Hawaii Police Chief Reed Mahuna said authorities were deploying “significant resources and personnel” in trying to find Jacob Baker, of Pahoa, Hawaii.

Three men, including two who were 69 years old and one who was 79, were found dead on Monday and Tuesday in the Puna area of the island of Hawaii, also known as the Big Island. The island is the largest in the Hawaiian chain at more than 4,000 square miles (10,360 square kilometers).

“These are a tragic series of events and our thoughts are with those who are grieving at this time,” Mahuna said at a news conference Wednesday. “The Hawaii Police Department understands the fear and concerns incidents like this bring to our community.”

Mahuna declined to provide details on the search, but said bringing Baker into custody was his department's “No. 1 priority.”

Authorities said they had not identified a motive but were confident Baker was involved in all three homicides. Mahuna did not release information on how police identified Baker as a suspect or what evidence may connect him to the killings.

On Monday at around 8 p.m., police found a 69-year-old man at a residence partially submerged in a cement pond, Mahuna said. Police did not initially know whether foul play was involved, but preliminary autopsy results showed the death was a homicide, the chief said.

On Tuesday, a 79-year-old man was found dead with apparent blunt force injuries shortly after 12:30 p.m., Mahuna said. The killing happened about 400 to 500 feet (122 to 152 meters) from the first homicide, he said.

Later Tuesday, at around 10 p.m., police responded to a property about 19 miles (31 kilometers) from the other two killings on a welfare check request and found a 69-year-old man dead with injuries, Mahuna said.

Police said there were no known connections among the victims, other than the first two men lived near each other. Mahuna said guns were not used in the killings.

Mahuna said Baker is known to police, but did not elaborate.

Two women filed petitions for temporary restraining orders against Baker just last week, related to what they said were threats and harassment happening at a farm they were staying on or co-owned. A judge ultimately denied both applications, saying there was not enough proof of harassment provided.

One of the women claimed in her petition that Baker had threatened to kill several women who were staying on the property, and had caused a number of them to move or end their stays. She included a link to a video that allegedly captured at least one threat, but the link had either been removed or was incorrect as of Thursday.

The other woman alleged in her petition that Baker had threatened women and a disabled man, and said he would trespass on the property, take things that didn’t belong to him and say his intention was to squat on the property.

No attorney was listed for Baker, who had 20 other cases in the court record in the past two decades, many of them traffic infractions. There were also a handful of criminal or administrative citations including letting a dog wander, failure to appear in court and simple trespassing.

In most of those cases, Baker represented himself.

Puna, on the eastern side of the island, is a rural but fast-growing area known for affordable housing prices. It's also an area where lava flows have wiped out entire communities over the years. The landscape is lush and tropical mixed with barren lava fields.

Officials were asking the public to report any information about Baker and any suspicious activities in the areas of the homicides to police, and urged people not to approach Baker.

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Associated Press writer Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.

The NHL Alumni Association announced Lemieux's death in a post on social media. A cause of death was not immediately available, nor was it clear where Lemieux was when he died.

Lemieux on Monday night was the Montreal Canadiens’ torch bearer prior to Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final at Bell Centre.

“Today is a dark day for the Canadiens family and the entire hockey community," Canadiens owner Geoff Molson said. “A fierce competitor who rose to the occasion in big moments, Claude was a relentless, courageous, and tenacious player who led the team to the highest honors. He embodied the very essence of being a Montreal Canadiens player. Today we mourn the untimely passing of one of our champions. Our thoughts are with his family on this difficult day.”

As a player, Lemieux was a mix of skill and abrasiveness, not afraid to cross the line in the name of competition.

He won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP for his role in helping the New Jersey Devils win their first championship in 1995. A year later with the Colorado Avalanche, he was suspended for two games for a hit from behind on Detroit's Kris Draper on the way to them hoisting the Stanley Cup for the first time in their first season since moving from his native Quebec.

Darren McCarty, a truculent member of the Red Wings during the heyday of their rivalry with the Avalanche that was sparked by Lemieux's hit on Draper, posted a broken heart emoji on social media with the alumni's announcement and additional thoughts about his former adversary's death.

“This is extremely sad no matter what feelings from past or present you hold,” McCarty said. “My thoughts and prayers to his family and friends, and people who got to see the person off the ice wasn’t the person on. As I’ve said and will always call it as I see it "If you're on the ICE with Claude Lemieux and your turn your back. YOU Are an IDIOT. But off the ICE I’ll turn mine" And please. If you are struggling at all please reach out and talk to someone. Godspeed my friend.”

Lemieux also won the Cup with Montreal in 1986 and returned to the Devils to be a part of their title run in 2000. He played 1,449 regular-season and playoff games with six different teams from 1983-2009.

Commissioner Gary Bettman called Lemieux “one of the greatest big-game players in hockey history.”

Lemieux had become an agent in the years since his playing career ended and represented Carolina’s Frederik Andersen, New Jersey's Timo Meier, Detroit's Moritz Seider and Boston's Hampus Lindholm among more than a dozen clients in the NHL.

At a gathering in December to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of Colorado's '95 Stanley Cup championship, Lemieux said of winning, “When it’s happening, when you’re in the middle of it, you don’t quite appreciate it as much as you should.”

Late former teammate Chris Simon was represented during the on-ice ceremony by his children. He died in 2024 at 52.

“It’s very difficult, and especially with Chris passing at such a young age,” Lemieux said. “We have to count our blessings — be grateful for the days that we have and enjoy and appreciate those times when we get together.”

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AP Sports Writer Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this report.

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

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether E. Jean Carroll, the longtime advice columnist who has said President Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store 30 years ago, lied during the course of civil litigation against the Republican president, according to a person familiar with the matter.

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

Here's the latest:

Trump officials: Kenya facility for Americans exposed to Ebola abroad to be operational this week

A new camp in Kenya where the Trump administration plans to send Americans who are exposed to Ebola abroad will be operational with 50 quarantine beds starting Friday, according to a senior administration official.

The government is still working on bringing in additional isolation and biocontainment units for Americans who may contract the disease, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss details of the facility with reporters on Thursday.

While no Americans have yet been identified to be sent to the facility, 30 members of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps have so far been trained and deployed to staff the camp at Kenya’s Laikipia Air Base, the official said.

The U.S. government has been in conversation with Kenya’s president on the establishment of the facility, said another senior administration official on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to brief reporters.

Trump approval still pending, US official says

Another U.S. official said the broad outlines of a tentative deal have been reached but stressed that until the president signs off on it, there is no deal.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private diplomacy, said there are still questions about whether Trump will ultimately accept the agreement.

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

U.S. and Iranian negotiators have reached a tentative agreement to extend the ceasefire by 60 days and launch talks on Iran’s nuclear program, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Trump still needs to sign off on the emerging memorandum of understanding.

The tentative agreement worked out by the two sides comes at a moment when the fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran appeared to be wavering.

The U.S. military earlier on Thursday accused Iran of violating the ceasefire after Kuwait reported coming under attack following an American strike against the Islamic Republic. It was the latest flare-up of fighting to threaten ongoing negotiations to end the war.

Details of the tentative agreement were first reported by the news outlet Axios.

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Vance tells Air Force graduates to use AI but ‘never submit to it’

In his commencement speech at the U.S. Air Force Academy, Vance said technology is evolving faster than military institutions have been accustomed to. He endorsed Pope Leo XIV’s recent message warning against outsourcing moral decisions to technology.

“If the warfare of the future is to live up to the moral values of our ancestors, decisions over life and death must be made by humans and not machines,” Vance told graduates Thursday at a ceremony in Colorado Springs.

Vance said he was confident in the class of 2026, saying they will follow in the footsteps of service members who pulled off a daring rescue of two aviators whose fighter jet was downed by Iran in April.

“Your Air Force, your future force, went in there and did the impossible,” he said.

Iran’s UN envoy calls US action against Venezuela, Iran and now Cuba `dangerous’

Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that the U.S. actions reflect a pattern “of coercion, intimidation and interference” which violates the U.N. Charter, threatens the countries’ sovereignty and independence, and endangers international peace and security.

U.S. forces arrested Venezuela’s president and the Trump administration now oversees the country, and it’s pressuring Cuba by blocking the delivery of oil.

Iravani defended Iran’s right to respond to the U.S. and Israeli attacks against Iran on Feb. 28 and to close the Strait of Hormuz, accusing unnamed countries of ignoring the root causes of the current situation in the region and unfairly shifting the blame to Iran.

“Iran’s actions are lawful and consistent with international law,” Iravani said. “Iran could not allow such a critical waterway to be used as a corridor for hostile action and military aggression against its sovereignty, territory and vital interests.”

Trump’s DOJ sues 4 Democratic-run states over denying undercover license plates for federal agents

It’s the latest front in the wider struggle between the White House and Democratic-led states over the Republican president’s immigration crackdown.

The Department of Justice alleges in separate lawsuits filed Wednesday that Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington state are imposing unconstitutional restrictions it says impede law enforcement and threaten agents’ safety.

“By denying undercover license plates to DHS components, including ICE, while issuing them to their own state agencies, these governors are pursuing discriminatory and obstructionist policies against federal law enforcement,” said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a statement.

“These actions undermine federal immigration enforcement, allow dangerous criminals to escape justice, and terrorize American communities,” Blanche added.

The Justice Department filed individual suits in U.S. district courts in the respective states. The four state governments are accused of trying “to obstruct the Federal Government’s immigration enforcement efforts, even though control over immigration and the nation’s borders is an exclusive federal power.”

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US boosts Ebola response aid to Congo and Uganda by $80M

The Trump administration says it’s boosting its Ebola response assistance to Congo and Uganda by $80 million, bringing the U.S. contribution to those efforts to more than $112 million over the past two weeks.

The State Department said Thursday the additional money would pay for personal protective equipment for health care workers, Ebola test kits, supporting health screening at airports and other points of entry into Central and East Africa, and contact tracing of potential virus victims in the Congo and Uganda.

The U.S. has been criticized for massive reductions in assistance since Trump began his second term, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development. But current officials say the new aid procedures are more effective and less costly.

In addition to the bilateral assistance it has pledged, the State Department said it also committed $50 million to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to fund up to 50 Ebola clinics and has earmarked $300 million through the agency for regional humanitarian initiatives.

Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says she won’t run for president in 2028

She put to rest speculation about a potential 2028 presidential bid, saying Thursday that she won’t join what’s expected to be a crowded primary field after leaving office at the end of this year.

Whitmer has long been viewed by some Democrats as a possible White House contender after her decisive election victories in the closely contested state Trump has carried twice in presidential votes. For months, however, Whitmer had offered only cautious answers about her political future.

But she delivered her clearest response yet in an interview Thursday with Fox 2 Detroit.

“I think there will be a robust group of people running for president. I will not be one of them in 2028,” Whitmer said.

Her comments came during Michigan’s annual Mackinac policy conference, where Whitmer is set to be honored and deliver remarks later Thursday.

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Justice Department scrutinizing statement Carroll made that no one else was paying her legal fees

It later became public that a Chicago-based organization backed by Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, had helped fund Carroll’s case.

Trump’s lawyers in the civil case accused Carroll of concealing that information, which they said called into question whether the case was politically motivated.

Oil prices climb, but US stocks hold near their records

Oil prices are clawing back some of their sharp drops from earlier in the week Thursday, but U.S. stocks are remaining near their records as companies like Dollar Tree, Snowflake and Hormel Foods keep piling up profits.

