices, parents choosing between groceries or gas, and young people wondering if their generation will ever be able to afford a home. They do not expect Washington to solve every problem, but they are furious that McGuire and this corrupt Congress have made things so much worse. This district deserves a fighter who will take on the corruption and the chaos to bring down costs for everyone.”

Tom Perriello

Should he get the nomination, he would likely face up against incumbent Republican Congressman John McGuire, who was first elected in 2024 after beating then-incumbent Bob Good in a closely watched Republican primary.

Other candidates have also shifted back to the districts in which they were initially running, such as current U.S. Representative Eugene Vindman and Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor, in the 7th and 1st Districts, respectively.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro were attending the April 25 event at the Washington Hilton when Cole Tomas Allen allegedly ran through a security checkpoint and fired a shotgun at a Secret Service officer.

In a court filing late Thursday, Allen's attorneys argued that it creates at least the appearance of a conflict of interest for Blanche and Pirro to be making any prosecutorial decisions in the case.

“As this case proceeds closer to trial, the country and the world will continue to wonder — how can the American justice system permit a victim to prosecute a criminal defendant in a case involving them?” defense attorneys Eugene Ohm and Tezira Abe wrote.

Ohm and Abe, who are assistant federal public defenders, suggested that the appointment of a special prosecutor might be warranted. They urged U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump nominee assigned to Allen's case, to disqualify Pirro, Blanche and possibly other Justice Department officials from direct involvement in the investigation and prosecution.

“Both heard gunshots, which presumably forced them to duck below the tables with the rest of the occupants. They were quickly evacuated. Shortly thereafter, they learned that law enforcement believed the target was certain administration officials,” Ohm and Abe wrote.

Pirro said her office will respond to the defense lawyers' arguments in its own court filing.

“We will not tolerate people who come to the District of Columbia to engage in antidemocratic acts of political violence; and we will prosecute all such acts to the fullest extent of the law,” Pirro said in a statement.

Allen is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on charges in an indictment handed up Tuesday by a grand jury in Washington.

The charges include attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump, who is a longtime friend of Pirro. Blanche served as a personal attorney for Trump before joining the Justice Department last year.

Blanche, through a spokesperson, referred a request for comment to Pirro's office.

Allen also is charged with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon and two additional firearms counts. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of the attempted assassination charge alone.

The Secret Service officer who was shot once in a bullet-resistant vest fired his own weapon five times without hitting anybody. Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, was injured but was not shot.

About 20 climbers had set out Thursday to ascend the nearly 1,355-meter (4,445-foot) volcano in defiance of safety restrictions, said North Halmahera police chief Erlichson Pasaribu.

They became stranded when Dukono erupted at 7:41 a.m. local time, spewing a thick ash column that rose about 10 kilometers (6 miles) above the summit. The eruption was recorded on seismographs for more than 16 minutes, Indonesia’s Geological Agency said.

“They were aware that climbing was prohibited as the mountain is a restricted zone due to its high alert status, but insisted on going ahead,” Pasaribu said in a television interview.

Rescue teams were deployed after receiving an emergency signal from the mountain area. Two Singaporean men and one Indonesian woman died at the scene, Pasaribu said.

As of Friday afternoon, 17 climbers had been safely evacuated, including seven Singaporean nationals and two Indonesians who joined the rescue operation and provided information on climbing routes of the victims before the eruption, National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said. Five of those evacuated were reported injured.

The bodies had not yet been recovered because continued eruptions and dangerous conditions prevented rescue teams from reaching the location.

Muhari said the search and rescue operation was halted late Friday due to darkness, and would resume early Saturday.

The Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation has long banned activities within a 4‑kilometer (2.5‑mile) danger zone radius of Dukono’s crater, citing hazards such as volcanic explosions, ashfall and toxic gases. Officials believe the hikers were inside the restricted zone at the time of the eruption.

Despite warnings on social media and signs at the site, “many people remain determined to climb, driven by the desire to create online content,” Pasaribu said.

Mount Dukono is one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes and has been erupting almost continuously since 1933. Indonesia sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an area of intense seismic and volcanic activity, and is home to more than 120 active volcanoes.

Authorities also have warned of possible secondary hazards, including volcanic mudflows, especially during heavy rain, which could travel along rivers flowing from the volcano’s slopes.

Volcanic activity at Dukono remains high, and authorities said it was at the second highest alert level. Authorities said the volcano has shown an increase in explosive magmatic eruptions since late March, with an average of about 95 eruptions a day.

“Friday’s eruption was among the strongest during this period,” said Lana Saria, who heads Indonesia's Geology Agency at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry. She added that ash clouds ranging from white to gray and black in color were being blown northward.

She warned that ashfall could affect nearby settlements, including the town of Tobelo, raising health risks and disrupting transportation and daily life.

Officials urged residents, tourists and climbers to remain calm, follow official guidance and avoid restricted areas as monitoring of Mount Dukono continues.

Speaking after meetings with Premier Giorgia Meloni and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, Rubio warned that Tehran was attempting to assert control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, calling the move “unacceptable” and a threat to global security.

“Everybody says Iran is a threat. Everybody says that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon … but you’ve got to do something about it,” Rubio told reporters in Rome. “If the answer is no … then you better have something more than just strongly worded statements to back it up.”

Clear ‘red line’

Rubio said Iran was trying to normalize control over an international waterway, a precedent he warned could encourage similar actions elsewhere. He also cautioned Tehran against targeting U.S. maritime assets, saying the United States had thwarted attacks on three Navy ships in the strait.

“The red line is clear. They threaten Americans, they are going to be blown up,” he said.

Rubio said Washington was pursuing a diplomatic track, including a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at preserving freedom of navigation. He added the U.S. was awaiting Iran’s response on Friday to ongoing diplomatic efforts.

Rubio's visit comes after weeks of sharp disagreements between Washington and Rome over the Iran war, tariffs and U.S. President Donald Trump’s criticism of both Meloni and Pope Leo XIV.

Differences remain over Iran war

Meloni described her meeting with Rubio as “constructive, frank and productive,” focused on both bilateral relations and major international issues. She said the talks covered strategic topics, including the Middle East, freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, Ukraine, China and areas of Italian interest such as Libya and Lebanon.

“We both understand how important the trans-Atlantic relationship is, but we also understand that each country must defend its own national interests," Meloni stressed after the meeting.

Tajani struck a more conciliatory tone after meeting his U.S. counterpart, reaffirming the importance of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

“I am convinced Europe needs America — Italy needs America — and the United States also needs Europe and Italy,” Tajani said, adding he hoped “tensions have been calmed.”

He said discussions covered the Iran conflict and its spillover into Lebanon, as well as Venezuela and Cuba. The U.S. State Department said Rubio also raised the need to protect economic interests and end the war in Ukraine.

Despite the effort to ease tensions, differences remain over the Iran conflict. Italy has opposed the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign, with Meloni calling it “illegal,” and has resisted involvement in offensive operations.

Tajani said Italy would be prepared to contribute naval forces to demine the Strait of Hormuz once a permanent ceasefire is reached, and would maintain its role in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. He also stressed the importance of continued U.S. troop presence in Europe amid concerns about possible reductions.

No final decision on NATO troops adjustments

Rubio said “no final decision” had been made on NATO troop adjustments, noting that any changes would depend on U.S. national interests and global priorities.

The U.S. has announced a decision to pull 5,000 military personnel from Germany and Trump has threatened to withdraw more troops from Italy and Spain over their stance on the war.

Italy, a key logistics hub for U.S. and allied operations in the Mediterranean and beyond, has already signaled limits to its cooperation. In March, it declined to allow U.S. bombers bound for the Middle East to use a base in Sicily without parliamentary approval, reflecting constitutional constraints and strong domestic opposition to the war.

Meloni, weakened by a recent referendum defeat and facing public unease over the conflict, has insisted that any use of Italian bases for offensive operations would require parliamentary backing.

The war has also raised economic concerns in Italy, with Meloni warning that disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz risk driving up energy costs and inflation, while U.S. tariff threats weigh on the country’s export-driven economy.

An attempt to de-escalate at the Vatican

Rubio also sought to ease tensions with the Vatican following Trump’s criticism of the pope's calls for peace. After a lengthy meeting on Thursday with the pontiff and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Rubio said Washington remained committed to a “productive and fruitful” relationship with the Catholic Church.

“The president’s perspective is clear. He thinks that Iran is a threat, and it needs to be addressed. And that position remains unchanged,” Rubio said.

Rubio confirmed that Cuba was also discussed at the Vatican, with Washington hoping the church's Caritas charity organization would continue distributing humanitarian aid.

Rubio said the U.S. has provided about $6 million in humanitarian aid to Cuba, to be distributed through Caritas, should the Cubans allow it. He added Washington has also offered up to $100 million in additional aid, but the Cuban government has not accepted it so far. Rubio blamed Cuba’s government for blocking assistance and worsening conditions, describing it as “incompetent."

U.S. officials said the Vatican talks underscored strong bilateral ties and a shared commitment to promoting peace, even as differences over the Iran war persist.

Health officials plan careful evacuations of the more than 140 passengers and crew when the MV Hondius arrives in Tenerife this weekend.

At least three passengers have died, and several others are sick. None of the remaining passengers or crew is currently symptomatic.

The U.S. and the U.K. are arranging flights to repatriate their citizens. The World Health Organization says the risk to the wider public is low. Health authorities are tracking passengers who disembarked before the outbreak was detected.

Here's the latest:

A lot of unknowns about the illness and treatment

There is no specific treatment or cure, but early medical attention can increase the chance of survival.

Despite years of research, many questions have yet to be answered, including why hantavirus infection can be mild for some people and severe for others and how antibodies are developed. Some researchers have been following patients over long periods of time in hopes of finding a treatment.

“In the Americas, hantavirus infection is very serious, but it’s also quite rare,” said Steven Bradfute, an associate professor and associate director of the Center for Global Health at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, which specializes in hantavirus research.

“And so for a time that probably led to less research into it because of funding priorities, but I know there’s been a lot of interest in funding hantavirus work of late,” he said.

What researchers do know is that rodent exposure is key.

The best way to avoid the germ is to minimize contact with rodents and their droppings. Use protective gloves and a bleach solution for cleaning up rodent droppings. Public health experts caution against sweeping or vacuuming, which can cause virus particles to get into the air.

Dutch woman's remains have been repatriated

South African health department spokesperson Foster Mogale told The Associated Press that the body left Johannesburg on a KLM flight on Thursday.

Posthumous tests on the woman's body came back positive for hantavirus.

Her 70-year-old husband was the first passenger to die on board the MV Hondius on April 11. His body was taken off the cruise ship in the South Atlantic Island of St. Helena on April 24, when she also disembarked to accompany it.

She traveled from St. Helena to Johannesburg on a commercial flight and was trying to take another flight home when she fell seriously ill at O.R. Tambo International Airport. She died at a nearby hospital on April 26.

She was one of dozens of cruise ship passengers who disembarked at St. Helena.

It’s unclear if her husband’s body, which remained on St. Helena, has been repatriated.

US will offer repatriation flight for Americans on board the cruise ship

The State Department says it is in direct contact with a number of American citizens on board the cruise ship and will offer them a special flight home from Tenerife when the vessel arrives there this weekend.

The department said Friday that U.S. diplomats will be available to provide consular services in Tenerife to the Americans on board and has arranged the special repatriation flight in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Spanish government.

Suspected hantavirus case on Tristan da Cunha was a ship passenger

The person suspected of having hantavirus on the island of Tristan da Cunha was a passenger on the cruise ship that had an outbreak of the disease, the British Foreign Office said.

A British government official indicated the patient was an island resident and was hospitalized but did not say how they may have come in contact with the virus.

Stephen Doughty, the U.K. minister of overseas territories, said in a message sent to the remote British overseas territory that his thoughts were with “the islander currently in hospital and their spouse who is isolating.”

The Foreign Office would not provide additional details, and emails from the AP seeking additional information from Tristan da Cunha officials were not returned.

Infections have been fairly uncommon

Hantavirus infections are relatively uncommon globally. The WHO reported that in 2025, eight countries within the Americas had documented 229 cases and 59 deaths.

Argentina’s health ministry said hantavirus led to 28 deaths nationwide last year. The ministry on Tuesday reported 101 hantavirus infections since June 2025, roughly double the caseload recorded over the same period the previous year.

In the U.S., federal health officials began tracking the virus after a 1993 outbreak in the Four Corners region — the area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet. It was an astute physician with the Indian Health Service who first noticed a pattern of deaths among young patients.

Most U.S. cases are in Western states. New Mexico and Arizona are hot spots, likely because the odds are greater for mouse-human encounters in rural areas.

This outbreak may have come from Argentina

Detailed investigations of the cruise ship outbreak are ongoing, notably to determine its source.

Investigators in Argentina suspect that the cases were initially contracted during a birdwatching trip in Ushuaia, at the country’s southern tip, two officials told AP.

Argentina has seen a surge of hantavirus cases that many local public health researchers attribute to climate change.

Officials have found evidence of Andes virus, a version of hantavirus found in South America.

What to know about hantavirus

The virus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings. Hantaviruses have been around for centuries and are thought to exist around the world.

But global health officials say the risk to the general public remains low because the germ does not easily spread between people.

“This is not the next COVID, but it is a serious infectious disease,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness at the World Health Organization. “Most people will never be exposed to this.”

The disease gained renewed attention last year after the late actor Gene Hackman ’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from a hantavirus infection in New Mexico.

International effort to trace passengers spans four continents

Health authorities across four continents were continuing to track down and monitor passengers who disembarked the ship before the deadly outbreak was detected. They are also trying to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, the ship’s operator and Dutch officials said Thursday.

It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a ship passenger, the World Health Organization said.

The KLM flight attendant who tested negative for the virus was working on a flight headed from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25, and had later fallen ill. She was taken to an isolation ward at an Amsterdam hospital on Thursday.

The cruise passenger briefly aboard the flight — a Dutch woman whose husband died on the ship — was too ill to stay on the international flight to Europe. She was taken off the plane in Johannesburg, where she died.

US and Britain to repatriate citizens when ship reaches Spanish island

The MV Hondius is expected to reach Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa, on Saturday or Sunday.

Passengers “will arrive at a completely isolated, cordoned-off area,” said Virginia Barcones, Spain’s head of emergency services, on Thursday.

The MV Hondius is a Dutch-flagged vessel and Dutch officials said Friday they were also in close contact with the ship’s owner and authorities of countries whose citizens are on board.

The United States has agreed to send a plane to the Canary Islands to repatriate its 17 citizens from the cruise ship, Barcones said. The British government also said it will charter a plane to evacuate the nearly two dozen British citizens on board.

The massive fines came a day after the midfielders tussled when the team trained. Valverde said in a post on social media on Thursday that no punches were thrown. But Valverde knocked his head on a table and he suffered a small cut that required a brief hospital visit.

On social media, Valverde initially called it a “meaningless fight” with a teammate and said “everything has been blown out of proportion."

His employers, however, considered it a significant enough breach of team discipline to nail both Valverde and Tchouaméni with fines that bite even the bank account of a top soccer player. The half-a-million euro penalties reflect the reputational damage the club was enduring in a chaotic end to a disappointing season.

In a statement, the 15-time European champion said its disciplinary action was concluded after both players expressed to the club “their complete remorse for what happened and apologized to one another.”

Madrid added they also apologized to their teammates, the coaching staff and club supporters, as well as showing their willingness to accept whatever disciplinary action the club deemed “opportune.”

Tchouaméni was back training with Madrid on Friday, two days before they play at Barcelona in a clasico. Madrid has to win otherwise Barcelona will be crowned La Liga champion.

After being notified of the fine, he posted a public apology to the club and its fans on social media.

“What happened this week in training is unacceptable,” Tchouaméni wrote. "I say this while thinking about the example we are expected to set for young people, whether in football or at school.

“Above all, I am sorry for the image we projected of the club.”

Valverde was not at practice due to the head knock.

Both players are set to play in the World Cup next month, with Tchouaméni playing for France and Valverde for Uruguay.

Chaotic end to a poor season

The run-in between the players, who for seasons have played side by side in Madrid's midfield, came after they argued this week in previous training sessions. But tempers boiled over on Thursday. Spanish media was rife with reports that the players previously disagreed over the club's decision to let coach Xabi Alonso go after just months on the job.

It was not the only altercation involving Madrid players during training this week. Álvaro Carreras confirmed he was in a “minor” incident with a teammate. Spanish media said he and fellow defender Antonio Rüdiger got into a scuffle.

Álvaro Arbeloa, the coach who was promoted from Madrid's reserve team when Alonso was fired in January, will face tough questions on what went wrong inside the changing room when he gives a press conference on Saturday ahead of the clasico at Camp Nou.

Madrid is facing a second consecutive campaign without a major trophy amid rumors in the Spanish media that club president Florentino Pérez is considering bringing back Jose Mourinho to straighten out his underperforming team.

___

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

On April 21, Virginians narrowly passed a referendum that would allow the redraw of the commonwealth’s congressional districts, which could have led to a 10-1 advantage for the Democrats in the commonwealth’s congressional makeup.

Justice D. Arthur Kelsey gave the majority opinion following the decision.

“While the Commonwealth is free by its lights to do the right thing for the right reason, the Rule of Law requires that it be done the right way.  Under the Constitution of Virginia, the right way “necessitate[s] compliance with the requirements of a deliberately lengthy, precise, and balanced procedure,” Coleman, 219 Va. at 153, governing the lawful adoption of constitutional amendments.  “[S]trict compliance with these mandatory provisions is required in order that all proposed constitutional amendments shall receive the deliberate consideration and careful scrutiny that they deserve.”  Id. at 154.

In this case, the Commonwealth submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to Virginia voters in an unprecedented manner that violated the intervening-election requirement in Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia.^[1]  This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void.  For this reason, the congressional district maps issued by this Court in 2021 pursuant to Article II, Section 6-A of the Constitution of Virginia remain the governing maps for the upcoming 2026 congressional elections."

Justice D. Arthur Kelsey

The decision is another major loss for Democrats in the ongoing redistricting battle, as it comes just over a week after a U.S. Supreme Court Decision that saw the gutting of a major provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Statewide, lawmakers gave opinions that were divided along party lines. Gov. Abigail Spanberger said she was “disappointed by the Supreme Court of Virginia’s ruling.”

“More than three million Virginians cast their ballots in Virginia’s redistricting referendum, and the majority of Virginia voters voted to push back against a President who said he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress with a temporary and responsive referendum. They made their voices heard. 

I am disappointed by the Supreme Court of Virginia’s ruling, but my focus as Governor will be on ensuring that all voters have the information necessary to make their voices heard this November in the midterm elections because in those elections we — the voters — will have the final say.” 

U.S. Reps. John McGuire, Ben Cline, and Morgan Griffith, all R-Va, make up the majority of Southwest and Central Virginia’s congressional makeup. They all spoke in approval of the Supreme Court’s decision:

“The referendum’s narrow election results reinforced what Virginians decided six years ago, we don’t want partisan politicians drawing our maps. The Redistricting Commission was created to ensure all Virginians’ voices are heard, and thanks to the Virginia Supreme Court, that will not change. Virginia Democrats’ hasty, dishonest, and illegal attempts to redraw our maps proved how desperate they are to take away our representation. Democrat politicians in Virginia tried to cheat by violating our constitution, but thank God they didn’t get away with it. I commend the Virginia Supreme Court for upholding the constitution and standing up for the voices of every voter in our Commonwealth. I want to thank everyone who worked so hard to get out the NO vote. I look forward to continuing to work with President Trump and House leadership to win the midterms, so we can continue making America great again for all Americans.”

U.S. Representative John McGuire, R-Va

“This is the correct decision, and it was always going to end up this way.Democrats broke laws that they helped write in the first place, blew through deadlines, wrote a biased and misleading ballot question, and lied to the voters in all of their advertising to support the referendum.

The voters of Virginia banned gerrymandering six years ago, and that ban remains in effect today.

This is a great day for fair elections and the rule of law, and it’s a great day for the Commonwealth of Virginia."

U.S. Representative Ben Cline, R-Va

“The Supreme Court of Virginia decided a case of first impression. I believe they decided correctly and set aside the redistricting efforts by the state legislature. I commend the Supreme Court for its diligence and fortitude.I look forward to continuing to serve the people of the Ninth Congressional District of Virginia.”

U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith, R-Va

U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both D-Va, expressed discontent with the decision.

“Unlike Republican-led states that have redrawn their maps through backroom deals, the Virginia General Assembly let the people decide for themselves in a free and fair election. If the Virginia Supreme Court had legitimate concerns about this referendum, the time to stop it would have been before three million Virginians cast their ballots. But the Court let the process move forward, and Virginians sent a message loud and clear: we see President Trump’s brazen power grab in states across the country, and we won’t stand for it.

The timing of this ruling speaks volumes. The U.S. Supreme Court eviscerates the Voting Rights Act in a lawsuit brought by a January 6 extremist and Southern states race to craft backroom deals disenfranchising minority voters and candidates. Meanwhile Virginia voters choose to stand up against national disenfranchisement only to see their votes cast into the trash by a 4-3 ruling. A sad day indeed but I’m proud of Virginians’ willingness to stay true to our state’s motto after 250 years. That spirit is needed now more than ever.” 

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-Va

“While I respect the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision, it’s impossible to ignore that more than three million Virginians already cast their ballots on the amendment and deserved to have their voices heard.

Let’s be clear: this started because Republicans across the country decided to push mid-decade redistricting in states where they thought they could rig the map for partisan gain. Virginia’s effort was a response to that national power grab, not the cause of it.

Donald Trump assumed he could tilt the playing field and lock in political advantage before a single ballot was cast. But Virginians are paying attention. They want leaders who will protect their rights, defend their freedoms, and actually focus on lowering costs and getting things done. Democrats will still show up this November, we will still compete everywhere, and when the votes are counted, Virginians will send a strong message about the kind of leadership they want.”

U.S. Senator Mark Warner, D-Va

Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi and Attorney General Jay Jones, who are also Democrats, were also dismayed by the ruling.