The S&P 500 edged down by 0.1% from its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 219 points, or 0.4%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% lower after both indexes also set records the day before.

Stocks appear to be less beholden to swings in the oil market, where prices climbed Thursday following the latest threat to the ceasefire in the United States’ war with Iran. U.S. Central Command said Kuwait had intercepted missiles launched by Iran late Wednesday night, following earlier “defensive” strikes by the U.S. military on missile launch sites and minelaying boats in southern Iran.

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Trump says he’s been invited to watch the Knicks play in the NBA Finals

Trump told reporters Wednesday that New York Knicks owner James Dolan has invited him to the NBA Finals, when the Eastern Conference champion Knicks host either the Oklahoma City Thunder or the San Antonio Spurs next month at Madison Square Garden.

New York, which is riding an 11-game postseason winning streak after sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers in the conference finals, is scheduled to host Game 3 on June 8 and Game 4 on June 10.

Trump, a New York native, said he initially planned to attend Game 5 of the conference finals at MSG before the Knicks finished off the Cavaliers in four games. The president called Dolan a “great guy” and marveled at New York’s run.

Trump called the club’s return to the finals for the first time since 1999 “great to see.”

Trump has routinely dropped in on prominent sporting events during his time in politics. He’s taken in the College Football Playoff championship and caught a prime-time NFL game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Jets just days before the 2024 election.

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Zelenskyy says he’s pressing US for more Patriot missiles for Ukraine to counter Russian strikes

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that he’s being “very persistent” in pressing the United States to provide his country with more Patriot air defense missiles that can counter devastating Russian ballistic missile attacks.

Zelenskyy said he hasn’t yet received a reply to a letter he sent earlier this week to President Trump and Congress asking for more of the American-made ammunition. He warned that deliveries to Ukraine are falling dangerously short as the Iran war diverts and depletes U.S. stocks.

“I believe (the U.S.) must act quicker. We are being very persistent,” Zelenskyy told reporters during a visit to Sweden.

Zelenskyy is keen to secure more deliveries of foreign weaponry that it can’t produce itself as it battles Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022. In exchange, he’s offering to share the cutting-edge drone expertise Ukraine has built up during the war.

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Carroll has said a flirtatious, chance encounter with Trump in 1996 ended violently

She said Trump slammed her against a dressing room wall at Bergdorf Goodman’s Fifth Avenue store, pulled down her tights and forced himself on her. Trump has called the allegations a “made-up scam.”

A jury in 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll, awarding her $5 million. The following year, another jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in a defamation case related to Trump’s social media attacks on her.

A court entry earlier this month said Trump won’t have to pay the award until the U.S. Supreme Court gets a chance to review the case or reject an appeal. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to a request by one of Trump’s lawyers that it let the president delay the payment to Carroll, though it required that he post a $7.4 million bond to cover any additional interest costs, a request Carroll’s attorney had made.

Justice Department opens investigation into E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of assault: AP source

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether E. Jean Carroll, the longtime advice columnist who’s said Trump sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store 30 years ago, lied during the course of civil litigation against the Republican president, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The person who confirmed the existence of the investigation wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing inquiry and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The perjury investigation is being led by the federal prosecutors’ office in Chicago, and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has had no involvement because of his prior work as Trump’s personal attorney, the person said.

Lawyers for Carroll did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on Thursday.

It’s the latest in a series of investigations the Trump administration Justice Department has opened into perceived adversaries of the president.

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— Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker

Key inflation gauge worsens as Americans shell out more for gasoline

Inflation jumped to 3.8% in April compared with a year ago, the Commerce Department said Thursday, up from 3.5% in March and the highest since May 2023. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.4%, down from the 0.7% jump in March.

The report showed prices have risen for many items in addition to gas, indicating inflation could persist and pose problems for congressional Republicans in this year’s midterm elections. Inflation is also notably above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, which means Fed policymakers may decide to forego any cuts to their key short-term interest rate this year. Some officials have signaled their next move could be a hike rather than a cut.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation rose to 3.3% in April from 3.2% the previous month. It’s the highest core figure since November 2023. One positive sign in the report: Core prices rose just 0.2% in April from March.

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The Minneapolis immigration crackdown ended months ago. For these little kids, trauma remains

The little girl approached the therapy dog outside the school library, reaching out to touch her fluffy blond coat. Social worker Nicole Herje leaned in.

“How does it feel when you pet Sage?” Herje said.

“I like it,” the girl said. “In Ecuador, I had a dog.”

A few months earlier, this girl and many of her classmates at Valley View Elementary were staying off the streets to avoid the immigration officers flooding their suburban Minneapolis community. Attendance plummeted as families kept their kids from school during the Trump administration’s enforcement surge.

Sage the goldendoodle is not just a cute diversion. She’s part of a broader strategy to address the psychological wounds of children who witnessed arrests, lost relatives to deportation or endured anxious weeks indoors.

Immigration officers made more than 4,000 arrests and shot multiple people, two fatally, before “Operation Metro Surge” wound down in February, leaving an imprint on the psyches of young children that could haunt them for years, mental health providers say.

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Republicans’ recent stumbles in Congress highlight the difficult road ahead for their agenda

A roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement through the remainder of President Trump’s term was supposed to be an easy lift for Republicans.

But progress stalled over concerns about the inclusion of White House ballroom security funding in the package and the creation of a $1.8 billion fund to finance claims of government mistreatment. The stumble hasn’t only delayed action on a top GOP priority but also is raising questions about other parts of the party’s legislative agenda, including whether Republicans can enact another catchall, party-line bill referred to in Washington parlance as “Reconciliation 3.0.”

Republicans have spent recent weeks laying the groundwork for such a bill, which they hope will serve as a final sales pitch to voters going into the midterms.

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Federal judge refuses to block Trump order to create federal voter list and limit mail voting

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

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

The legal battle against the provision now shifts to Boston, where voting rights groups have a separate lawsuit against the executive order in federal court.

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US military says Iran fired missiles at Kuwait in the latest challenge to the fragile ceasefire

The U.S. military said that Kuwait had intercepted missiles launched by Iran late Wednesday night, calling the Iranian attack on one of the U.S. top allies in the Persian Gulf an “egregious ceasefire violation.”

The attack on Kuwait was the latest flare-up to shake the fragile ceasefire reached last month between the U.S. and Iran.

Kuwait had earlier announced an attack on its territory, and Iran announced it had retaliated after strikes earlier in the week on a U.S. base in a Gulf state it did not name.

The Iranian strike came after, earlier in the week, the U.S. said it had struck Iranian missile launch sites, minelaying boats and attack drones it said posed threats near the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.

US military strikes another alleged drug boat in the eastern Pacific, killing 2

The U.S. military on Wednesday struck another vessel suspected of transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two men.

U.S. Southern Command posted video on social media showing a boat resting on the water before being struck by an explosion. The last few seconds of the video show smoke and fire rising from the boat.

A day earlier, U.S. forces had launched a strike on an alleged drug vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing one man and leaving two survivors. Southern Command said it “immediately notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors.”

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 196 people in total. The military has not provided evidence that any of the vessels were carrying drugs.

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In the latest edition of their fierce rivalry, Canada's quarterfinal victory ended the Americans' quest to retain the trophy that they had won for the first time since 1933.

The two teams met for the first time since the final at the Milan Cortina Olympics three months ago, when the Americans prevailed 2-1 in overtime to take the gold medal.

Canada remains on course to capture its 29th title at the worlds.

Celebrini scored his sixth goal at the worlds, Sidney Crosby netted his first, and Dylan Holloway and Connor Brown also scored. Mark Scheifele had two assists, and Greaves turned away every shot he faced.

“He is calm and tonight came up with the big save when we needed it,” forward John Tavares said of Greaves. “He was the best player on the ice tonight, for sure.”

The 19-year-old Celebrini broke the deadlock with 1:29 remaining in the opening period on a power play with a shot from the slot to beat U.S. goalie Devin Cooley.

Earlier, Canada wasted a five-minute major penalty for Ryan Lindgren’s illegal check to the head of defenseman Evan Bouchard and game misconduct.

Holloway doubled the advantage midway through the middle period on a rebound off his own shot from the right circle.

The Americans pulled Cooley with 2:22 left in the third before Brown and Crosby finished the scoring with a couple of empty-net goals.

In their most-recent matchup at the worlds, Canada won 4-2 in the semifinals in 2021 and went on to capture gold. The U.S. took bronze.

Matthew Tkachuk lost a chance to become the first American in hockey’s Triple Gold Club. He won the Stanley Cup back-to-back with the Florida Panthers and claimed the Olympic gold in Milan.

"In the third period we played really, really good and their goalie made some incredible saves,” Tkachuk said. “They ultimately were better for most of the game and so deserved to win.”

Finland advances

In Zurich, Finland reached the semifinals with a 4-1 victory over Czechia in a game between the 2022 and 2024 champions, respectively.

Finland was 2-0 up after the opening period on goals from Sakari Manninen and Anton Lundell. In the second, Konsta Helenius made it 3-0 before Filip Hronek scored for the Czechs on a two-man advantage. Lenni Hameenaho closed out the scoring in the third.

In the remaining quarterfinals later Thursday, host Switzerland played Sweden, and Latvia faced Norway.

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

The fire happened at the Utumishi Girls School, which has more than 800 students, in the Gilgil area of central Kenya, Education Minister Julius Ogamba said, adding that 79 students were injured in the disaster.

Detectives were questioning students to determine whether any wrongdoing triggered the fire, and Ogamba said authorities were trying to find out whether the school's fire safety manual had been adhered to.

The victims were not yet been identified, a source of anger and frustration for parents who gathered outside the ruined dormitory. Some of them angrily confronted police guarding the site, demanding to see the remains of still-uncollected victims.

Bernard Omwandho, a representative of the parents’ association, urged calm as the police investigation continued.

“Most of the parents who are still here are those whose daughters are being questioned,” he said, adding that he hoped that those being questioned will be “able to at least shed some light or give us a hint on what really transpired.”

The school is located about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of the capital, Nairobi. The government-owned secondary school is managed and sponsored by the Kenya Police Service. Many of the students are the daughters of police officers.

Elizabeth Rioba, a mother of two girls at the school, said she was relieved to see her daughters but expressed concern because one of the girls saw her friend get stuck while trying to jump out of a window.

“She’s very traumatized, but I’m relieved she’s OK and I’m sad for all these children who have died,” she told The Associated Press.

The Kenya Red Cross said several students were evacuated and are receiving treatment in various hospitals. The group said it sent psychological support teams for students and their families.

Kenyan President William Ruto expressed his condolences in a statement. “No words can truly ease the pain of losing young lives filled with promise, hope, and dreams for the future,” Ruto said. “As a nation, we mourn with the parents, guardians, teachers, and fellow students who are enduring this unimaginable tragedy.”

Fires at schools have been a cause of concern for education officials in East Africa, where classrooms and dormitories are often crowded, and there’s usually no firefighting equipment in place. Officials sometimes cite poor electrical connections as sparking blazes.

In 2024, 21 students burned to death in a school fire in central Kenya. Ruto declared three days of mourning.

Kenya’s deadliest school fire in recent history occurred in 2001 when 67 students died in a dormitory fire in Machakos County.

In 2017, 10 students died in a school fire in Nairobi. A student was charged with murder.

Jannik Sinner had won everything there was to win in tennis over the past three months: five straight Masters 1000 titles — three of them on clay — and 30 straight matches.

And with Carlos Alcaraz, his biggest rival, out due to an injured right wrist, it seemed almost a foregone conclusion that Sinner would raise the Coupe des Mousquetaires trophy and complete a career Grand Slam.

That’s why Sinner’s meltdown amid the Paris heat wave was so stunning Thursday — especially after he came within just one game of concluding his second-round match in straight sets when he led 5-1 in the third.

The top-ranked Sinner struggled with dizziness and was beaten by 56th-ranked Juan Manuel Cerundolo 3-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1, 6-1 after wasting two chances to serve for the match.

“I didn’t feel very well on court,” Sinner said. “I struggled, starting to feel very dizzy, very low on energy. ... In the beginning, I was hitting very clean, very good, and then I just kind of hit the wall.

"I didn’t have energy, really. I was very, very flat. The whole body. I don’t remember last time I felt this weak,” Sinner added.

Sinner said that when he woke up on Thursday he “didn’t feel very well.”

Sinner bent over on the clay court in apparent exhaustion multiple times and was hardly even running for shots as the match wore on, resorting to drop shots and serve-and-volley tactics to try and shorten the points.

He attempted to cool himself with a hand-held fan on changeovers and put bags of ice around his neck.

The temperature at the start of the match was 29 degrees C (84 F) and rose to 32 C (90 F).

“It was warm but not crazy warm,” Sinner said. “I feel like it was quite OK to play. Really it was nothing against the heat, nothing against the weather. It was just me today, but it happens.”

Cerundolo didn’t celebrate too much when it was over, just producing a little wave to the crowd.

“It’s tough for him,” Cerundolo said. “I couldn’t win more than three games by set. So I think I was a little bit lucky. … He was deserving to win in this match. But then I don’t know what happened. … I feel sorry for him and hope he recovers.”

When Sinner served for the match a second time at 5-4 in the third set, he bent over at 0-40 and then walked to his chair. He asked for assistance and left the court. His entire light blue outfit was soaked through with sweat.

After losing the set 7-5, Sinner received medical attention and left the court. Minerals were added to his drink when he returned but Sinner wasn't able to recuperate.

Sinner lost 18 of the last 20 games. Asked if he considered retiring before the match ended, Sinner said that in the “fifth set we all know everything can happen. I was in a tough spot."

Sinner's previous loss came Feb. 19 in the Qatar Open quarterfinals. He had won five straight Masters titles while dropping just three sets.

“We’ll definitely do some tests to be sure of what happened today," he said.

“Let’s hope we’re ready for Wimbledon,” Sinner added. “To be ready there, we need to recuperate well and do things right now.”

But Sinner has a history of struggling in the heat. He admitted he was lucky at the Australian Open in January against Eliot Spizzirri when the roof was closed and the third-round match swung his way. And he had to retire from a match in Shanghai in October that was contested amid extreme humidity.

“Shanghai was very tough. Humidity very high. Australia was very, very warm,” Sinner said. “Here, I mean it was warm, but it was OK. It was not like I was dying because of the heat. I think today was completely different scenario.

“It’s tough to accept, of course, because of the position where I’ve been in and everything considered,” added Sinner, who sportsbooks had listed at around -300 to win the tournament.

On the same Court Philippe Chatrier last year, Sinner wasted three match points against Alcaraz and lost an epic final.

A 17-year-old advances

In other matches, 17-year-old Frenchman Moise Kouame became the youngest man to reach the third round of a Grand Slam since Rafael Nadal was also 17 at 2003 Wimbledon. Kouame beat Adolfo Daniel Vallejo 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 2-6, 7-6 (8).

Frances Tiafoe required nearly five hours to overcome Hubert Hurkacz 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 6-4, 6-7 (1), 6-4.

And Cerundolo’s older brother, Francisco, beat Hugo Gaston 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-1.

In women’s action, Naomi Osaka put on another fashion show for her walk-on before beating Donna Vekic 7-6 (1), 6-4.

Defending champion Coco Gauff beat Mayar Sherif 6-3, 6-2; and top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka defeated Elsa Jacquemot 7-5, 6-2.

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AP Sports Writers Samuel Petrequin and Jerome Pugmire contributed to this report.

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

Daniel Lawrence was last seen in the area of Mack and Mt. Elliot on Tuesday (May 26) and failed to return home.

He was last seen wearing a gray shirt and blue jeans.

Lawrence is 32 years old, 6′2″, 245 pounds, has black hair and brown eyes.

His family says he has bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Anyone with information should contact the Detroit Police Department’s 12th Precinct at 313-596-1240.

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

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

“The Court recognizes that the Postal Service may ultimately issue a final rule that directly affects Plaintiffs or their members, or that the Government may develop State Citizenship Lists that omit specific individuals due to particularized flaws,” Nichols wrote. “Plaintiffs may, of course, renew their motions if and when those future actions occur. Until then, however, Plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.”

The Trump administration has yet to formally issue lists of eligible voters, and those who filed the initial request for a temporary halt said they'd be back if the administration moves in that direction.

“We are ready to resume the fight if and when the administration takes those next steps,” said Juan Proaño, chief executive officer of the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the organizations that sought the stay from Nichols.

Democratic party organizations that sought the order issued a joint statement with similar promises. “We are confident we will prevail in the end when this illegal and completely unworkable executive order is fully adjudicated,” the statement said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump issued the order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting stalled in Congress. The order would have had the federal government create a list of eligible voters and then directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list. Election officials argued it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos, and the postal union has objected to the idea of mail carriers policing ballots.

Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has launched a federal investigation into that year's vote, even though repeated audits and investigations, including ones run by Republicans, found it was free of widespread fraud. Trump also has said he wants to “take over” election administration in Democratic areas.

Democrats and civil rights groups argued it was urgent that Nichols issue a restraining order in the midst of primary season and with states already gearing up for the fall midterm elections.

This was Trump's second executive order seeking to overhaul elections and voting. His initial election executive order, issued just months after he took office in his second term, has been blocked by multiplefederal judges. That order sought to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes.

From festival and fairs to live entertainment including the Detroit Grand Prix and local gatherings, there are lots of ways to enjoy your weekend around the D.

Watch the video above to check out what’s taking place this weekend.

Animals use various techniques to navigate including following the stars and remembering key landmarks. Birds, fish and turtles orient themselves using Earth's magnetic field as a compass. But it's not yet clear how exactly they do this.

Pigeons are a well-known group of frequent flyers that can traverse hundreds of miles (hundreds of kilometers) in a single day. For thousands of years, humans have used them to carry news, notes and military messages.

Scientists have long tried to untangle how pigeons travel without getting lost. Some think the birds detect magnetic cues using light-sensitive molecules in their eyes, while others suggest it happens in the beak or inner ear.

“The magnetic sense has been this mystery for almost 100 years,” said Martin Wikelski with the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany.

In a new study, Wikelski and other researchers decided to draw back the curtain on pigeons' navigational secrets. They searched for magnetic clues in the birds' organs and found a strong signal in an unexpected place: the liver.

Specialized immune cells in the pigeon's liver break down red blood cells and store iron. When scientists stripped pigeons of those immune cells and let them fly, the birds “just couldn't find their way,” said Christian Kurts with the University of Bonn in Germany. That suggested the iron-rich liver cells might play a role in their sense of direction.

The birds' magnetic compasses only got scrambled on overcast days. That's because they also use the sun as a navigational guide.

Scientists have previously wondered whether immune cells could be involved in magnetic sensing, but the new study published Thursday in the journal Science is the first to present a full-fledged theory.

“I would never have guessed it, but once it was explained to me, it makes sense,” said behavioral ecologist Albert Kao with the University of Massachusetts Boston, who had no role in the study.

The immune cells are located near nerve fibers in the liver. That might be how they transmit their “magnetic sense” to the brain “and help the pigeons to navigate,” said study co-author Clivia Lisowski with the University of Bonn.

The researchers think other birds and animals like mice could operate using a similar magnetic GPS. But outside experts say more work is needed to verify the pigeons navigate this way and to firm up how these signals get to the brain. While the researchers found the strongest magnetic signal in the pigeons' livers, such immune cells have also been spotted in other areas including the beak and spleen.

It's possible this magnetic puzzle doesn't have a single answer, wrote veterinary pathologist Simon Spiro and biologist Hal Drakesmith in an accompanying editorial. The birds could use different techniques to sense magnetic fields depending on the task, be it traveling long distances or finding a specific destination.

“Indeed, it could be prudent to have more than one way of getting home in the dark,” they wrote.

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

Iran did not immediately confirm any deal, and the official noted that President Donald Trump has yet to sign off on it.

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

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

The U.S., meanwhile, would gradually lift its naval blockade on the strait, the conduit for about a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas before the war. Its closure has sent oil prices skyrocketing, driving up fuel prices around the world.

The U.S. would also agree to relax sanctions, allowing Iran to sell more of its oil.

Nuclear issue remains unresolved

Among the first issues to be negotiated during the 60-day ceasefire is what will happen to Iran’s highly enriched uranium, the official said. Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran has not publicly committed to giving up the stockpile, which is believed to buried under a trio of nuclear sites that were badly damaged by U.S. airstrikes last year.

Nuclear analysts have said that Iran might consider China or Russia, which have close relations with Tehran, to be a potential acceptable third party to take possession of the enriched uranium as part of a potential deal. But Trump said Wednesday that he “wouldn’t be comfortable” with such a plan.

A second U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private diplomacy, said the broad outlines of an agreement have been reached but stressed that until Trump signs off on it, there is no deal. The official said there still are questions about whether Trump will accept the proposal.

Details of the tentative pact were first reported by the news outlet Axios.

Kuwait reports an attack

Kuwait had earlier announced an attack on its territory, and Iran said it had retaliated for strikes earlier in the week by firing on a U.S. base in a Gulf state it did not name. The Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry condemned Iran for what it called “blatant aggression," and U.S. Central Command called the attack on one of America’s top allies in the Persian Gulf an “egregious ceasefire violation.”

The exchange unfolded after U.S. officials said late Wednesday in Washington that American forces launched more strikes on Iran, shooting down four one-way attack drones that posed a threat around the strait and hitting an Iranian ground-control station in Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth drone.

Washington and Tehran have repeatedly accused each other of violating the seven-week ceasefire and have traded strikes throughout the week. But they haven't returned to full-scale hostilities and kept negotiating.

On Monday, the U.S. said it conducted what the Pentagon called “self-defense” strikes on missile launch sites and minelaying boats in southern Iran.

After the latest American strikes, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard acknowledged the attack around Bandar Abbas International Airport. The Iranian force said via the state-run IRNA news agency that it launched a retaliatory attack on the air base that launched the assaults, without specifying whether the retaliation targeted Kuwait, which is home to U.S. Army Central’s forward headquarters, air bases and a naval base.

Iran wants a Lebanon angle to any deal

Kuwait’s military announced that its air-defense systems intercepted incoming missiles and drones on Thursday, without detailing what had been targeted. Kuwait repeatedly came under fire from Iran and Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq before the April ceasefire began.

The announcement was made with the Middle East on edge.

Besides sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets, Iran has insisted that any deal must include an end to Israel’s military operations in Lebanon against the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Tensions deepened Thursday in Lebanon as Israel conducted an airstrike on a southern suburb of the capital, Beirut, and other strikes in the southern coastal city of Tyre. At least 14 people were killed across the country's south.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.

The event is two days long from June 26, 4-11 p.m. to June 27, 6:30-10:30 p.m.