“This April, millions of Virginians from every corner of the Commonwealth participated in our democratic process and cast their ballots in good faith. At a moment when voting rights are under sustained attack across the country, the Supreme Court’s decision sends a deeply troubling message. Across the nation, we are witnessing a systematic dismantling of electoral integrity, all for the sake of partisan advantage. The recent and disturbing actions of the Supreme Court of the United States, as it gutted the Voting Rights Act, the unconstitutional actions of Donald Trump and Republican-controlled states to redraw congressional maps without any engagement with state voters, and the abuse of a Republican-majority Congress that continues to strip rights from millions of Americans all define a frightening path towards the dismantling of democracy. The scale and coordination of these efforts are unprecedented in modern American history.

Now, in a 4-3 decision, the Supreme Court of Virginia has told voters in the Commonwealth that their voices can simply be discarded. This decision does not exist in isolation. It comes amid years of assaults on fundamental civil rights, the battles for voting rights, escalating hyperpartisanship, and coordinated efforts to erode public trust in democratic institutions. These actions disenfranchise voters and weaken the very principles of our country. 

In a time of growing national instability and political chaos, the Commonwealth has a responsibility to stand firmly in defense of democracy. Virginians understood this responsibility and made their voices heard loud and clear this past November as they elected Democrats who will fight for them into all three statewide offices and secured a strong majority in the House of Delegates. Democrats stood up and fought, as hard as possible, for every Virginian and for all Americans. Virginia must remain committed to an electoral system that puts people before politics and protects the fundamental right of every citizen to participate fully and fairly in the decisions that impact their lives. Our Commonwealth must remain a bulwark and stand on the sacred principle that voters choose their leaders, not the other way around.”

Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi

“Today the Supreme Court of Virginia has chosen to put politics over the rule of law by issuing a ruling that overturns the April 21st special election on redistricting. This decision silences the voices of the millions of Virginians who cast their ballots in every corner of the Commonwealth, and it fuels the growing fears across our nation about the state of our democracy.

As Attorney General, it is my job to enforce the laws on the books and defend the will of the people. Before the Court, my office clearly laid out both in filings and oral arguments that this constitutional amendment process and voter ratification occurred in a timely, constitutionally-compliant, and legally sound manner.

The Republican-led majority of the Supreme Court of Virginia contorted the plain language of the Constitution and Code of Virginia to give it a meaning that was never intended, which allowed them to reach the wrong legal conclusion that fit their political agenda. The consequences of their error are grave.

The strength and stability of our democracy depends on adherence to the rule of law, the execution of free and fair elections where every eligible voter can cast their ballots to choose their leaders, and public trust in the institutions that provide accountability and protect our democratic processes. This Court’s ruling follows a dangerous trend of tilting power away from the people.

My team is carefully reviewing this unprecedented order and we are evaluating every legal pathway forward to defend the will of the people and protect the integrity of Virginia’s elections."

Attorney General Jay Jones

Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who fought against the amendment, also released a statement on X:

“Justice has been served. From the beginning, this was the most obvious violation of Virginia’s Constitution. Abigail Spanberger and Democrats in Richmond knowingly violated our constitution to disenfranchise millions of Virginians.

The Constitution prevailed, and Virginians will never forget this unlawful attempt to rob them of their voice in Congress."

Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Black-majority congressional district in Louisiana has provided grounds for Republicans in several Southern states to try to eliminate House districts with large minority populations that had been protected under the Voting Rights Act.

Meanwhile, a Virginia Supreme Court ruling invalidated a voter-approved congressional map that Democrats had been counting on to deliver as many as four additional U.S. House seats. The court said Democratic lawmakers had violated the state constitution when placing the proposal on the ballot.

Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn based on census data after the start of each decade. But an unusual spate of mid-decade redistricting broke out after President Donald Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to reshape U.S. House districts to give the party an edge in the midterm elections. Democrats in California countered with their own political gerrymandering. More states followed.

So far, Republicans believe they could win up to 14 additional seats from new districts in Texas, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. Democrats, meanwhile, think they could gain up to six seats from new districts in California and Utah. But those tallies presume past voting patterns hold in November. Historically, the president's party tends to lose seats in the midterms.

Democrats need to gain just a few seats in November to wrest control of the House from Republicans, which would give them greater power to oppose Trump.

Where new House districts are proposed

Lawmakers in several states are considering plans for new U.S. House maps.

Louisiana

Current map: two Democrats, four Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has postponed the May 16 congressional primary to allow lawmakers to revise U.S. House districts in response to an April 29 Supreme Court ruling striking down a majority Black congressional district.

Challenges: Several lawsuits have been filed in federal and state court asserting that Landry lacked authority to suspend the primary elections.

Alabama

Current map: two Democrats, five Republicans

New map: Republican state officials hope to revert to a U.S. House map passed in 2023 — but not previously used — that could help Republicans win an additional seat.

Challenges: The current map was imposed under a court order and is supposed to be used until after the 2030 census. State officials have asked federal courts to set aside that order in light of its ruling in the Louisiana redistricting case.

South Carolina

Current map: one Democrat, six Republicans

New map: Republican state House members have proposed a new U.S. House map that could give the GOP a better chance at winning an additional seat.

Challenges: State lawmakers are to wrap up their regular work May 14. The House voted to allow redistricting to be considered after then, but the extension also would need a two-thirds vote from the Senate.

Where new House districts are in place

New U.S. House districts are in place in eight states. Six took up redistricting voluntarily, one was required to by its state constitution and another did so under court order.

Texas

Current map: 13 Democrats, 25 Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a revised House map into law last August that could help Republicans win five additional seats.

Challenges: The U.S. Supreme Court in December cleared the way for the new districts to be used in this year’s elections. It has since overturned a lower-court ruling that blocked the new map because it was “racially gerrymandered.”

California

Current map: 43 Democrats, nine Republicans

New map: Voters in November approved revised House districts drawn by the Democratic-led Legislature that could help Democrats win five additional seats.

Challenges: The U.S. Supreme Court in February allowed the new districts to be used in this year’s elections. It denied an appeal from Republicans and the Department of Justice, which claimed the districts impermissibly favor Hispanic voters.

Missouri

Current map: two Democrats, six Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a revised House map into law last September that could help Republicans win an additional seat.

Challenges: A Cole County judge ruled the new map is in effect as election officials work to determine whether a referendum petition seeking a statewide vote complies with constitutional criteria and contains enough valid petition signatures. The Missouri Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit claiming mid-decade redistricting is illegal. It’s scheduled to hear arguments in May on claims the new districts violate compactness requirements and should be placed on hold pending the potential referendum.

North Carolina

Current map: four Democrats, 10 Republicans

New map: The Republican-led General Assembly gave final approval in October to revised districts that could help Republicans win an additional seat.

Challenges: A federal court panel in November denied a request to block the revised districts from being used in the midterm elections.

Ohio

Current map: five Democrats, 10 Republicans

New map: A bipartisan panel composed primarily of Republicans voted in October to approve revised House districts that improve Republicans’ chances of winning two additional seats.

Challenges: None. The state constitution required new districts before the 2026 election, because Republicans had approved the prior map without sufficient Democratic support after the last census.

Utah

Current map: no Democrats, four Republicans

New map: A judge in November imposed revised House districts that could help Democrats win a seat. The court ruled that lawmakers had circumvented anti-gerrymandering standards passed by voters when adopting the prior map.

Challenges: A federal court panel and the state Supreme Court, in February, each rejected Republican challenges to the judicial map selection.

Florida

Current map: eight Democrats, 20 Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on May 4 that he had signed revised U.S. House districts that improve the GOP’s chances of winning four additional seats.

Challenges: Court challenges contend the new map violates a state constitution provision prohibiting districts from being drawn with intent to favor or disfavor a political party.

Tennessee

Current map: one Democrat, eight Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed new U.S. House districts May 7 that improve the GOP's chances of winning an additional seat by carving up the lone Democratic-held seat, a Black-majority district that includes Memphis.

Challenges: Court challenges are expected ahead of the primaries, which are scheduled for Aug. 6.

The Social Security Administration annually tracks the names given to girls and boys in each state, with lists dating back to 1880. And just in time for Mother’s Day, the agency on Friday released the most popular names from applications for Social Security cards.

Based on cultural and demographic trends, the list shows how names can rise and fall in popularity.

Charlotte climbed to second place among girls, ending Emma’s six-year run in the runner-up slot. Ava slipped out of the Top 10 and was replaced by Eliana.

On the boys’ side, the top four names — Liam, Noah, Oliver and Theodore — held their places.

Top 10 boy names of 2025

1. Liam

2. Noah

3. Oliver

4. Theodore

5. Henry

6. James

7. Elijah

8. Mateo

9. William

10. Lucas

Top 10 girl names of 2025

1. Olivia

2. Charlotte

3. Emma

4. Amelia

5. Sophia

6. Mia

7. Isabella

8. Evelyn

9. Sofia

10. Eliana

The fastest-rising baby names — the names growing in popularity — include the boys’ name Kasai, meaning “fire” in Japanese and Swahili, which surged 1,108 spots to enter the top 1,000 for the first time. For girls, the name Klarity, a misspelling of the word “clarity," led all risers, up 1,396 spots into the top 1,000.

The top male names that have decreased in popularity are Karim, Khaza, Khai and Landen. Girl names Aubrie, Cattleya, Jaycee and Zendaya declined the most in popularity over the last year.

The Social Security Administration’s latest data show that 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2025. That’s a slight decrease from 3.61 million babies the year before.

The complete, searchable list of baby names is on the Social Security website.

The Health Ministry in Lebanon said that an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Toura near the port city of Tyre killed four people and wounded eight. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported another airstrike near the southeastern village of Kfar Chouba, saying it killed a paramedic with the Lebanese Civil Defense.

The strikes came hours after the Israeli army’s Arabic-language spokesperson issued an evacuation warning to the residents of six villages in Tyre province, including Toura.

In the early afternoon, Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets toward northern Israel. The Israeli military said it shot down one rocket while the rest fell in open areas without inflicting casualties.

A ceasefire has been in place since April 17, but violence has continued, including an Israeli airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Wednesday.

The Israeli military said Thursday it had killed Ahmed Balout, who it identified as a commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, along with two other militants. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.

Israel says it has killed more than 85 Hezbollah militants and struck 180 sites used by the group in the past week, without providing evidence.

On Friday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told a visiting delegation from the European Union that European countries should pressure Israel to commit to the ceasefire and abstain from “detonating and bulldozing ” homes in villages under Israeli occupation.

Aoun added in comments released by his office that Lebanon is committed to the ceasefire in order to start negotiations that will end the current conditions.

Hadja Lahbib, European commissioner for equality, told reporters after the meeting with Aoun that Israel and Hezbollah are taking Lebanon “hostage.”

“Hezbollah should stop its attacks and disarm, and Israel should put limits to its airstrikes that target and have targeted humanitarian centers,” Lahbib said.

Aoun later met with Simon Karam, the head of the Lebanese delegation to talks with Israel in Washington. The meeting is expected to be held in Washington on Thursday and Friday next week.

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

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

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

PCSO said deputies and investigators were dispatched to a home in the 500 block of Iris Lane after receiving a report of an unconscious man. Upon arrival, they found a 36-year-old man deceased in the residence. After examination, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined the cause of death was “homicide by firearm.”

Authorities said they initiated an investigation, which led to two arrests on May 7:

• 22-year-old Joshua Caleb Kiser
• • First Degree Murder
  • Use of a Firearm in the Commission of Murder
  • Armed Burglary
  • Use of a Firearm in the Commission of Armed Burglary
  • Shooting within an Occupied Dwelling
• 38-year-old Francis Marie Whitley
• • Accessory After the Fact to Armed Burglary and Murder

Both individuals are being held at the Puttsylvania County Jail.

This investigation is ongoing, and we will update you with any new information as it becomes available.

Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning NBA MVP, averaged 31.1 points during the regular season. In the Western Conference semifinals against the Los Angeles Lakers, he is averaging 20 points and taking only 14 shots per game.

Oklahoma City has still won the first two games by an average of 18 points. Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren each scored 22 points, and the defending champion Thunder beat the Lakers 125-107 on Thursday night.

Ajay Mitchell, starting in place of injured Jalen Williams, is averaging 19 points on 50% shooting in the series for Oklahoma City.

“I think the coaching staff does a good job at just getting all of us ready,” said Mitchell, a second-year guard. "And we have a lot of competitors. Like, everyone’s a competitor on our team. So every time the lights are bright, everyone’s ready to go.”

Holmgren is the leading scorer for the Thunder in the best-of-seven series with 23 points per game. The 2026 All-Star also is averaging 10.5 rebounds and 2.5 blocks.

Jared McCain, a midseason acquisition from the Philadelphia 76ers, barely played in the first round against Phoenix but has averaged 15 points and made 8 of 10 3-pointers in the series.

“He goes in there, stays in character, stays aggressive," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. "He’s going to shoot the next shot. He makes the right plays, plays inside the team. He competes defensively, has had good defensive possessions for us. And he was huge tonight. You need that in a playoff series.”

The Lakers again were without scoring champion Luka Doncic, who is out indefinitely with a strained left hamstring. They also were missing forward Jarred Vanderbilt, the reserve forward who dislocated the pinkie on his right hand during the second quarter of Game 1. The Lakers had three players finish with five fouls, limiting their aggressiveness late in the game.

Los Angeles guard Austin Reaves, who struggled with his shot in Game 1, scored 31 points on 10-for-16 shooting in Game 2. LeBron James, coming off a 27-point effort in Game 1, followed that up with 23.

With the Lakers up 63-61 early in the third quarter, Gilgeous-Alexander got tied up with Reaves and was called for his fourth foul. Upon review, it was upgraded to a flagrant 1 for Gilgeous-Alexander's follow through. Oklahoma City's Alex Caruso was called for a technical foul as the situation was being sorted out.

Gilgeous-Alexander left the game with the Lakers up 65-61, but the Thunder rallied and took control without him. On a fast break, Holmgren found a trailing Jaylin Williams, who hit a 3-pointer and was fouled. His free throw put the Thunder up 85-74.

The Thunder outscored the Lakers 32-15 while Gilgeous-Alexander was out in the third quarter to take a 93-80 lead into the fourth.

“It was amazing," Gilgeous-Alexander said. “They strung together stops, they’re playing the right way offensively and things are going their way. Full confidence in those guys. They know how to win basketball games. And we've proven that. They’ve proven that no matter who’s on the floor, they know how to get the job done. And they just did it again tonight."

The Lakers cut Oklahoma City's lead to five in the fourth quarter before the Thunder pulled away again.

Los Angeles will host Game 3 on Saturday.

“We just stuck with it,” Holmgren said. “It’s the game of basketball. It’s not always going to go your way. It’s about how you respond. And this team has proven many times that we know how to respond. And we did so tonight.”

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This story has been corrected to show that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 20, not 19, points per game against the Lakers.

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

The image released this week depicts the Messier 77 galaxy 45 million light-years away in the Cetus, or whale, constellation. A light year is about 6 trillion miles.

The galaxy’s active nucleus is powered by a supermassive black hole that’s 8 million times more massive than the sun. Surrounding gas is sucked into a tight orbit around the black hole, becoming so hot that it radiates in the extreme. Webb’s mid-infrared instrument captured the stunning details.

The world’s largest and most powerful space telescope has been photographing the cosmos since launching in 2021.

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

The 33-year-old Heinicke posted a goodbye message on social media Thursday in which he thanked supporters from his seven NFL seasons. He also spent time with Minnesota, New England, Houston, Carolina, Atlanta and the Los Angeles Chargers.

He was best known for his Washington tenure, which included a 7-8 record over 15 starts in 2021. His time with the team started when he was signed to the practice squad in December 2020 as an emergency quarterback. He was separated from the other three QBs in case any of them tested positive for COVID-19 and couldn’t play.

Heinicke had been sleeping on his sister’s couch in Atlanta and taking online classes to complete a degree at Old Dominion when Washington called. His previous stop had been as a backup in the XFL in 2019.

He ended up starting for Washington a month after his arrival, throwing for 306 yards and a touchdown and running for a score in a 31-23 playoff loss to Tom Brady and Tampa Bay. It was enough to earn him a full-time job the following year.

“Many ups and downs throughout the years, but the ups outweigh the downs tenfold,” Heinicke wrote. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would’ve been able to live this life. … Excited for this next chapter of my life.”

Heinicke played one season for Atlanta after leaving Washington and one in Los Angeles in 2024. The Chargers released him last August, and he went unsigned. He played four games with the Chargers in 2024 and attempted five passes.

Heinicke started 30 NFL games, including that playoff loss, and threw for 6,969 yards with 40 TDs and 29 interceptions during his career. He also ran for three scores.

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

Home teams are 7-1 entering Friday in the conference semifinals. Detroit is up 2-0 on Cleveland, Oklahoma City is up 2-0 on the Los Angeles Lakers, New York is up 2-0 on Philadelphia and San Antonio got a 1-1 split with Minnesota.

In other words, games went largely as seedings suggested they would.

That wasn't the case last season, when home teams went 2-6 in Games 1 and 2 of the conference semifinals. This is only the third time in the last 16 postseasons when home teams went 7-1 to start Round 2.

On Friday, it's a pair of Game 3s: New York at Philadelphia and San Antonio at Minnesota.

Friday's schedule

— Game 3, New York at Philadelphia, 7 p.m. EDT (Prime)

Series: New York leads 2-0.

Odds: 76ers by 1.5.

An overlooked part of New York's Game 2 win: After three consecutive blowout victories by the Knicks going back to Round 1, they dug deep in the fourth quarter — holding Philadelphia to 4 for 19 shooting in the final 12 minutes on Wednesday night.

— Game 3, San Antonio at Minnesota, 9:30 p.m. EDT (Prime)

Series: Tied 1-1.

Odds: Spurs by 4.5.

Expect a bounceback game from Anthony Edwards, if his knee allows. He was never in rhythm in Game 2 (at least, not the way he was at times in the Game 1 win) and the Timberwolves were minus-33 in his 24 minutes.

Saturday's schedule

— Game 3, Detroit at Cleveland, 3 p.m. EDT (NBC/Peacock)

Series: Detroit, 2-0.

Odds: Cleveland by 4.5.

The Pistons have won five consecutive postseason games for the first time since 2008 — and three of them were while facing elimination in Round 1. Cleveland is now 2-10 in conference semifinal games over the past three seasons.

— Game 3, Oklahoma City at LA Lakers, 8:30 p.m. EDT (ABC)

Series: Oklahoma City, 2-0.

Odds: Oklahoma City by 8.5.

The Lakers are furious with elements of the officiating right now, and that might go one of two ways in Game 3. They'll either come out inspired on Saturday and make this a series, or the anger could work against them.

Thursday's recap

— Pistons 107, Cavaliers 97 for 2-0 series lead.

— Thunder 125, Lakers 107 for 2-0 series lead. The Lakers are angry.

Awards watch

A breakdown of this season's NBA awards:

— Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year: DeAndre Jordan, New Orleans.

— Hustle Award: Moussa Diabaté, Charlotte.

— Defensive Player of the Year: Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio.

— Clutch Player of the Year: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City.

— Sixth Man of the Year: Keldon Johnson, San Antonio.

— Sportsmanship Award: Derrick White, Boston.

— Most Improved Player: Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Atlanta.

— Rookie of the Year: Cooper Flagg, Dallas.

— Executive of the Year: Brad Stevens, Boston.

Among the announcements still to come:

— Most Valuable Player: Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama or Denver's Nikola Jokic.

— Coach of the Year: Detroit's J.B. Bickerstaff, San Antonio's Mitch Johnson or Boston's Joe Mazzulla.

Betting odds

Defending champion Oklahoma City (-165) is favored to win the NBA title, according to oddsmakers.

The Thunder are followed by San Antonio (+325), New York (+800), Detroit (+1500), Minnesota (+5000), Cleveland (+6000), Los Angeles Lakers (+10000) and Philadelphia (+10000).

Shoutout to the underdogs

Favorites are 34-22 through Thursday in the 2026 NBA playoffs, a .607 winning percentage that might look pretty good on paper.

That is, until one looks at other recent playoff seasons.

Underdogs are on pace to have their best winning percentage in a playoff season in more than a decade. The last time underdogs won outright this often was the 2014 playoffs, when they won 44.9% of the time.

Key dates

— Sunday: NBA draft lottery.

— May 10-17: NBA draft combine.

— May 17 or 19: Eastern Conference finals begin on ESPN and ABC.

— May 18 or 20: Western Conference finals begin on NBC and Peacock.

— June 3: Game 1, NBA Finals on ABC. (Other finals dates: June 5, June 8, June 10, June 13, June 16 and June 19).

— June 23: Round 1, NBA draft

— June 24: Round 2, NBA draft

Quote of the day

“LeBron has the worst whistle of any star player I've ever seen.” — Lakers coach JJ Redick, on how LeBron James is officiated.

Stats of the day

— LeBron James has attempted five free throws in the first two games of the series against Oklahoma City. It's the second fewest he's ever taken in the first two games of any of his 57 career playoff series. He took four in Games 1 and 2 vs. Golden State in 2023.

— The Pistons are 25-4 this season when Duncan Robinson makes at least four 3-pointers.

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

The new Creighton coach said Thursday he thinks the move from 68 to 76 teams will have minimal impact on the sport overall and give more teams a chance to experience March Madness, so it's a good thing.

But some of the biggest voices in the game, including UConn women's coach Geno Auriemma, say increasing the number of teams attempts to fix something that wasn't broken and that there are bigger issues, namely transfer rules, that should be addressed.

“To me, this is strictly a money grab for the Power Four conferences to get teams that finished 6-10 in their conference to get into the tournament,” Auriemma said.

There is no consensus among coaches on the topic of expansion. The National Association of Basketball Coaches, in fact, said it would not take a formal position on growing to 76 teams “in the absence of unanimous sentiment among the coaching community.”

The NCAA touted the greater access to the tournament for all teams. Some 21% of Division I men’s and women’s teams will participate. That’s up from 18%, which was the lowest rate among major team sports, according to the NCAA.

With the new 24-team opening round, which replaces the eight-team First Four, six conference automatic qualifiers — most likely mid-majors — will play at least two games in the tournament. Previously, only two AQs had a chance to play twice.

While mid-majors that advance will bring in more money for their conferences from the NCAA's performance fund, and there might be a few more at-large spots available for what typically are one-bid leagues, access for programs outside the Power Four won't improve much.