The fest will be located at the Shelby Township Civic Center Campus at 52700 Van Dyke Ave.

Presented by the Shelby Township Downtown Development Authority the event is meant to kick off summer and honor America250.

What you can expect to see June 26

• DJ entertainment
• Touch-a-truck
• Strolling princess and superheroes
• Face paint
• Magicians
• Petting zoo by Shelby Township Library
• A craft beer tent
• Food truck rally hosted by Connect Macomb
• New this year: Enchanted Storybook Sing-a-Long and Dance Party, there will be music, dancing and interactive fun.
• Live taping of “The Treehouse,”, including science demonstrations, live animal encounters and opportunity for children to be part of episode.
• Band, Parallel Fifth will close the night

What you can expect to see June 27

• The Kids Zone
• Rock-climbing wall
• Inflatables
• Backyard games
• Macomb County Symphony
• Drone show

The township will offer a sensory room in Hope Chapel, in partnership Joanne and Ted Lindsay Foundation Autism Outreach Services, providing a quiet, low-stimulation space for those who need it during the event.

“With its focus on families, Independence Day and community fun, I can’t think of a better representation or celebration of America than Shelby Township Summer Fest.”

Shelby Township DDA Chair Greg Gagnon said.

For information on how you or your business can also get involved, visit shelbytwp.org/summer or email Community Relations Assistant Director Chelsea Schneider at cschneider@shelbytwp.org.

O’Brien, who graduated from Harvard in 1985 and served as president of The Harvard Lampoon humor magazine, quipped that the university had produced “more Nobel laureates or white-collar criminals” than any other in the country. “So whether you choose good or evil, know that you are among the very best.”

While he joked about “Justice Department spies” being in attendance, he also defended international students — which the Trump administration has attempted to block Harvard from hosting — and criticized what he described as a broader erosion of compassion in American public life.

“Our current leadership in Washington believes that empathy is a weakness,” O’Brien said.

He returns to campus during one of the most fraught periods in Harvard's recent history. The school faces mounting legal and financial pressure from President Donald Trump 's administration, which sued the school in March over accusations its leadership failed to address antisemitism on campus.

Months earlier, a judge sided with Harvard in another lawsuit and ordered the administration to reverse billions of dollars in funding cuts. Harvard says it was being illegally penalized for refusing to adopt the Trump administration’s views.

O'Brien joked that he too was suing the university over everything from uncomfortable dorm furniture to his “less-than-spectacular undergraduate sex life,” claims he said had “more merit than those filed by the president of the United States.”

Reflecting on how his Harvard background shaped the way people perceived him early in his comedy career, he urged grads not to let Harvard define them.

“Maybe my wish for you is not that Harvard becomes the last thing people know about you,” O’Brien said, “but instead that Harvard become the least important thing people know about you.”

Student speaker Andrew O’Donohue, who completed a doctorate studying democratic institutions and judicial independence, described how federal funding tied to his research was wiped out by Trump administration cuts before Harvard stepped in.

“When students self-censor, when professors fear being punished, when scientists worry that research funding is allocated based on politics,” O’Donohue said, “our universities will not produce the next great artist, doctor, scientist, educator, lawyer, entrepreneur, public servant, or innovator.”

Recent Harvard commencements have grown much more political.

Last year, students cheered speakers who defended diversity and international students in the face of Trump administration attacks. The year before was marked by walkouts and chants of “Free Palestine” after weeks of campus protests over the war in Gaza.

This year, graduate workers who are on strike picketed in Harvard Yard, blaring vuvuzela horns, drums and cowbells whenever an administrator spoke. More than 4,000 grad workers want higher pay, stronger protections and an independent process for harassment and discrimination complaints, among other issues. Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators silently held signs condemning the university's “Complicity in Palestinian Genocide.”

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Associated Press writer Leah Willingham in Boston contributed to this report.

The American love affair with French luxury goods and their cultural cachet and craftsmanship has spanned the younger country's history, and a new exhibit explores the story of how these treasures shaped a cultural exchange that marks 250 years of Franco-American relations.

Among the standouts in the exhibit’s cabinet of curiosities: the Givenchy coat worn by former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy; a Cartier lunar module replica from Apollo 11; and a medal commissioned by Benjamin Franklin at the “Hidden Treasures” exhibit at The Shed in Manhattan.

The organizers behind the exhibit, Comité Colbert, represent the top French luxury “maisons,” or houses — including fashion, perfume, jewelry, hospitality and spirits. They asked 65 luxury maisons and cultural institutions to excavate archives and unearth pieces that embodied the Franco-American bond.

The exhibit, which runs through the end of May, comes at a time when American consumers account for a major share in the demand for French luxury goods. Those luxury houses are taking notice — and expanding in the United States.

“American people love French elegance — the ‘je ne sais quoi’ of French luxury,” said Bénédicte Épinay, president and CEO of Comité Colbert. “It’s a deep link starting at the 18th century and still alive.”

France was a ‘dominant’ culture when the US was born

Just as Comité Colbert is honoring France’s bond with the U.S., the U.S. is celebrating its own 250 milestone — its semiquincentennial.

“The U.S. is a relatively young country,” said James Burroughs, professor of commerce at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce. “For much of our existence, we were a relatively modest economy. We were overshadowed by dominant cultures like France.”

The link between the two countries can be seen in perhaps the most renowned American symbol, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France dedicated in 1886. But even before that — and even before French historian Alexis de Tocqueville famously wrote his epic work about U.S. democracy in the 1830s — Americans turned to France as arbiters of taste.

To commemorate France’s support during the Revolutionary War, one of America’s Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, turned to French artists and the Paris mint to commission the Libertas Americana medal in 1782. Exhibit attendees can get an up-close look at the medal's design. Each item on display was presented in shipping containers to symbolize the trans-Atlantic voyage between both countries.

In an effort to market French luxury goods to U.S. audiences, one French Champagne company’s unique approach is on display at the exhibition. An ad from Champagne giant Veuve Clicquot from 1964 shows how the company paired its Champagne with hamburgers to appeal to American audiences and to break away from the image of saving a glass of Champagne for special occasions.

“Luxury," Burroughs said, “is always about status and signaling.”

Fashion, unsurprisingly, has been front and center

Much like its role in the French luxury sector, fashion brought the star power to the exhibit.

Givenchy offered Kennedy Onassis’s pink, brushed-cashmere wool coat from her 1961 visit to France for the exhibit. Madonna’s revealing pinstriped Jean Paul Gaultier dress from his 1992 runway show to benefit AIDS research is also on display.

French luxury houses are catering to their American audiences by bringing their designs to the United States as well. The French fashion maisons from Dior, Louis Vuitton and Chanel have all staged their runway shows in the U.S. in recent months.

“European luxury goods companies are in the process of getting deeper into the USA,” Luca Solca, luxury goods senior analyst at Bernstein, said in an email. “In the past, only the two coasts and Las Vegas had luxury stores. American consumers are step by step warming up to European luxury. In a similar vein to what Chinese consumers did many years ago.”

These brands are not only holding extravagant runway shows in the U.S. but are expanding their businesses across the U.S. Hermès opened a new location in Nashville last year.

“What the French have done really well ... in the last 15 years, is that they have opened up their range of products to create offers that are very relevant to the mass American consumer,” said Thomaï Serdari, New York University marketing professor and director of the luxury and retail MBA.

French jewelry brand Boucheron featured a dramatic diamond Belle Époque style necklace at the exhibit replicated after the necklace the brand sold to Irish-American couple Marie-Louise Mackay and her husband, John William Mackay in 1899. The couple, who amassed their fortune through silver mines, commissioned 50 pieces from the house.

Looking to capture a new generation of collectors, the brand now has three U.S. stores under its umbrella since opening on Madison Avenue in 2024. Hélène Poulit-Duquesne, Boucheron's CEO and incoming president of the Comité Colbert, told The Associated Press that the brand has plans to open a fourth store in the United States before the end of the year.

After increased growth from spending during the pandemic, the luxury sector is now grappling with tariffs from the Trump administration and economic uncertainty. The European Commission agreed to a deal with President Donald Trump on a 15% tariff on goods last year before the Supreme Court ruled against Trump’s call in February.

For the luxury houses, Épinay said, tariffs are in the past.

“Politics and economics, it’s up and down," she said. "We’re here to celebrate this strong cultural link between us.”

The legislation, introduced by Representative Joe Wilson, R-S.C., would direct the department’s bureau of engraving and printing to put Trump’s face on the new bill to mark the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.

If passed and signed into law by Trump, it would mark an extraordinary recognition for a sitting U.S. leader and comes as Trump has sought to place himself at the center of celebrations marking the country’s birthday. The Department’s preparation for the languishing legislation suggests some enthusiasm for the idea on the part of the Trump administration.

The agency's explanation follows a Washington Post report stating that U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach, a Trump appointee, has been pushing the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to expedite the process for a new currency note. The paper also reported that the former BEP chief was reassigned after pushing back.

“In response to active legislation sponsored by Representative Joe Wilson, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) is conducting appropriate planning and due diligence,” the spokeswoman said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Should this legislative mandate be signed into law, the BEP is moving proactively to produce a $250 commemorative note which will appropriately recognize the 250th Anniversary of our great nation.”

Wilson's legislation, which so far has languished, is intended to create the new high-denomination note as a tribute to Trump as the nation's celebrates the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The measure would override current law that forbids anyone who is still living from being featured on U.S. currency.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whose department includes the printing bureau, is scheduled to appear Thursday afternoon at the White House and could be asked to address the matter.

Beach did not respond to an AP request for comment.

According to the Post report, Beach last fall provided the Bureau of Engraving and Printing with a design for the new bill. It featured Trump's portrait — the same one hung on banners adorning some federal buildings in Washington — and a 250th anniversary logo. Trump's signature also was included, a design element that would differ from other paper money.

British artist Iain Alexander told the Post he had designed the bill and said he'd discussed it with the president. Alexander did not respond to an AP request for comment.

The newspaper also reported that the director of the printing bureau, Patricia Solimene, resisted pressure from Beach and his top aide Mike Brown and stressed to them the lengthy legal and procedural process required to issue new currency. Solimene has since been reassigned against her will, the Post reported, with Brown effectively assuming leadership of the bureau.

The Treasury spokesperson did not address AP's questions about any leadership changes at the bureau.

A new currency note would be the latest example of Trump expanding his personal brand in his official capacity since returning to the White House in 2025.

Beach and Bessent already streamlined approval of a commemorative 250th anniversary coin featuring Trump. The Treasury Department has asserted that those special coins fall outside the prohibition on living presidents appearing on legal tender. In 1926, the nation's 150th anniversary, then-President Calvin Coolidge appeared on a commemorative half-dollar coin.

The Trump administration has had banners featuring his portrait hung on the Department of Justice and other federal buildings. And his slate of appointees to the Kennedy Center governing board added his name to the national performing arts facility that Congress originally designated as a memorial to assassinated President John F. Kennedy. That renaming is being challenged in court because of the federal law establishing the center as the official memorial to the 35th president. United States currency has the inscription “In God We Trust” in a place the Secretary decides is appropriate. Only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities. The name of the individual shall be inscribed below the portrait.

Federal law currently states that Only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities

Wilson’s bill would add the exception: "except if the individual is or has been the President of the United States.”

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Barrow reported from Atlanta.