Huss speaks from experience. As High Point's coach, his team won the 2024 Big South regular-season title but lost in the conference tournament and was relegated to the College Basketball Invitational. His team swept the regular-season and conference tournament titles the next year and got the Big South's automatic bid.

“It stinks that it's difficult for mid-majors to get at-large bids now,” Huss said. “I don’t know if it’s going to change substantially by adding additional spots. It’s great for everyone to have the opportunity.”

The question, Huss said, is whether more than a few mid-majors have the financial wherewithal to compete for those spots. Players are free to move to a new school every year and are motivated to do so because of the paydays available at bigger schools.

Big Sky Conference Commissioner Tom Wistrcill is optimistic that expansion will serve his one-bid conference well.

“As we continue to grow our basketball profile, additional at-large spots position us for the scenario in which a dominant team during the Big Sky regular season that doesn’t win (the conference tournament) is more likely to find a pathway into March Madness,” he said.

The Mountain West was a multi-bid conference in the men's tournament from 2018-25, including a conference-record six in 2024. Only Utah State made the 2026 tournament, with San Diego State among the last four out.

“The Mountain West has consistently demonstrated the depth and quality of basketball played across our conference,” Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said, “and expansion recognizes that deserving teams exist well beyond a narrow group of leagues.”

Auriemma said expansion would be appropriate if every mid-major that wins its conference regular-season title got an automatic bid. His case in point was Miami (Ohio), which went unbeaten in the regular season and won the Mid-American Conference but had to sweat out Selection Sunday because it lost in the first round of the conference tournament.

“It’s a rigged system and it is a system that is intended for going forward to benefit those schools that supposedly play in leagues that are so difficult that if you have a below .500 record, you should get in,” he said.

Men's coaches Mark Few of Gonzaga, Dan Hurley of UConn and John Calipari of Arkansas told CBS Sports before expansion was finalized that it was unnecessary.

“It’s the dumbing down of the regular season, which is sad,” Few said. “We’re out here trying to generate more interest in the regular season and expansion doesn’t help. That’s where we’ve been struggling. ... The tournament is great as is.”

Hurley added: "It should be a privilege to play in the tournament, not a right, and obviously if it expands too much and you don’t have to have a real good season to make it, that would take away from the tournament. Does it get too big?”

Murray State women's coach Rechelle Turner told The Paducah Sun she wasn’t sure how it will go.

“I think it is yet to be determined, whether they throw more 15-15 Power Four teams in it or if they do give the mid-major more bids because I think there are a ton of mid-majors that deserve to be in the tournament that get overlooked at times," she told the newspaper. "So I think how that benefits us is something we’re going to have to wait and see.”

Calipari is holding out hope that expansion helps the competitive mid-majors and doesn't reward average Power Four teams.

“As someone who has been both David, and won some, and Goliath, and lost some, that’s what makes this tournament special,” he told CBS Sports. "We can’t afford to lose that special piece of our sport.”

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AP freelance writer Jim Fuller in Storrs, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

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AP March Madness: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Domínguez was hurt eight pitches into Thursday's 9-2 win over Texas as he caught a leadoff drive to left by Brandon Nimmo. Domínguez's MRI revealed a low grade AC sprain of his left shoulder, and initial concussion tests were negative.

“That'll put him on the IL, and that could be a few weeks,” New York manager Aaron Boone said.

New York selected the contract of Jones from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Friday, when it placed Domínguez on the 10-day injured list.

A 6-foot-7 outfielder, Jones was selected by the Yankees 25th in the 2022 amateur draft.

“It's a large man that hits the ball very far,” Yankees outfielder Cody Bellinger said.

Jones, 24, leads the minor leagues with 41 RBIs, batting .258 with 11 homers, 18 walks and 41 strikeouts for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

“He's put himself in the mix,” Boone said. “The signs have been encouraging.”

Jones was hitting .195 with two homers, 10 RBIs and 21 strikeouts in 41 at-bats through April 10, but is batting .291 with nine homers, 31 RBIs and 25 strikeouts in 79 at-bats since.

“Got off to an OK start, but then hit a little snag there for about a week or so,” Boone said. ""The last three, four weeks been having a lot of consistent at-bats, the power's been there, less swing and miss."

Domínguez, 23, made a sensational debut in September 2023, hitting .258 with four homers and seven RBIs in eight games before a scan revealed a torn right UCL.

His 2024 was slowed by a strained right oblique sustained on a swing, then he struggled offensively and defensively with the Yankees last year and started this season at Scranton. He was brought up April 27 after Giancarlo Stanton strained a calf muscle.

Playing outfield for the Yankees for the second time this season after seven games as a designated hitter, Domínguez ran 81 feet to catch Nimmo's 101 mph shot. He gloved the ball 375 feet from the plate as his shoulder hit hard against a video advertising board.

Domínguez's sunglasses flew off as he fell to the warning track chest first, prompting center fielder Trent Grisham to come over as Boone jogged out to check on Domínguez along with head athletic trainer Tim Lentych, assistant athletic trainer Jimmy Downam and director of sports medicine and rehabilitation Michael Schuk.

“He seemed decent when we got out there and coherent and all that,” Boone said.

Domínguez cupped his head in his glove and sat up after about a minute. He pointed to his shoulder and craned his neck as he was being examined, then walked to a cart under his own power and was seated as the cart drove away.

“Gosh, he’s just such a good kid,” Boone said. “There’s a joy he kind of walks to every day no matter what’s going on. He’s very consistent in who he is. They love him in there. We’ve talked a lot recently about just how well he’s handled his situation here over the last four and five months.”

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

The Philippines, among the worst affected by fuel price spikes caused by the Iran war, hosted the group's annual summit on the central island province of Cebu. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the summit stripped of the traditional pomp and pageantry in keeping with the economic headwinds worldwide.

ASEAN’s contingency plan calls for actions including the ratification possibly this year of an agreement that will pave the way for coordinated emergency fuel sharing, planning a regional power grid and fuel stockpile and diversifying the region’s sources of crude oil.

Promoting the use of electric vehicles and studying the use of new technologies, including civilian nuclear energy, were also part of the crisis plan.

The contingency steps will be implemented immediately but the establishment of a regional fuel stockpile and power grid is a complex matter and may take a long time, Marcos said.

“Let’s talk about the fuel reserve. Is it going to be in one single place? Is it going to be scattered through the whole of ASEAN?” he asked.

A regional power grid that allows countries to trade electricity has been considered for years but has only been realized “at a fairly small level,” Marcos said, but added the leaders were unfazed.

“They are committed to making this succeed because everyone is suffering and everyone wants to get out of this situation,” he said.

Warnings of long-term impact from Iran war

A key dilemma of the ASEAN leaders was how to carry out large-scale evacuations from the Middle East, where more than a million of their citizens work and live, if widespread hostilities flared up again.

Several Southeast Asian citizens have been killed since the United States and Israel launched military strikes on Feb. 28 against Iran. The hostilities have continued sporadically despite a month-old ceasefire, especially in the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

A joint declaration issued by the leaders called on the regional bloc’s 11 state members to share information and strengthen coordination with international organizations “to ensure the safety and welfare of ASEAN nationals in affected areas.”

Marcos told fellow leaders during their summit that the Iran war exposed the weaknesses of Southeast Asian nations to external shocks and warned that recovery could take years even if the war ends now.

“Even if the tensions de-escalate in time, the damage to critical infrastructure, to vital systems and trust in general will continue to be felt for years to come,” Marcos said.

War has alarmed ASEAN states, Thai minister says

Known for their conservative and careful rhetoric, top delegates to the ASEAN summit avoided blunt expressions of their disappointment over the continuing hostilities. Thailand’s Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow was more emphatic, calling for the current ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran to be extended and assurances for the safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

“This war should not have occurred in the first place,” Sihasak told AP in a brief interview and added that all ASEAN states were alarmed. “We don’t know what the objectives are right?”

Southeast Asia will remain “in this limbo situation” until the Iran war ends, Marcos said.

“Until the fighting ends, until the bombing ends, then it is very difficult to put together any kind of solution,” he said.

Despite the focus on the Middle East, the leaders took up major regional flash points, including the South China Sea territorial disputes involving Beijing, a five-year civil war in Myanmar and a recent border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia.

Aside from the Philippines, ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. East Timor was accepted as a full member in October last year.

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AP writers Aaron Favila and Syawall Zain in Cebu, Philippines contributed to this report.

Justice Department officials touted the deal in the case, initially brought by the Biden administration, as a victory in their effort to reclaim competitive prices in the meat industry and lower food costs for Americans. Combating the drivers of high food costs, however, is challenging and the solutions aren't simple.

“A stable and affordable food supply is critical to our country’s well-being,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “This Department of Justice is laser-focused on making everyday life affordable for all Americans.”

The case targeted Agri Stats, an Indiana-based company that collects nonpublic information from meat processors and shares the data in detailed reports with the industry. The federal government alleged its practices allowed chicken, pork and turkey processors to inflate prices they charged restaurants, grocery stores and other buyers who were not allowed access to Agri Stats' data.

Under the proposed settlement, Agri Stats would be required to share with U.S. buyers most of the information it collects from processors, the Justice Department said.

Agri Stats' president said it was “pleased to put this case with the Department of Justice and six states behind us.”

“Agri Stats has been instrumental in the efficiency improvements in the chicken industry that have made such wonderful results possible, and we look forward to continue helping our subscribers improve their businesses, which will make chicken more affordable for all Americans,” Eric Scholer said in a statement.

The Justice Department is separately investigating potential antitrust violations in the beef processing industry. That followed a request from President Donald Trump to open an investigation into whether foreign-owned meat packers were driving up the price of beef in the U.S.

U.S. beef prices have been climbing steadily since 2020 and are near record highs. In March, a pound of ground beef averaged $6.70, or 16% higher than a year ago, according to government figures.

But there are many reasons for that, including drought and a shrinking herd size.

A three-year drought that began in 2020 left less grass for grazing across the U.S. and made feed costs soar. Dry weather has persisted; this spring, around 63% of the U.S. cattle herd is in drought areas, according to the USDA.

The U.S. cattle herd, which has been shrinking for decades, is now at its smallest size since 1951, according to the USDA. Thanks to changes in cattle genetics and feeding techniques, ranchers now get more meat from each animal than they used to. But they’re reluctant to increase herd sizes because of the high costs of feed and labor and the dry weather.

Another driver of high prices is the closure of the U.S.-Mexico border to livestock imports to slow the spread of a flesh-eating parasite called the New World screwworm. The closures that began in late 2024 have stopped about 1 million cattle from being hauled from Mexico into the U.S.

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Associated Press reporter Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report.

Alex Jenkinson, 39, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court following accusations of threatening behavior toward Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor near the former royal's home earlier this week.

The denial came after reports that Mountbatten-Windsor was threatened by a masked man while walking dogs near his home.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that a man wearing a ski mask ran toward the former royal while shouting abuse on Wednesday.

Mountbatten-Windsor, 66 moved to the king’s private Sandringham Estate, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of London, after he was evicted from his longtime home near Windsor Castle following revelations about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

He was stripped of all his honors and titles and banished from public view by the royal family after years of scandal over his money woes and links to questionable characters, including Epstein.