For her walk-on before a second-round win at the French Open, the tennis star wore a metallic gold bomber jacket over her sequined gold playing dress, offset by an ivory train in a look that mixes sportswear with couture.

“The inspo was, I don’t want to say Victorian, but you know the ladies that have the dresses with the poof in the background?" Osaka said. “(It's) so terrible of me to not know the correct term of that.”

The term Osaka was looking for is likely bustles, which were padded undergarments used to add fullness to dresses in the mid to late 19th century.

After the walk-on, Osaka took off the train and jacket and handed the garments to a ball kid to remove them before the match against Donna Vekic on Court Simonne-Mathieu on Thursday.

“I like to keep people on their toes and I think it’s really fun,” Osaka said in her post-match interview on court, refusing to reveal if she has a new outfit for every possible match of the tournament. “There’s a community I feel like that’s been built over my on-court outfits. So I just like to just keep you guys guessing.”

Osaka won 7-6 (1), 6-4 to reach the third round at Roland Garros for the first time since 2019.

“It means a lot,” she said. “I just feel so grateful. It’s another milestone.”

For her opening match two days earlier, Osaka walked on in a ceremonial black skirt and sleeveless beaded bodice before revealing her gold dress, which she said reminded her of the Eiffel Tower sparkling at night.

“Athletes are in show business,” Osaka said after beating Laura Siegemund in her opener. “Grand Slam walk-ons are the only time that I possibly feel like I’m an entertainer.”

Osaka's opponent says walk-ons ‘problematic’

Siegemund said Osaka’s walk-ons were “yet another example of big names being treated differently” in tennis.

Siegemund told Eurosport Germany she didn’t mind the outfits but found it “a bit problematic” that it took Osaka so long to get ready and lesser-known players were under pressure to unpack their gear as fast as possible to avoid time violations.

“I came here to play tennis, not to put on a fashion show," Siegemund added after losing to Osaka. "If other people want to do a fashion show, they can do that. It’s fine for me.”

Vekic had no issues.

“It’s just something different,” Vekic said. "Some people take tennis way too seriously. Just relax. It’s just an outfit. It’s no big deal. She has an opportunity to do that so why not.”

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AP Fashion Writer Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.

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

By a 5-4 vote, the justices sided with Terry Pitchford, who was sentenced to death for his role in the killing of a grocery store owner.

“In this case, whether due to confusion, oversight, an overly hurried jury selection process, or some other cause, things broke down,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court. Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices joined with Kavanaugh.

There were 11 white jurors and one Black juror in a trial with similarities to that of another Black man on Mississippi’s death row, whose conviction the high court overturned seven years ago.

It’s unclear what happens next in Pitchford's case. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who dissented, suggested the state still could argue Pitchford’s conviction should be sustained. If his conviction is overturned, the state could seek to retry him.

“Mr. Pitchford is now entitled to a fair trial in the state court,” Joseph Perkovich, who argued the case for Pitchford at the Supreme Court, wrote in an email.

Doug Evans, a now-retired prosecutor with a history of dismissing Black jurors for discriminatory reasons, had excused four other Black people at Pitchford's trial. Black people make up more than 37% of Mississippi’s population.

The Supreme Court ruled 40 years ago in Batson v. Kentucky that jurors could not be excused from service because of their race and set up a system by which trial judges could evaluate claims of discrimination and the race-neutral explanations by prosecutors.

Pitchford’s case focused on whether his lawyers did enough to object to Judge Joseph Loper’s rulings and whether the state Supreme Court acted reasonably in ruling they had not.

Pitchford’s lawyers made the necessary arguments and the state high court acted unreasonably, Kavanaugh wrote.

In dissent, Gorsuch wrote that Pitchford had to show that no fair-minded judge could rule as the Mississippi court did and that the record in the case was crystal-clear in his favor.

“As I see things, Mr. Pitchford has failed to satisfy either of these standards,” Gorsuch wrote, joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas.

In 2019, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence and conviction of Curtis Flowers, because of what Kavanaugh then described as a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals.” Evans was the prosecutor in that case, and Loper presided over the final two of Flowers’ six trials.

Pitchford, now 40, was 18 when he and a friend decided to rob the Crossroads Grocery, just outside Grenada in northern Mississippi. The friend shot store owner Reuben Britt three times, fatally wounding him, but was ineligible for the death penalty because he was younger than 18. Pitchford was tried for capital murder and was sentenced to death.

The case has been making its way through the court system for 20 years. In 2023, U.S District Judge Michael P. Mills overturned Pitchford’s conviction, holding that the trial judge did not give Pitchford’s lawyers enough of a chance to argue that the prosecution was improperly dismissing Black jurors.

Mills wrote that his ruling was partially motivated by Evans’ actions in prior cases. A unanimous panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling.

Evans did not respond to The Associated Press' attempt to reach him for comment when he retired.

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

A white cargo plane with aid donated by the European Union delivered masks, gloves, boots and medications — all of which are in short supply — to the northeastern town of Bunia at the heart of the outbreak in Congo's Ituri province. U.N.-branded forklifts lifted several cases into trucks.

Health workers with scant supplies have been struggling to contain an outbreak of the Bundibugyo virus, a kind of Ebola that has no approved treatment or vaccine. In some areas, doctors have resorted to wearing expired medical masks while treating suspected patients.

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

Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba said that during outbreaks people in remote communities can feel overwhelmed by an incoming flood of information and people.

“We’ve seen in every epidemic that there’s always resistance,” Kamba said. "Communities always ask themselves, ‘What’s going on?’ And in epidemics like this one, it is really risk communication and community engagement that ultimately change perceptions.”

Aid donated by the EU is expected to arrive in batches over the next eight days, Jérôme Kouachi, head of emergency operations at UNICEF in Congo, told The Associated Press.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was on his way to Congo to see the efforts first-hand efforts. The WHO has declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, in the hope of ramping up aid.

The United States on Thursday said it is increasing its aid to Congo and Uganda by $80 million, bringing its commitment to more than $112 million since the outbreak.

The additional money would pay for personal protective equipment for health care workers, Ebola test kits, support for health screening at airports and contact tracing, the U.S. State Department said.

Africa Centres for Disease Control director-general Dr Jean Kaseya said that the organization on Monday believed it had secured funding pledges of nearly $500 million toward Africa’s emergency response, but that as of Thursday afternoon the amount had dwindled to $290 million as partners withdrew or reduced pledges.

He also said that the Africa CDC hoped to have treatments and a vaccine for the Bundibugyo virus by the end of the year, and that there were some vaccine candidates already in the works.

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

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

On Wednesday, the Congolese government said the first survivor to recover from the virus had left a health center.

“We are trying to catch up,” Congo Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said earlier this week. “It is a race against the clock.”

The response on the ground has been hampered by multiple challenges, including customs' red tape, insufficient storage facilities, bad roads and weak telecommunications, humanitarian agencies said in a report on Thursday.

Tedros on Wednesday called for a ceasefire in a region where armed groups have staged violent attacks for decades. “We cannot build community trust or isolate the sick while bombs are falling,” he said.

Tucked in the northeastern part of Congo close to the Ugandan border, Ituri province has been reeling from attacks by the Allied Democratic Force, a rebel group allied with the Islamic State group, and a coalition of ethnic militias. In early May, the ADF killed at least 40 people and burned several homes in Ituri.

The illness has also been reported in two Congolese provinces south of Ituri — North Kivu and South Kivu, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls many key cities, including Goma and Bukavu. The rebels have reported two cases. The region’s main airport in Goma, which doubles as a staging ground for humanitarian efforts into the region, has been closed since January 2025, when M23 seized the city.

The conflict has precipitated one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with at least 7 million people displaced in eastern Congo.

—-

Ope Adetayo reported from Lagos, Nigeria. Mathew Lee contributed from Washington and Mogomotsi Magome contributed from Johannesburg, South Africa.

The S&P 500 added 0.5% to its all-time high set the day before after drifting between small gains and losses earlier in the morning. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 10 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 1:26 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.8% higher after both indexes also set records the day before.

Even with worries about expensive oil and high inflation, the U.S. stock market has run to records largely because U.S. companies keep making more money. Stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term, and companies have been routinely topping analysts' expectations for the first three months of 2026.

Dollar Tree’s stock soared 19% after it became the latest to report fatter profit than analysts expected. CEO Mike Creedon said improved store conditions helped the retailer make more profit off each $1 in sales during the latest quarter despite tariffs adding to its costs. The company also gave a forecast for profit over the full year that topped analysts’ expectations.

Kohl’s rallied 18.9% after the retailer reported better results for the latest quarter than analysts had feared, while Best Buy climbed 18% following its own better-than-expected profit report. Hormel Foods climbed 13.1% after a strong performance for its Jennie-O ground turkey and exports of its Spam luncheon meat helped it report a better profit than analysts expected.

Snowflake rose 38.8% after saying artificial intelligence continues to be a strong driver of its business, and profit and revenue for the latest quarter exceeded expectations.

They helped offset a dip for Marvell Technology, which fell 3.1% after its profit for the latest quarter only matched analysts' expectations. It also said AI is driving big revenue growth for it, particularly its data center business.

In the oil market, prices ticked higher following their latest U-turns. The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude oil rose 0.4% to $89.04, but only after bouncing between $87 and $92. It's been swinging as hopes rise and fall that the United States and Iran may reach a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and get oil flowing again from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide.

The latest threat to the ceasefire in the war came after U.S. Central Command said Kuwait had intercepted missiles launched by Iran late Wednesday night. That followed earlier “defensive” strikes by the U.S. military on missile launch sites and minelaying boats in southern Iran.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased after a report said the measure of inflation that the Federal Reserve likes to use accelerated last month but was roughly within economists’ expectations.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.46% from 4.48% late Wednesday after giving up an earlier gain.

Data also showed how U.S. households are less able to save money, with the personal savings rate down to a four-year low of 2.6%, “pointing up the financial pressure on lower- and middle-income families,” according to Gary Schlossberg, global strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

U.S. households have been saying they’re feeling discouraged about the economy and inflation, even as the stock market keeps chugging along.

High yields in bond markets worldwide recently have threatened to slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments. High yields have already forced the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its most expensive level since last summer, and they could curtail companies’ borrowing to build the AI data centers that have supported the U.S. economy’s growth recently.

A report on Thursday said the pace of sales of new U.S. homes unexpectedly slowed last month, as the weight of higher mortgage rates hurts the market.

In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped across much of Europe and Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.3% for one of the world’s larger losses.

___

AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

More than 20 people were injured in the strikes, according to Shifa Hospital. Video from the scene showed flames pouring from an upper-floor window of a building, while bystanders rushed to carry wounded people, including children, to ambulances.

Mohammed Shawish, who was wounded and lost his wife in the strikes, broke down in tears as he held her body at the hospital morgue, saying, “I married my wife for love. For God’s sake, I chose her because of love.”

The strikes took place on the first day of Eid al-Adha, or the “Feast of Sacrifice,” an Islamic holiday celebrated by millions of Muslims worldwide. The Israeli military said Wednesday evening it had launched strikes in the northern Gaza Strip targeting two Hamas militants.

Among those killed was Hamas fighter Imad Isleim. On Thursday, mourners carried his body wrapped in a white shroud with a Hamas flag draped over it. His death came as a “shock” to the family, even though they knew it could happen at any time, his cousin Nidal Isleim said.

The strikes came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel was expanding its control in Gaza.

“Right now we are tightening the grip on Hamas," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday at a conference in Jordan. “We are now in 60% of the territory of the Gaza Strip. You know that? We were at 50%, we moved to 60%."

He said the next step was to move to 70% control, with Israel “tightening the grip" on Hamas "from every direction.”

“We will deal with the remnants,” Netanyahu said. "But the most important thing is to continue leveraging our power, to increase it.”

The conference was part of a broader discussion on the war, Iran, Hezbollah, Gaza and regional strategy.

"There is still more work. What is happening right now is truly a global change. There is no doubt about that,” Netanyahu added.

Earlier this week, an Israeli strike killed Mohammed Odeh, the newly appointed leader of Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, less than two weeks after his predecessor was also killed.

Across the Gaza Strip, 16 people were killed and 39 others wounded over the past 48 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said in an update on Thursday. The ministry is part of Gaza’s Hamas-run government, but is staffed by medical professionals who maintain and publish detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.

Since a fragile ceasefire came into effect last October, 922 people have been killed in Gaza and 2,786 others injured, according to the ministry.

Police said they were notified of suspicious activity by a resident and found the driver sleeping behind the wheel of their running vehicle on Waterway Drive, Wednesday, May 27.

In addition to packages waiting to be delivered, officers said they found what they believed to be heroin inside the vehicle.

The driver was taken into custody and charges are pending.

Overnight, officers delivered the remaining packages to their intended destinations.

O’Hara was an outsider brought in with a mandate to reform the police department after the 2020 killing of George Floyd, which led to federal and state investigative findings of excessive force and racist policing practices. O’Hara had spent most of his career in Newark, New Jersey, where he instituted changes after that department was put under a federal consent decree for patterns of excessive force and unconstitutional stops and searches.

The challenges in Minneapolis were clear before O'Hara arrived in late 2022. For a time, it had seemed the department itself might not survive. In 2021, more than 43% of voters supported disbanding the department as the city reeled from Floyd’s killing and the massive protests and widespread rioting that followed.

O'Hara was faced with a daunting challenge

Policing experts had noted the monumental task that faced the city’s next police chief, who would have to rebuild community trust and a department whose morale had dipped so low that it was hemorrhaging officers.

“I don’t think there was a bigger challenge to any American city than what Minneapolis faced when he arrived,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of a Washington think tank, the Police Executive Research Forum. “They had gone from 850 to 500 officers, violent crime was significantly up, trust with the community was broken, a police station had burned down and a federal consent decree would face the next chief. Then you had the politics of Minneapolis.”

Coming in as an outsider to lead a large department is daunting, even without being asked to reform and rebuild, said Renée Hall, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives who moved from Detroit to lead the Dallas Police Department from 2017 to 2020.

“It’s extremely challenging to walk into an organization, where you don’t even know where the light switches are, where the bathrooms are. And that’s just the basics,” Hall said. “You have to learn the officers, the community, the politics of that particular city, and try to learn and navigate the existing relationships, like unions or officer associations and who is tied to whom and who is fighting for whom.”

Hall said outside hires can face resentment from those within an organization who supported internal candidates. They also have to earn the trust of the community, which she said takes time.

Local politics muddy the chief's departure

After the police disbandment measure failed, O'Hara joined the bureaucracy of a deeply progressive city that is regularly buffeted by political battles between the mayor and the City Council, and among council members.

Those battles were on full display Wednesday, when a City Council news conference about O'Hara's resignation quickly turned into an opportunity for the council's resolute progressives to attack Mayor Jacob Frey, who has long portrayed himself as a “pragmatic progressive.”

The resignation “is a symptom of a much larger problem, which is simply that Mayor Frey continues to be unable to effectively manage the Minneapolis Police Department,” said Council member Robin Wonsley, a cornerstone of the council's progressive bloc.

Frey, who just weeks ago pushed to have O'Hara reappointed as chief, fired back at criticism that he didn’t move aggressively enough when allegations of the chief's potential misconduct emerged.

“I don’t make decisions based on rumors and anonymous complaints,” he said in a statement, adding that he would work with the council to find a replacement. “I took action promptly after receiving the investigative report. … Decisions this serious have to be grounded in facts, evidence and completed investigations. Anything less would be irresponsible.”

O'Hara did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday. His attorney, Doug Kelley, released a statement touting successes during O'Hara's tenure, including diversifying and increasing the department's ranks, the decreasing violent crime rate and mitigating violent clashes during the immigration crackdown.

“The circumstances of Chief O’Hara’s departure should not define his service," Kelley wrote. "He was proud to serve Minneapolis, remains grateful to the officers and community partners who did difficult work under extraordinary pressure, and hopes the city continues moving forward. He understandably looks forward to returning to his young family in New Jersey.”

O'Hara's tenure was tumultuous

The resignation came just months after Minneapolis was plunged into the national spotlight amid a federal immigration surge that left three civilians shot, two fatally. O'Hara faced criticism he hadn't done enough to stop the crackdown.

Violence plagued the city in 2025, including deadly attacks on state politicians in the Minneapolis suburbs; gunfire that erupted at a popular city picnic spot; and a shooting during Mass at the Church of the Annunciation that left two children dead and more than a dozen people injured. O’Hara called the church attack a “ truly unthinkable tragedy. ”

Critics say dozens of complaints were filed against O'Hara, from accusations that he was rude to the public to the recent investigation into an ultimately unproven allegation he had a sexual relationship with a city employee. Most of the complaints have not been made public, and 17 complaints are still being investigated. Investigators closed 17 more without any disciplinary actions.

An independent investigator did not find evidence to substantiate the alleged sexual relationship with a city employee, but a second report released this week said O'Hara likely deleted the employee's contact from his phone during the investigation and that he talked to another employee about the probe despite being told it was not to be discussed.

That recent report led to a written reprimand; Frey told O'Hara he would be disciplined and that he could be terminated. Frey said O'Hara chose to resign instead.

Frey appointed an interim chief Tuesday from inside the department, and he has 30 days to nominate a successor under the city's charter. ___

Lauer reported from Philadelphia.

Though voting began in early May ahead of the June 2 primary, Democrats have been returning their ballots at a slower pace than normal after a chaotic campaign full of surprises. Unlike recent races for governor, there's been no clear front-runner or political superstar (think Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger or Democrat Jerry Brown).

“I’m kind of pinching my nose and voting this go-around rather than being excited,” said Colin Culver, a 21-year-old San Diego resident who ultimately voted for Tom Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund manager turned climate activist.

Democrats have been particularly perplexed given the state's top-two primary system, which places all candidates on a single ballot regardless of party. There are roughly 60 candidates vying to succeed termed-out Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. They include six major Democrats and just two prominent Republicans.

With the large number of Democrats running, party leaders feared months ago that the two leading Republicans, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton, could advance, locking out Democrats. That scenario has grown less likely after former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race after being accused of sexual assault, but the scandal further rattled anxious Democrats. President Donald Trump endorsed Hilton in April, which may have coalesced GOP support behind him and decreased the odds of a Republican upset in a state that hasn’t had a Republican governor since 2011.

But the fear among voters remains. Some Democrats are waiting to cast their ballots to see if one candidate breaks away from the pack in the final days, relying on polling to help make their decision. Others have struggled to make up their minds, reluctantly choosing a candidate after being unimpressed with the field.

Voters are returning their ballots later than normal

Even Democrats who typically have a high turnout in primary elections — often older, white voters — have been slow to drop off their ballots, said Paul Mitchell, a Democratic strategist tracking ballot returns.

“My joke is: Call your Democratic parents and tell them to turn in their ballot,” he said. “They are holding onto the ballot because they have seen this kind of topsy-turvy governor’s race. They’re waiting to make sure they’re making the right choice.”

About 11% of the state's roughly 23 million voters had voted as of Wednesday night, according to Mitchell's tracker. That includes about 15% of Republicans, 11% of Democrats and 8% of voters registered with no or another party. That breakdown is unusual because Democrats in recent years have tended to vote early while many Republicans wait until Election Day.

Democrats toggle between candidates

Former state attorney general and federal Health Secretary Xavier Becerra and Steyer are among the top Democrats voters are weighing.

A poll conducted in mid-May by the Public Policy Institute of California found that Becerra and Hilton each have the support of about 2 in 10 likely California primary voters. Steyer, Bianco and former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter each drew the support of between 10% and 15% of likely voters in the survey. No other candidates were polling in double digits.

Support for Becerra has increased from only 5% in a PPIC poll conducted in late March and early April, when Swalwell was still in the race.

Some voters aren't relying on the polls to make their choice. That includes San Francisco native Mary O’Neal, who voted for former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa because she liked his record leading the city from 2005 to 2013. Although he's been on the debate stages, he's failed to generate significant support.

Fresno native Alexa Duran, 22, a recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, said she’s leaning toward Becerra, despite her concerns about his refusal as attorney general to investigate the killing of a Latino man by an officer in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2020.

“I know he has tons of political experience, but I’m just not sure if he’s the right candidate,” Duran said.

David Murayama, a 29-year-old attorney in Los Angeles, said that although Steyer was an appealing candidate at first, he felt like he couldn’t trust a billionaire to follow through on his promises. He ended up voting for Becerra, the candidate he considered the “lesser evil,” he said.

Amber Larson, 41, a judicial analyst for the state living in Chico, likes Ramsey Robinson, a socialist candidate. But casting her ballot for him would be a “waste” because of his slim odds, she said.

She doesn't want to support a longtime politician — Becerra — and she's skeptical of billionaires — Steyer.

“Are we at a point where only a billionaire can beat an establishment, career politician?” Larson said, referencing Steyer spending millions to largely self-fund his campaign.

She planned to go with Steyer anyway because she likes his energy affordability plans and since he's one of the leading candidates.

“I don’t want to throw my vote away,” she said.

___

Associated Press journalists Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles and Terry Chea in San Francisco contributed to this report.

It’s unclear whether prosecutors had implicated Rodríguez in any crimes or whether investigators were moving toward an indictment. A Justice Department spokesperson said in an email “there was never an investigation into her to shut down.”

But DEA records obtained by The Associated Press earlier this year show she consistently surfaced on the radar of federal law enforcement dating to at least 2018, though she has never been criminally charged in the U.S. like several other senior Venezuelan officials.

The directive to pause scrutiny into Rodríguez was meant to avoid upsetting the administration’s efforts to stabilize Venezuela after the capture of her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, among other reasons, a current official said. It was not clear whether the White House, which deferred comment to the Justice Department, was involved in the decision.

“Everybody has been told to stand down,” one of the former officials said.

The former officials, who had been briefed on the development, as well as the current official all spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations.

Rodríguez, a U.S. attorney representing her, and the Venezuelan Communications Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The move eases pressure on Rodriguez

Removing the threat of potential indictment, even temporarily, eases pressure on Rodríguez as the Trump administration seeks to work with the acting leader to stabilize Venezuela after Maduro’s ouster and open the country to U.S. investment.

President Donald Trump praised Rodríguez as a “terrific person” shortly after the U.S. military took Maduro and his wife to New York to face federal narcotics charges. Both have pleaded not guilty.

In recent months, the U.S. has lifted sanctions against Rodríguez and recognized her as Venezuela's sole head of state, allowing her to re-establish ties with western banks and more freely work with U.S. investors seeking to tap into the world's largest petroleum reserves. As ties between the two governments have deepened, some have held out the Venezuelan playbook — characterized by oil blockades, indictments of top leaders, and threats of military intervention — as a model to drive regime change from within as the U.S. pressures other longtime adversaries in Iran and Cuba.