One of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, alleged that she was forced to have sex with the then-prince three times, starting when she was 17. He denied it, but eventually settled the case for an undisclosed sum and acknowledged Giuffre’s suffering as a victim of sex trafficking. Giuffre died by suicide in April 2025, aged 41.

In February, he became the first senior British royal in almost 400 years to be arrested when he was held for hours by British police on suspicion of misconduct in public office in a case related to his links to Epstein.

Police had previously said they were “assessing” reports that Mountbatten-Windsor sent trade information to Epstein, a wealthy investor and convicted sex offender, in 2010, when the former prince was the U.K. special envoy for international trade.

Correspondence between the two men was released by the U.S. Justice Department along with millions of pages of documents from the American investigation into Epstein.

The attacks were carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces overnight from Wednesday through Thursday afternoon, according to Charité Banza, the leader of the Ituri civil society group and Kinos Katua, a member of the group who lives in the area.

The Allied Democratic Forces, which has roots in Uganda and which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2019, has long operated in the border region.

Banza told The Associated Press that 25 people were killed in border villages in the Beni territory of North Kivu while 15 others were killed in Ituri province.

The death toll may rise because several residents were still missing after the attacks, Katua said.

In a recent report this week, Amnesty International accused the Allied Democratic Forces of “war crimes and crimes against humanity."

The ADF is one of the numerous groups operating in Congo and it routinely attacks civilians. In July 2025, the group killed 66 people in eastern Congo in what the United Nations called a “bloodbath."

The country also faces attacks from roughly 100 other rebel groups, most prominently the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, which has seized key cities in the eastern region.

Lamine Yamal is out for the rest of the season and so is Brazil star Estêvão.

There was also a scare when Mohamed Salah hurt his hamstring recently.

Injuries to some of soccer's biggest names are mounting ahead of the World Cup which starts in five weeks.

Mbappé is expected to play again for Real Madrid this month and there is no suggestion his issue will rule him out of the World Cup. But every setback to France's best player will be of concern to the national team.

Barcelona's teenage sensation Yamal — recuperating from a leg muscle injury — is also expected to be part of Spain's squad and appear at his first World Cup.

And initial fears about Salah have been dispelled.

Others, however, have not been so fortunate.

France's Hugo Ekitike sustained an Achilles injury in April that could take more than six months to fully recover, ruling him out of the tournament co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico and possibly the start of next season.

Brazil stars Rodrygo and Éder Militão are definitely out. So is Bayern Munich and Germany forward Serge Gnabry after injuring his adductor in training.

Meanwhile, the absence of Spain and Manchester City midfielder Rodri in recent weeks because of a groin injury is also worrying after he missed the majority of last season due to ACL damage. City manager Pep Guardiola has given positive updates about Rodri's recovery in recent days and the former Ballon d’Or winner should play again this season.

Players and coaches have increasingly warned about the impact of an ever-packed playing schedule, and the expanded World Cup comes a year after the relaunched, supersized Club World Cup. The Champions League has also been expanded in recent years.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta describes the demand on players as “an accident waiting to happen."

Players definitely ruled out of the World Cup

Argentina: Joaquín Panichelli (ACL)

Brazil: Éder Militão (hamstring), Rodrygo (ACL)

France: Hugo Ekitike (Achilles)

Germany: Serge Gnabry (adductor)

Netherlands: Xavi Simons (ACL)

United States: Cameron Carter-Vickers (Achilles), Patrick Agyemang (Achilles)

Ones to watch

Algeria: Goalkeeper Luca Zidane, the son of France icon Zinedine Zidane, is a doubt after a facial injury during an on-field collision last month.

Argentina: Cristian Romero has been ruled out for the season with a knee injury. It has not yet been confirmed if he is out of the World Cup, with Tottenham not giving a timeframe for his recovery.

Brazil: Teenage sensation Estêvão will not play again for Chelsea this month after a hamstring injury. There are conflicting reports as to whether he will recover in time for the World Cup.

Canada: Star left back Alphonso Davies injured his hamstring with just over a month to go before the tournament starts when he was hurt during Bayern Munich's exit to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League semifinals.

Croatia: Veteran midfielder Luka Modrić broke his cheekbone last month but is expected to be available for the World Cup. Defender Joško Gvardiol returned to training for Manchester City in earlier May after four months out with a broken leg.

Morocco: Paris Saint-Germain defender Achraf Hakimi has been sidelined with a right thigh injury.

United States: Defender Miles Robinson hasn’t played since April 18 because of a leg injury. Midfielder Johnny Cardoso sprained his right ankle five weeks before the World Cup while training with Atletico Madrid.

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James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson

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

Her new album, “The Me That Remains,” out Friday, was in part a way of processing a serious bicycle accident in 2022, which resulted in a traumatic brain injury, and the long recovery that followed.

In a wide-ranging conversation with The Associated Press, Grant, 65, reflected on how the accident changed her, her willingness to go dark in her music and why she keeps turning back to her faith. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: Talk about your journey with this album.

GRANT: Two summers ago, I just started writing. It felt so good to write. I used to write as really a therapy process, and I had kind of lost touch with that a little bit, just because I was in other kinds of therapy — like physical recovery. And it was just magical reengaging in my creative self. I was far enough along in my physical healing journey that it was just like, “Oh my gosh, it’s all lining back up.”

I think that the entrance into my creative self to go, “You’re not who you used to be, but you are somebody” — everybody is — and that was the first lyric. I don’t know. It was just like, “Oh God, that felt good.” And then one song led to the next.

AP: Are you fully healed from the accident or are there still some challenges?

GRANT: I mean, there are things that are different. I have a niece that said, “God, I think I like you better now.”

AP: How old is she?

GRANT: She’s in her 40s. (Laughs) I’ve known her since birth. But yeah. My processing is different. And there are areas where I have to be patient with myself, but I feel like I’m in great physical health. Just in the last year my balance is so much better. I got back on a bicycle in a very safe environment two weeks ago and it was very emotional for me. Everybody is in recovery of some kind.

AP: You’ve never been afraid to go dark with your lyrics. Talk about that.

GRANT: To me, the superpower of music is that it connects you, first and foremost, to yourself, and then to others, to God. Why pretend?

I go dark sometimes. But I think everybody does. I’m so, so glad for the world of creativity and how I first put my toe in it because that honesty in songwriting has been a constant invitation every day to show up as who I am. God, that’s what you want for everybody. I don’t want somebody’s exterior, like their presentation, to be 180 degrees from what’s in here.

AP: In one song on the album — “The 6th of January (Yasgur’s Farm)” — you sing, “I hear the words John Lennon said / Asking me to imagine.” Can you talk about that song and your message with it?

GRANT: There are a few songs on the record that I didn't write but I love that song and I've known the songwriter for a long time. Her name's Sandy Lawrence. She worked on that song for 15 years. But it wasn’t until after the Jan. 6 experience at the U.S. Capitol that turned the creative juices for her and she was able to point that song in that direction. But all along it was about unrest.

AP: How do you feel about the current state of the world?

GRANT: There’s a lot going on, which, by the way, as a global community, there’s always a lot going on. There have always been pockets of people that were experiencing man’s inhumanity to man that is unspeakable. That’s always happening. And so I try every day to remind myself of the amazing power that every one of us has to affect the world by the daily choices we make. And however a people group is being treated, that treatment can be different through you. It can be different through me.

You have to take a lot of deep breaths. And sometimes just sit in the unrest and know that the pendulum swings back and forth, and sometimes at the cost of a lot of life. In the middle of awfulness, there’s always something good happening.

AP: People throughout your career have wanted to call you a Christian artist, but you seem to have long resisted it.

GRANT: I’ve always been compelled by curiosity and I think sometimes a potential listener can lose interest because of how something is pegged. Sometimes the way I’m introduced, I’m on the side of the stage waiting to go out and just the verbiage, I’d go, “Whew, I wouldn’t stay for that show.” Nothing about that interested me. Curiosity is such a great thing. Curiosity makes us lean in.

Everybody’s faith journey is unique. I am staking everything on the fact that it’s God who finds us. And I trust that. And I think how we let that exhibit in our lives might make somebody else curious to lean in. As a person of deep faith, I have stood outside under stormy skies, under a full moon at different times in my life and said, “Am I just talking to the ceiling? Are you really there?” And I don’t know, I come away and go, “I don’t know where else to turn.” But that’s my journey.

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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.

The ruby, measuring 11,000 carats (2.2 kilograms, or 4.8 pounds), was unearthed near the town of Mogok, in the upper Mandalay region, the heartland of the lucrative gem-mining industry that has recently experienced intense fighting in the country’s wide-ranging civil war.

According to a report from the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, the newly found rough ruby was discovered in mid-April, just after the traditional New Year festival.

While it weighs roughly half the weight of a 21,450-carat (4.29 kilograms, or 9.45 pounds) stone found in 1996, the new discovery is considered more valuable due to its superior color and quality. It is described as having a purplish-red hue with yellowish undertones, a high-quality color grade, moderate transparency and a highly reflective surface.

Myanmar produces as much as 90% of the world’s rubies, primarily from the areas of Mogok and Mong Hsu. Gemstones, both legitimately traded and smuggled, are a major source of revenue for Myanmar. Human rights activists and organizations such as the Britain-based research and lobbying group Global Witness have urged jewelers to stop purchasing gems sourced from Myanmar, as the industry has served as a vital revenue stream for its military governments over several decades.

A new, ostensibly civilian government was installed this year, but it followed elections described by human rights and opposition groups as a sham. The vote returned to power President Min Aung Hlaing, the army chief who led the most recent military takeover in 2021. He and his Cabinet recently examined the giant ruby at his office in the capital, Naypyitaw.

Gemstone mining also serves as a primary source of funding for ethnic armed groups fighting for autonomy, a factor that has helped fuel decades of internal conflict.

The security of these mining regions remains volatile. Mogok was captured in July 2024 by the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, a guerrilla force representing the Palaung ethnic minority. Although the TNLA took over and operated the mines, control was eventually transferred back to Myanmar’s army as part of a China-mediated ceasefire agreement concluded late last year.

Despite gains in keeping forest standing, however, many other threats, ranging from climate change to potential legislation on the horizon, are putting the forest at risk. Forest degradation, driven by wildfires, logging and drought, affects about 40% of the Amazon and has outpaced clear-cutting in recent years. All of this could be exacerbated in 2026 with a strong El Nino, a cyclic warming of the equatorial Pacific, which causes higher temperatures and drier weather in the rainforest, conditions that worsen wildfires.

“Degradation is slower and more silent. It is like a chronic condition,” said Taciana Stec, a climate policy specialist at Talanoa, a Brazilian climate think tank.

While the Amazon is still a carbon sink — that is, it absorbs a vast amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide — it could reach a tipping point beyond which it cannot recover. At that stage, the forest could emit more CO2 than it absorbs.

Scientists say repeated stress could trigger a regional or biome-wide collapse. A 2024 study published in Nature estimated that by 2050, between 10% and 47% of the Amazon could be pushed into conditions capable of triggering such a critical shift.

Degradation chronically weakens the rainforest

The Amazon is spread across nine countries in South America. Brazil has by far the largest chunk — more than 60% — meaning what happens in this section can impact the rest of forest.

In Brazil, the official annual deforestation rate covers the period from August of the previous year to July of the current year. Preliminary data based on DETER, Brazil's official satellite-based system that provides real-time alerts, show that both deforestation and forest degradation have significantly declined since last year.

However, degradation continues to outpace deforestation. From August 2025 through April 2026, deforestation alerts covered nearly 1,700 square kilometers (656 square miles), while degradation affected about 4,420 square kilometers (1,706 square miles).

The DETER system provides environmental authorities with daily alerts of ongoing deforestation — complete clear-cutting — and degradation, which are areas affected by human activity where soil is exposed but the forest has not yet been fully lost.

During the 2023 and 2024 El Nino, temperatures rose 2 to 4 Celsius (3.5 to 7 Fahrenheit) above the forest’s historical average. Associated with severe drought, the heat fueled the Amazon’s worst wildfires in two decades, and forest degradation increased at a rate roughly three times greater than the decline in deforestation.

The combined effect was a net loss of rainforest that undermined the deforestation progress, a study by Guilherme Mataveli, a researcher at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, or INPE, showed.

A degraded rainforest may still be standing, but it can no longer fully support the ecosystem. That weakness could be compounded by external factors like El Nino. For example, if the Amazon were a human patient with a chronic illness, El Nino would strike like a flu, triggering a fever that leaves the body weaker and more vulnerable. Two years later, the flu returns. But this time, the patient has not fully recovered. The fever burns hotter, and the illness hits harder.

Assessing a forest in this state is relatively new to scientists, as identifying degradation through satellite images is more complex than tree-cutting. But they have increasingly warned about its prolonged and dangerous effect.

This new scenario requires the government to prioritize forest restoration, experts say. Brazil plans to restore 12 million hectares (29.7 million acres) of native Amazon forest by 2030, as part of the commitment it made under the 2015 Paris Agreement. According to the Environment Ministry, 3.4 million hectares (8.4 million acres) are already undergoing recovery.

Above all, the country must continue its efforts to curb deforestation, experts say. But a fast‑tracked bill in Congress threatens the main tool that enabled Brazil curb deforestation.

Proposal would make key change in forest monitoring

If approved, the legislation, proposed by lawmaker Lucio Mosquini, would prohibit IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency, from imposing sanctions on landowners for illegal deforestation based solely on satellite monitoring, a pillar of the country’s environmental enforcement.

Mosquini said satellite-based sanctions harm farmers because they are not given a chance to mount a defense. Authorities, however, say farmers can challenge the sanction within 20 days and have it overturned if they can show the deforestation was authorized.

IBAMA first began relying on satellite data in 2016 to complement field inspections and support deforestation control in remote areas. Former President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration halted the policy in 2019 as part of its environmental deregulation efforts, which drove Amazon deforestation rates to a 15-year high in 2021. Under Lula, who returned to office in 2023 after previously being president between 2003-2010, the environmental agency resumed remote monitoring.

Since March, the proposal has been set for an eventual vote by Congress’ lower chamber. If it passes, it would move to the Senate. Since agribusiness is the country’s most powerful economic sector and most influential in Congress, political experts expect it to be approved.

If approved, the project would be “a major environmental setback,” Jair Schmitt, IBAMA's president, told The Associated Press. “In effect, you end up encouraging environmental offenders and unfair competition.”

Satellite technology supports environmental enforcement much as speed cameras assist traffic authorities, Schmitt said. It would be impossible for a city to deploy a guard to every corner. Likewise, the federal government cannot station agents to every on every square kilometer of the rainforest.

Authorities on high alert with prospect of bad wildfire season

In March, the government announced the hiring of 4,600 firefighters and launched real‑time monitoring of potential fire outbreaks. Schmitt, the IBAMA president, said authorities have identified rural properties at high fire risk by combining historical heat-spot data with deforestation and weather records. Some landowners are now being notified and ordered to adopt preventive measures.

“The situation this year is worrying. We’re still in the rainy season, and we’ve already recorded two fires in April,” said Tainan Kumaruara, a member of the Indigenous volunteer Guardioes Kumaruara fire brigade, in the Kumaruara Indigenous land in Para state.

“The forest is different from what it was 10 years ago. It’s much drier. The trees no longer behave as they did,” she added.

In 2024, a major wildfire season fueled by severe drought affected more than 17 million hectares (42 million acres) of rainforest, according to MapBiomas, a nonprofit that tracks land use. Most wildfires in the Amazon are not natural but rather started by humans.

Amid the warnings, a study publish in April by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences added more evidence about how the Amazon recovers from fire.

To study long-term effects, for 20 years Leandro Maracahipes, a Yale University researcher supported by the Brazilian nonprofit Instituto Serrapilheira, set controlled fires at a research farm in the Amazon that was also exposed to drought.

The study found that after frequent wildfires, the forest did not completely disappear or transform into savanna, or widespread grassland, contrary to what scientific models had predicted. It remained a rainforest but degraded, with more clearings and vulnerability, lacking Amazon niche species that depend on dense cover and specific conditions — and time — to germinate and grow.

“The forest is resilient, but our message is that we need to preserve it even more, and urgently,” Maracahipes said. “And it has to be now.”

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

Exeter Chiefs — recently an English and European champion — voted to approve a proposed takeover by Black Knight Sports and Entertainment, an investment group that already counts Premier League team Bournemouth in its expanding portfolio.

That development comes days after Cornish Pirates, which plays in English rugby's second tier, announced a deal with Pittsburgh-based firm Stonewood Capital Management that marked, according to the team, “the first known U.S. investment into an English professional rugby club.”

With English billionaire James Dyson securing a 50% stake in Bath Rugby in March and energy drink giant Red Bull taking full ownership of Newcastle Falcons last year, money is starting to flood into English rugby after years of financial uncertainty made worse by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In recent years, Wasps, Worcester Warriors and London Irish have been banished from England's top league for financial reasons, reducing it to a 10-team competition. The 2023-24 season was the third straight year that no top-tier club made a profit, according to the Leonard Curtis Rugby Finance Report.

However, it was announced in February that automatic promotion and relegation between the top two tiers of English rugby would be scrapped and replaced by a criteria-based expansion and demotion model, with a plan to add up to two more clubs to the Prem — the newly named top league — in the 2029-30 season.

English rugby leaders said this development would “create investable, globally competitive leagues,” saying the previous system “was not delivering financial sustainability (and) discouraging long-term investment.”

There is already huge U.S. investment in English soccer, with Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool among the heavyweight teams with American owners. Wrexham is also co-owned by Hollywood celebrities Rob Mac and Canadian-born Ryan Reynolds.

Big-business investors from the United States have also bought stakes in England's newest cricket competition, The Hundred, over the past year.

Bournemouth soccer owners turn to rugby

Black Knight Sports and Entertainment, which is part of American investment company Cannae Holdings, took full control of Bournemouth in 2022 and the team is currently sixth in the Premier League with a chance of qualifying for next season's Champions League.

The Black Knight consortium, fronted by American businessman Bill Foley, owns the Vegas Golden Knights in the NHL and has other soccer clubs in its portfolio, in Lorient (France), Moreirense FC (Portugal) and Auckland FC (New Zealand).

Exeter's members voted by a majority to permit the sale of the club, which was European champion in 2020 and English champion in 2017 and '20, and are expecting an offer to follow from Black Knight after financial checks.

The Cornish Pirates said they had positioned themselves “at the forefront of rugby’s globalization” by welcoming U.S. investment, at a time when the country is preparing to host the Rugby World Cup in 2031.

Kenn Moritz, one of the investors in Stonewood Capital Management, said the group saw a "compelling opportunity in Cornish Pirates," adding: "Rugby is entering an exciting global phase, and we believe this investment places us at the heart of that journey.”

Pittsburgh is among the U.S. cities bidding to host matches at the Rugby World Cup in 2031.

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AP Sports Writer Ken Maguire contributed to this story.

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

The 54-year-old Merritt spent several years playing linebacker in the NFL before becoming one of the best defensive backs coaches in the league. He has been with the Chiefs since 2019, and including his time with the Giants, has helped teams win five Super Bowls.

He took part in the Chiefs' rookie minicamp last weekend.

“Dave’s been very up-front with everything,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said Saturday. “We’re still going through that whole procedure. In this case, you always let the law enforcement part take care of itself and work its way out."

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

But the world’s most famous wildlife presenter is likely to be uncomfortable with all the attention as he celebrates his 100th birthday on Friday, said Alastair Fothergill, the producer of some of Attenborough’s most well-known documentaries and the director of Silverback Films.

“He’s always been very clear to all of us that work with him: ‘Remember, the animals are the stars, I’m not,’’’ Fothergill told The Associated Press. “So, yes, surprisingly for one of the most famous men on the planet, he doesn’t like being famous at all.”

Glorious gorillas

But Attenborough has had to accept the accolades this week as scientists, politicians and conservationists celebrated the man who has brought frolicking gorillas, breaching whales and tiny poisonous frogs into living rooms around the world for more than 70 years.

Through BBC programs such as Life on Earth, The Private Life of Plants and The Blue Planet, Attenborough has illuminated the beauty, ferocity and sometimes downright weirdness of nature in a hushed melodic voice that conveys his own awe at what he is witnessing.

Viewers who might never leave their hometowns were transported to the Himalayas, the Amazon and the unexplored forests of Papua New Guinea. But behind the stunning images was an attention to scientific accuracy that helped teach people about complex subjects like evolution, animal behavior and biodiversity.

And as the evidence mounted, he began to sound the alarm about climate change, ocean plastic and other human-caused threats to the planet.

That helped people understand not only how life evolved but, more importantly, why we have to protect it, said Professor Ben Garrod, an evolutionary biologist at the University of East Anglia and himself a broadcaster who has worked alongside Attenborough.

Attenborough, Garrod believes, initially saw himself as a neutral observer but was compelled to speak out when he saw that politicians, business leaders and the public weren’t taking the emergency seriously.

“He is showing you the majesty, the ferocity, the fragility of the natural world. He shouldn’t have ever had to have turned to policymaking and advocacy,” Garrod said.

“I think it’s very easy for a lot of people to say, ‘He should have done it sooner. Why didn’t he act 20 years, 30 years, 40 years ago?’” Garrod then asked: “Why didn’t we?''

Fond of fossils from the start

Born in London on May 8, 1926, the same year as the late Queen Elizabeth II, Attenborough was raised on the grounds of what is now the University of Leicester, where his father was a senior leader.

His fascination with nature developed when he was a young boy, riding his bicycle into the surrounding countryside where he collected treasures such as abandoned birds’ nests, the shed skin of a snake and, most importantly, fossils.

“I’d find a fossil and show it to my father and he’d say ‘Good, good, tell me all about it.’ So I responded and became my own expert,” Attenborough told Smithsonian Magazine in 1981.

He went on to study geology and zoology at the University of Cambridge.

In 1952, Attenborough joined the BBC, working behind the scenes on “everything from ballet to short stories.” After he'd been there about two months, the capture of a “living fossil” off the coast of East Africa caused an international stir, and he was asked to produce a short piece about the coelacanth.

That story was told in the studio by Professor Julian Huxley, an evolutionary biologist, who used pickled wildlife specimens and a photograph of a coelacanth to explain the fish’s significance.

But Attenborough thought television could do more.