Rodríguez and her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, the head of the National Assembly, were hit with U.S. sanctions during Trump’s first term for their role in undermining Venezuelan democracy and cementing Maduro's authoritarian rule.

Rodríguez “is doing a great job,” Trump wrote on social media in early March. "The Oil is beginning to flow, and the professionalism and dedication between both Countries is a very nice thing to see!”

In recent months, Rodríguez has hosted ceremonies with a steady stream of American oilmen, some of them partaking in high-profile delegations led by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.

Election talk deferred amid Trump's praise

Missing in all the mutual backslapping is any talk of elections, even as Rodríguez last month blew through a 90-day limit set by Venezuela's high court to fill Maduro's position on a temporary basis.

“I don’t know,” she responded in English when a visiting U.S. journalist earlier this month shouted out a question about her time frame for holding elections. “Some time.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has demanded the administration explain its favorable treatment of Rodríguez, calling her a “central figure in Nicolás Maduro's repressive regime.”

“Sanctions have been lifted on Ms. Rodríguez without any indication that she has taken concrete and meaningful actions to restore democratic order,” Sheehan, joined by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent last week.

Rick de la Torre, a former CIA chief of station in Caracas, said that the decision to shield Rodríguez fits well with the Trump administration’s foreign policy goals in Venezuela.

“She’s a lifelong Marxist and was a senior leader of one of the world’s most corrupt regimes but the U.S. is providing her with breathing space and carrots to lay the foundation for democracy and U.S. investment,” said de la Torre, the CEO of Tower Strategy, which advises companies on Venezuela.

“There’s a shelf life to her utility, however. At some point she will face justice.," he added.

Rodríguez has been on DEA's radar since 2018

The DEA had amassed a detailed intelligence file on Rodríguez dating to at least 2018, and has received allegations about her ranging from drug trafficking to gold smuggling, the AP reported earlier this year. One confidential informant told DEA in early 2021 that Rodríguez was using hotels in the Caribbean resort of Isla Margarita “as a front to launder money,” the records show.

Her name has surfaced in nearly a dozen DEA investigations — several of which remained ongoing as recently as this year — involving field offices from Paraguay and Ecuador to Phoenix and New York. She had even been linked to Maduro’s alleged bag man, Alex Saab, whom U.S. authorities first arrested in 2020 on money-laundering charges, the records show.

Rodríguez deported Saab this month as part of a purge of insider businessmen who are accused of having enriched themselves through corrupt dealings with Maduro.

It's unclear in which Miami investigations Rodríguez's name surfaced. Two of the former officials said Rodríguez has also come up in meetings with investigators in Tampa tasked last year by former Attorney General Pam Bondi with looking into financial crimes in Venezuela.

At the time, Rodríguez was serving as Maduro's vice president. Justice Department policy requires the attorney general to personally approve the charging of any foreign head of state, who are normally immune from prosecution under international and U.S. law.

Halting high-profile criminal probes of foreign leaders

The pausing of the investigations into Rodríguez comes as the Trump administration has similarly tapped the brakes on ongoing federal investigations into another prominent Latin American leftist, Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

The DEA had also designated Petro a “priority target” over alleged ties to drug traffickers that had been probed for months by federal prosecutors. The New York Times reported in March that U.S. officials recently assured the Colombian government Petro does not face charges in those cases.

Duncan Levin, a former prosecutor who worked for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, said it would be “deeply troubling” for law enforcement to be “told to stand down from a legitimate investigation for political or transactional reasons.”

“The White House cannot use criminal enforcement as a diplomatic light switch,” Levin told AP. “DOJ decisions are supposed to be based on law, evidence, policy and public safety — not on whether a foreign official is useful to the administration at a given moment.”

___

This story was first published on May. 27, 2026. It was updated on May. 28, 2026 to make clear that the details attributed in the original story to an unspecified official were shared by a current official.

___ Durkin Richer reported from Washington and Mustian from New York. AP Writer Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City contributed to this report.

___

This story is part of an investigation that includes the FRONTLINE documentary “Crisis in Venezuela,” which aired Feb. 10, 2026, on PBS. Watch the documentary at pbs.org/frontline, in the PBS App and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel.

The top three candidates competing for the nomination in the Aug. 4 primary are debating on Thursday at the state party’s annual policy conference. It is one of their first big opportunities to sharpen contrasts before a statewide audience.

With the primary season wrapping up across the country, the contentious race in Michigan is increasingly seen as a test case for where the party and its base are headed into the November election and beyond.

Set to appear on the Mackinac Island stage are U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and former public health official Abdul El-Sayed. The Republican nominee is Mike Rogers, a former congressman who lost the 2024 Senate race to Democrat Elissa Slotkin. Democrat Gary Peters is not seeking a third Senate term this year. No Michigan Republican has been elected to the U.S. Senate since 1994.

Here’s where things stand in the race:

Messy primary or clarifying vision?

A bruising primary in a must-win Senate seat was hardly Democrats’ preferred scenario.

The debate will also put on full display the ideological divisions Democrats have struggled with since presidential nominee Kamala Harris and the party saw sweeping losses in 2024.

“I think primaries can be good. As long as folks aren't too chippy. Unfortunately, people are getting a little chippy in the race,” Peters said. “But as long as you have a primary that's civil, you get a stronger candidate coming out of the primary that's ready to take on the general election."

Stevens, a fourth-term congresswoman representing a district just outside Detroit, is seen as the more moderate, establishment-aligned candidate. She has endorsements from senators in battleground states, including Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. Stevens has described herself as a “staunchly pro-Israel Democrat.”

El-Sayed has taken the progressive lane, earning early backing from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. El-Sayed has called for “Medicare for All” and higher taxes on the wealthy and has described Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “genocide.” He has drawn criticism, including from within the party, for campaigning with controversial streamer Hasan Piker.

McMorrow was first elected to the Michigan Senate in 2018 and gained national attention for speeches rebuking Republicans She has carved out a position somewhere between her two main rivals. She has criticized the Democratic establishment and said she would not support New York's Chuck Schumer to be Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate again.

Peters and Slotkin both told The Associated Press on Thursday that they were not planning to make an endorsement in the primary. They said had become more contentious than they had hoped.

“It is messy. Messier than I would have liked. I think it's important in any primary that the candidates focus more on what they want to do and their positive affirmative plan,” Slotkin said.

Winner will face Rogers

Rogers lost to then-U.S. Rep. Slotkin by fewer than 20,000 votes in a state that Republican Donald Trump carried on his way to a second term.

This time, Rogers will not benefit from having Trump atop the ballot. But Rogers heads into the general election with advantages of his own, including an uncontested primary.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Rogers acknowledged the difficulties in the last campaign, saying the financial disadvantage he faced after a tough primary “made it really difficult” to win the general election.

But he said this year is different.

“This is a change election. People want to talk about Washington. This is about Michigan,” Rogers said.

It may prove difficult to localize a race shaped by national issues such as tariffs and gas prices, both of which are hitting Michigan hard. Outside spending is expected to climb into the nine figures. The Republicans’ U.S. Senate campaign organization has reserved $45 million in ads, compared with $20 million by Democrats.

“They're going to spend a lot of money trying to make you not like me. We're going to spend our money trying to tell people what we're going to do for them and make their lives in our state better," Rogers said.

The person who confirmed the existence of the investigation was not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing inquiry and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The perjury investigation is being led by the federal prosecutors’ office in Chicago, and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has had no involvement because of his prior work as Trump’s personal attorney, the person said.

Lawyers for Carroll did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on Thursday.

It’s the latest in a series of investigations that Trump's Justice Department has opened into perceived adversaries of the Republican president. The actions, including securing an indictment last month against former FBI Director James Comey, have raised alarm from Democrats and former officials that an institution meant to make prosecutorial decisions independent of the White House is being weaponized.

Carroll has said a flirtatious, chance encounter with Trump in 1996 at Bergdorf Goodman’s Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan ended violently. She said Trump slammed her against a dressing room wall, pulled down her tights and forced himself on her. Trump has called the allegations a “made-up scam," and he has attacked her motivations, saying they were politically driven or arose from a desire to promote her memoir.

A jury in 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her, and she was awarded $5 million. The following year, another jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in a defamation case related to Trump's social media posts about her.

The Justice Department is scrutinizing a statement Carroll made in the course of the civil litigation that no one else was paying her legal fees. It later became public that a Chicago-based organization backed by Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, had helped fund Carroll's case. Trump's lawyers in the civil case accused Carroll of concealing that information, which they said called into question whether the case was politically motivated.

A month before the first trial in 2023, then-Trump lawyer Alina Habba sought to delay it, saying in court papers that new revelations about Hoffman partially funding Carroll’s case “raises significant questions as to Plaintiff’s credibility, as well as her motive for commencing and/or continuing the instant action.”

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a Dec. 30, 2024, ruling, upheld the $5 million jury award from 2023. The court addressed Carroll’s credibility after Trump accused her of lying, during a deposition, about how her case was funded.

The court cited Carroll’s explanation that when the question about Hoffman's contributions was first posed to her in 2022, she had forgotten about “the limited outside funding” received in September 2020.

“It showed that Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs,” the appeals court said.

Hoffman has defended the financial assistance, saying in a social media post that “supporting women fight for progress and justice in philanthropy, politics and business has been a longstanding priority of mine, as is supporting America against the threat of Trump.”

A court entry earlier this month said Trump will not have to pay the award until the U.S. Supreme Court gets a chance to review the case or reject an appeal. The appeals court agreed to a request by one of Trump’s lawyers that it let Trump delay the payment to Carroll, though he was required to post a $7.4 million bond to cover any additional interest costs, a request Carroll’s attorney had made.

The Carroll investigation was first reported by CNN.

____

Associated Press reporter Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report

According to investigators, the girl was riding her bike on Rosemary Lane around 7 p.m. when she was approached by a man wearing an ID badge for a pest control company who appeared to be a traveling door-to-door salesman.

The man, described as white or possibly Hispanic, asked the girl to come into the woods with him where he would give her “a surprise.” The suspect then attempted to lure the girl into a nearby wooded area before the girl’s father confronted him and asked what he was doing.

The suspect then fled the area on a Segway-type vehicle and was last seen near Old US-23 and Alger Drive in Brighton Township until police located and arrested him without incident Thursday afternoon.

The two drivers opened up about the unique challenges of racing on downtown Detroit’s notoriously bumpy street circuit, their experiences at the event last year — including Hauger’s victory in the Indy Next Series — and what they’re hoping to accomplish this weekend.

To watch the segment, click on the video above.

Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello announced the festival Wednesday while performing together at Nationals Park in Washington as Springsteen winds down his Land of Hope and Dreams American tour.

At the concert Wednesday, Springsteen played many of his most political songs, including “American Skin (41 Shots)” about a fatal police shooting and “Streets of Minneapolis,” in response to the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents. “The Gestapo tactics of this president and this administration will not stand here,” Springsteen said.

“This American tragedy can only be stopped by the American people: you. There is no one coming to save us. We’ve got to do it ourselves,” he said. “So join us and let’s fight for the America that we love. Do you hear me, Washington?”

The one-day, two-stage Power to the People festival is set for Oct. 3 at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, and is being billed as about "freedom, justice, equality and rock ’n’ roll.” A portion of the proceeds from all ticket sales will benefit the organizations VoteRiders and HeadCount.