“I’d always wanted to do films on animals around the world,” he recalled in a 1985 interview with The Associated Press. “But the attitude was, ‘We’ve got TV cameras in the studio. What’s this about spending money abroad?’”

In 1954, he finally persuaded the BBC to let him accompany a London Zoo team that traveled to West Africa to collect specimens. That began a decade as host and producer of “Zoo Quest,” kick-starting his career in the field.

The privilege of his life

One of the most famous moments of that long career came during the 1979 series “Life on Earth,” when Attenborough encountered a family of mountain gorillas in a forest on the border of Rwanda and what was then Zaire (now Congo).

During that scene, voted one of Britain's top TV moments of all time, a young gorilla lies across his body while several babies try to remove his shoes. Attenborough grins, laughs and is speechless with delight.

“I honestly don’t know how long it was,’’ Attenborough later told the BBC. “I suspect it was about 10 minutes, or even a quarter of an hour. I was simply transported.”

“Extraordinary, really,’’ he reflected. “It was one of the most privileged moments of my life.”

A character everyone could understand

Attenborough has combined his knowledge of television, an understanding of his audience and his commitment to science to create a character who could deliver complicated issues surrounding wildlife, conservation and natural history to a mass audience, said Jean-Baptiste Gouyon, a professor of science communication at University College London.

“Basically he gave wildlife television a figure, a front of the house person … which has come to embody television discourse about nature,” Gouyon said.

And on this, his centenary, his fans made a point of finding him. In a recorded audio message he said he thought he would mark the day quietly. As if.

“I’ve been completely overwhelmed by birthday greetings from preschool groups to care home residents and countless individuals and families of all ages,'' he said. “I simply can’t reply to each of you all separately, but I would like to thank you all most sincerely for your kind messages.”

And he isn’t planning to stop now, Fothergill said.

“He said to me recently he feels unbelievably privileged that a man in his late 90s is still being asked to work. And, you know, he will go on forever. He will die in his safari shorts.”

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Hilary Fox contributed.

The killing of Casey Goodson Jr. by Jason Meade in December 2020 had provoked outrage in Ohio.

Trial jurors said they couldn't agree on the more serious charge of murder, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial on that count.

Meade, who is white, said his shooting of Goodson — five times in the back and once in the side — was justified because he saw the 23-year-old holding a gun and turning toward him in the doorway of the house in Columbus. But no one else testified they saw Goodson holding the gun he was licensed to carry, and no cameras recorded the shooting.

This was Meade's second murder trial after the first one ended in a mistrial two years ago. He is now the second white law enforcement officer to be convicted in the killing of a Black man in the state since the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minnesota sparked national protests.

Tamala Payne, Goodson's mother, said the guilty verdict gives her family closure and peace.

“I know now Casey can rest. You know, we’ve been fighting for five and a half years, and Casey sees his family fighting. He knows the stress. He knows the pain. He knows the heartache,” she said. “And now, not only can we try to find peace and finally start truly grieving, my baby can rest.”

Meade had testified in the first trial that he pursued Goodson after the man waved a gun at him as they passed each other in their vehicles. According to his family and prosecutors, Goodson was holding a bag of Subway sandwiches in one hand and his keys in the other, and was listening to music through earbuds when he was killed.

Meade did not take the stand at his second trial.

Prosecutors also said the evidence suggests the gun wasn't in his hands, but in a flimsy holder under his belt. They added it was found under his body, its safety mechanism still engaged, as Goodson laid mortally wounded on the kitchen floor of his grandmother's house.

Meade, now 47, retired from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department in 2021. He’s also a Baptist pastor. His attorney cited Meade’s oral and written accounts of what happened, and said the shooting was justified.

Ohio law defines murder as the purposeful causing of a death, while the lesser charge of reckless murder means the defendant acted recklessly in causing a death. The former is punishable by up to life in prison, while the latter carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Judge David Young set sentencing for July 16.

Prosecutors said they were pleased with the guilty verdict on the reckless homicide charge and haven't decided yet whether to pursue a third trial on the murder charge — something Payne said she would like to see happen.

Defense attorneys Mark Collins and Kaitlyn Stephens did not address the media afterward.

Following the verdict, Brian Steel, president and chief executive of the Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge #9, said he respects the jury but was “disappointed” with the decision. He said he hopes the prosecutor's office does not seek a retrial on the murder charge.

“This was long six years drawn out. This is the second trial. I hope they’re for the sake of not only the Meade family, the Goodson family and the community, I hope we don’t try to do a third trial on this murder charge,” Steel said.

Christopher Corne was driving nearby that day and testified for the prosecution at both trials. He said Goodson seemed to be dancing and singing in his truck shortly before the shooting. He also testified during the first trial that he did not see a gun in Goodson’s hand.

Columbus police Officer Samuel Rippey testified at the second trial that while he was administering emergency treatment to Goodson, he saw the gun, with an extended magazine, lying on the floor.

Goodson’s death provoked public outrage in Ohio as the killings of Black people by white officers increased demands for police reform following the killing of Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

Banners were hung from highway overpasses in Columbus, carrying messages such as “Justice for Casey Goodson Jr.” and “Convict Murderer Meade.” The judge ordered the banners taken down during the trial.

Previous Ohio prosecutions in such cases led to only one conviction — that of Columbus police officer Adam Coy, who was indicted on charges including murder in the 2020 killing of Andre Hill.

Leo spent the eve of the 1-year mark meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had come to the Vatican on a fence-mending visit. Trump’s repeated broadsides against history’s first U.S. pope created an unprecedented back-and-forth on the Iran war that strained U.S.-Holy See relations.

By the end of the visit, both the Vatican and the State Department stressed their strong bilateral ties. But the episode nevertheless pushed Leo out of his comfort zone and onto the global stage to make zingers like the one this week, after Trump's latest misrepresentation of his views. “If someone wants to criticize me for announcing the Gospel, let him do it with the truth,” Leo said.

It’s all a bit out of character for Leo who — the world has come to learn in this first year — is at heart a mild-mannered, 70-year-old Midwestern missionary priest, and a reserved one at that. He likes to play the solitary game of tennis, cites the fifth-century philosopher St. Augustine from memory and insists he is merely quoting the Bible when he calls for peace, as he did again Friday in marking his anniversary.

“May the God of peace pour out an overflowing abundance of mercy, touching hearts, soothing grudges and fratricidal hatred, and enlightening those who bear special responsibilities of governance,” Leo said during an anniversary homily in the ancient city of Pompeii.

The Trump-Leo feud aside, the former Robert Prevost after his first year seems driven not by the dramatic gesture or headline-grabbing tensions that often fueled his predecessor, Pope Francis. Rather, Leo seems inspired by the calm, persistent zeal to preach the Gospel and — thanks to his Augustinian spirituality — emphasize community and harmony.

A year of learning and unifying

Leo began his improbable papacy promising to work for unity in a polarized world and church, and at the one-year mark, he seems to be delivering.

After Francis’ revolutionary and sometimes divisive 12-year papacy, Leo has brought a calming balm to the Vatican and church at large. He seems intent on healing divisions, even as new threats of schism emerge.

That has certainly been the case as he navigates some of the thorniest challenges facing the Catholic Church: tensions between traditionalists and progressives, financial problems facing the Holy See and the geopolitical crises at the heart of the Trump vs. Leo dissonance.

“I think the challenge that the Holy Father has is to strengthen the unity of the church,” said Cardinal Wilton Gregory, a Chicago native like Leo and the retired archbishop of Washington. While there have always been divisions, Gregory said social media had amplified them, and that Leo seems intent on tamping them down.

“Social communication makes it possible for people to take sides, and sometimes taking sides adds to the divisiveness that we have to deal with and that the Holy Father, as the Bishop of Rome, has to respond to,” Gregory said in an interview.

“He has to call us to our better angels,” he added.

That seemed to be Leo's modus operandi when, days into his recent Africa trip, he temporarily quelled the Trump broadsides by essentially declaring he was above the president's social media rants. While insisting he would continue preaching the Gospel message of peace, Leo said it "is not in my interest at all,” to debate Trump.

“I primarily come to Africa as a pastor, as the head of the Catholic Church to be with, to celebrate with, to encourage and accompany all the Catholics throughout Africa,” he said.

He repeated that message at the trip's conclusion, saying the political role that comes with being pope, a head of state and global moral authority, was simply not his priority.

An English-speaking American pope

For many, the shock of an American pope, who defied the taboo precluding a Rome-based moral counterweight to the White House, still hasn’t worn off.

“It’s been the first year of an American pope who has been critical of what America is doing for the most part,” said Anthea Butler, senior fellow at the Koch Institute, Oxford University.

She stressed that Leo is doing so “not coming full-on like Francis would,” but approaching issues from the side. He's not naming names, he's merely preaching the Gospel.

That approach has certainly helped some U.S. Catholic institutions, after the American church developed an almost comically bad relationship with Francis. His criticism of American-style capitalism was amplified by U.S.-based conservative Catholic media during his papacy.

For many Vatican watchers, the Argentine pope simply didn't “get” the U.S., and vice versa. Some U.S. Catholics eventually soured on donating to the Holy See under Francis, following years of unrelenting stories of mismanagement, corruption and scandal.

But with a Chicago math major now pope, “he can’t be dismissed as being ignorant of the realities in the United States,” said Kerry Alys Robinson, chief executive of Catholic Charities USA, a national network of Catholic agencies.

Robinson said she had never seen U.S. Catholic bishops so united as now, particularly in speaking about the dignity of migrants and poor people. She credits that to many factors, including the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and funding cuts that have created a common purpose. But she doesn’t discount the unifying message from Leo, in English.

“It’s very different when you are hearing the message without it being mediated through translation,” she said.

Repairing US relationships

Ward Fitzgerald, president of The Papal Foundation, which funds the pope's charity projects in the developing world, said an English-speaking pope has been a boon especially in the U.S. and Europe, where there is anecdotal evidence of a “Leo effect” spurring new converts.

“I think there’s lots of reasons for it, but I certainly think that having a pope who speaks English helps young people understand the messages of the Holy Father,” Fitzgerald said in an interview. That also translates to donors to the church, especially from the U.S.

“When you tell a donor, ‘I really appreciate what you do’ in English — and they’re English — I think it resonates," Fitzgerald said. "And so they give a little more.”

The Papal Foundation recently announced 25 new families had joined its ranks since Leo's election, a not-insignificant number given membership requires a minimum $1.25 million pledge.

Fitzgerald and members of the foundation met with Leo last week and gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica for a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the towering figure of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy and a kingmaker in the 2025 conclave that elected Leo.

Dolan is also chummy with Trump, and is a member of his Religious Liberty Commission.

In his homily, Dolan extolled the attributes of St. Joseph, the father of Christ and a figure so beloved in the church he is the patron saint of more causes than any other saint. Dolan also revealed his feelings about Leo, whom he had watched in the Sistine Chapel become the 267th pope a year ago Friday.

St. Joseph was a man of silence, Dolan said, calm and secure in his place.

"A man who exuded a sense of depth and substance. A man who is shy, all right, a man who is focused on his mission,” he added. “A man, always attentive to God’s plan.”

Dolan then asked the Americans seated in the pews if they could think of anyone else who fit St. Joseph's description.

“I can," Dolan said. "Pope Leo reminds me of Joseph.”

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