“It’s about the power everyday human beings have when they come together through music, art, community and action," Morello said in a statement. "We’re honored to bring this incredible lineup to the DC area for a day that celebrates the spirit of activism, creativity, and hope.”

The festival will also include Dropkick Murphys, Jack Black, Serj Tankian, Killer Mike, Taylor Momsen and the Linda Lindas, among others.

Springsteen has long criticized President Donald Trump, who in turn has called for a boycott of Springsteen’s shows, calling him a “total loser who spews hate.”

On Wednesday, Springsteen led the crowd in an “ICE out!” chant, encouraging the audience to make their voices heard all the way to the White House.

“Our democracy, our constitution, our rule of law are being challenged right now as never before by a reckless, racist, incompetent, treasonous president and his ship of fools administration,” said Springsteen.

“God bless Alex Pretti, God bless Renée Good, God bless you and God bless America,” he said before launching into the final song of the night, “Chimes of Freedom.”

___ This story has been corrected to show that Springsteen mentioned Alex Pretti before Renée Good.

Day and Young MC issued statements on social media disputing Wednesday's announcement from Freedom 250, while Milli Vanilli singer Jodie Rocco told The Associated Press that neither she, her sister Linda Rocco nor any of the other group members had been asked to come.

“My sister and I were shocked to see our name, ‘Milli Vanilli’, as one of the performers,” Jodie Rocco wrote in an email.

A Freedom 250 spokesperson did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment. Freedom 250, which Trump launched late last year, describes itself as a “national, non-partisan organization leading the celebration of our Nation’s 250th birthday.” Trump appointed Keith Krach, who served as an under secretary of state during his first term, as the organization’s CEO.

Trump and his supporters have long had a contentious relationship with the music community; Celine Dion, Elton John and Guns ’N Roses are among the many artists who have objected to their music being played at Trump rallies.

In an Instagram post, Young MC questioned whether the National Mall shows would be nonpartisan. “The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,” he wrote, adding that he hoped to “perform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged.” Day posted on Instagram that “Contrary to rumor, Morris Day & The Time will not be performing at the 'GREAT AMERICAN STATE FAIR.”

Milli Vanilli and Young MC were to have appeared at an “I Love the 90s” concert on June 26. Day was listed for June 27. Other performers announced include the Commodores, Flo Rida and Martina McBride. The Great American State Fair is scheduled to run June 25-July 10.

At least one “I Love the 90s” act will be there: Vanilla Ice.

“He is proud to help celebrate America’s 250th Anniversary!” a representative for the “Ice Ice Baby” rapper wrote in an email to the AP. “Everyone is welcome to attend and celebrate USA’s Birthday and our Freedom!”

Mathers, 51, of Chesterfield, was arrested May 14 in Chesterfield Township after crashing her vehicle into another car while intoxicated. Body camera footage shows Mathers slurring her words while attempting to complete several field sobriety tests.

She was charged with an OWI third offense — a felony — just days after she pleaded no contest in connection with charges stemming from a hit-and-run crash on Feb. 16 involving a parked vehicle.

Appearing before 42-2 District Court Judge William Hackel III on Thursday, Macomb County Assistant Prosecutor Joseph McCarthy asked for an emergency motion in relation to Mathers’ earlier case, suggesting that she violated the bond conditions that were set with her most recent arrest.

An evidentiary hearing will be held to address the motion, Judge Hackel said, though he didn’t specify the date.

Prosecutors also asked the court to require Mathers to wear a Soberlink device immediately with alcohol monitoring at least four times a day, and that she sign up for in-patient or out-patient counseling within seven days, which the judge approved.

Mathers’ personal bond was set for $5,000 and a probable cause conference was set for June 24.

Chef Tim Castañeda has been at the heart of that growth. This summer, he’s pushing Mexican street food to the front of the menu - starting with elote, the grilled corn dish that has become a cookout staple from Monterrey to the Motor City.

“These are the non-negotiables: mayo, mayo, mayo, lime. Cotija cheese - it’s the Mexican Parmesan, the drier cheese,” Castañeda said.

Castañeda recommends skipping the blended American chili powder and going straight for guajillo or ancho - both stocked at Prince Valley. The method is simple: a ripping-hot pan, a splash of oil, a char on the corn. From there, the toppings do the talking.

“The street food is always crazy creative,” he said.

The market’s kitchen doesn’t stop at corn. On any given day, the grab-and-go case is stocked with fresh juices in flavors like mango, papaya, horchata and Jamaica. And then there are the tamales.

“1,000 tamales the ladies make a day, 7 different flavors,” Castañeda said, including a sweet version filled with pineapple and strawberry.

The bakery draws its own crowds. Castañeda said he has never once walked in to find it quiet.

“I’ve never seen less than 15 people there. It’s unbelievable.”

Custom cakes are available for graduation parties, quinceañeras and baby showers, but planning ahead is a must. “To get a work of art like this, you have to order ahead,” he said.

Beyond food, the market also houses a post office, Western Union, Metro PCS and bill payment services - making it a one-stop resource for the surrounding neighborhood.

“50 years we’ve been there on Michigan Avenue, east of Livernois,” Castaneda said.

Prince Valley Market is located on Michigan Avenue, just east of Livernois in Detroit. More information is available at PrinceValleyMarket.com.

“Those steps,” he said, laughing. “We didn’t have much time to rehearse on them. I’m like, can you imagine? I want to dance, and it’s just tap, tap, tap all the way down. I was just trying to keep my eyes up the whole time.”

Fortunately for Henry, his footing onstage remains steady eight performances a week. That consistency has helped make him one of Broadway’s standout performers this season, with acclaim continuing to build around his turn as Coalhouse Walker Jr. in Broadway’s revival of “Ragtime.” An even bigger moment may lie ahead at the Tony Awards ceremony on June 7.

He missed hearing his Tony nomination live

Henry did not hear his own nomination announced live. The morning after the May 4 Met Gala, Henry and his wife, Cathryn, were back at the hotel FaceTiming their children at home.

“Mommy and Daddy got to go,” Henry told them, but the kids wanted to hear more about the night before.

“They wanted to talk about the gala opening number, and so we logged off from the FaceTime and then we missed my category, which was the first category for best leading actor in a musical.”

That moment felt fitting for Henry, who says becoming a husband and father reshaped how he sees success, patience, and gratitude. The four-time Tony nominee credits his wife and three sons as his grounding force.

That perspective also informs his work in one of Broadway’s most demanding roles. Playing Coalhouse Walker Jr., the Black pianist whose life is upended by a racist attack, remains a challenge.

Henry's rise from ‘Scottsboro Boys’ to ‘Ragtime’

Henry credits the late Terrence McNally for crafting a powerful book based on E. L. Doctorow’s novel, along with the sweeping score by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty.

“What they did so well is they showed people at their extremes. They show them when they’re on the verge of making a huge choice, just like America was on the verge in 1908 of making a huge choice and asking itself more questions about its identity than ever, not unlike this moment,” Henry said.

He believes that sense of emotional connection continues to bring audiences back to the show.

“They’re seeing themselves as Americans and seeing their journeys individually.”

That journey becomes even more notable considering the musical opened during one of Broadway’s more complicated seasons, where rising costs, tight competition for audiences, and pressure on weekly box office numbers have made sustainability difficult. Even critically acclaimed shows can struggle to maintain momentum.

“They really do. Especially if you open in the fall. And we were one of the first to open in the season. So, you know, we thankfully got extended a couple times.”

That success stands in sharp contrast to Henry’s first starring role on Broadway in “The Scottsboro Boys,” a musical inspired by the real-life case. Henry played a young Black man falsely accused of a crime who becomes one of the story’s emotional centers as he refuses to sign a confession in exchange for parole.

The 2010 production earned strong reviews and multiple award nominations but struggled commercially. Even so, the production became an important chapter in Henry’s career, placing him alongside another rising performer, Colman Domingo.

The production earned both actors their first Tony nominations.

Now, Henry finds himself leading the second Broadway revival of Ragtime. Starring opposite Nichelle Lewis, Henry has stepped into a role originally made iconic by Brian Stokes Mitchell, while Lewis follows Audra McDonald in the role that earned McDonald the first of her record-breaking six Tony Awards for acting.

Having both legends attend opening night was especially meaningful for Henry. He recalled listening to the original cast recording as a young performer and hoping that he could someday move audiences the same way. Years later, after working alongside McDonald and Mitchell, Henry says their warmth and encouragement gave him a deeper sense of belonging within the Broadway community.

___

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

In a complaint unsealed in New York, authorities identified the employee as 36-year-old Michele Spagnuolo — an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland who has worked for Google since 2014. Under the online name “AlphaRaccoon,” they alleged, Spagnuolo used the company's 2025 "Year in Search" data before it was published to enter Polymarket wagers about the most trending Googled people of last year.

This week's charges “reinforce a decades-old message: corporate insiders cannot use confidential business information to turn a profit in our markets,” Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Wednesday. “Insider trading compromises the integrity of our markets, and the American people want this greed-driven conduct investigated and prosecuted.”

Spagnuolo allegedly made new Polymarket trades as Google’s internal search data evolved, from October into December of last year. For example, per the complaint, Spagnuolo initially wagered that Kendrick Lamar — who headlined the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show — would top search trends for people last year. But after internal Google data showed that alt-pop singer D4vd was later leading the influx of searches, he placed new bets. D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, was charged last month with murdering 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

Using the prediction market’s “yes” or “no” wagers, Spagnuolo also made a series of Polymarket trades about other individuals who would or wouldn't rank in Google's 2025 search trends, the complaint said. And after the data was published on Dec. 4, the AlphaRaccoon account soon pocketed sizeable profits. An FBI investigation later traced its cryptocurrency payments.

An attorney for Spagnuolo was not immediately identified. California-based Google confirmed to The Associated Press it had placed its employee on leave.

“The employee accessed our marketing material using a tool available to all employees, but using such confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of our policies,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement — adding the company was working with law enforcement and “will take the appropriate action.”

Polymarket reiterated it too worked closely with authorities. A spokesperson also touted that the company “is the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States” — and maintained blockchain trading, which Polymarket uses, is “transparent, traceable, and bad actors leave footprints.”

Spagnuolo isn't first person to face insider trading charges spanning from Polymarket trades. Last month, the government also charged a special forces soldier who made over $400,000 from Polymarket trades betting on the downfall of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The solider allegedly used classified information ahead of January's U.S. military operation, which he was a part of.

Such scandals have put the spotlight on a murky (and growing) world of speculative, 24/7 transactions now filling the internet. Prediction markets sell event contracts — so they're also categorized and regulated differently from traditional forms of gambling. That's raised concerns about consumer protections, and legal battles over government oversight.

President Donald Trump’s administration has already thrown its support behind company operators — and sued several states over their regulation efforts. Meanwhile, the industry is scrambling to assure the public with new guardrails. Polymarket recently rewrote its rules to clearly state users cannot trade on contracts where they might possess confidential information, or could influence the outcome of an event.

Spagnuolo is being charged with violating the U.S. Commodity Exchange Act, wire fraud and money laundering. He could face years of prison time.

Whitmer has long been viewed by some Democrats as a possible White House contender after her decisive election victories in the closely contested state that Republican Donald Trump has carried twice in presidential votes. For months, however, Whitmer had offered only cautious answers about her political future.

But she delivered her clearest response yet in an interview Thursday with Fox 2 Detroit.

“I think there will be a robust group of people running for president. I will not be one of them in 2028,” Whitmer said.

Her comments came during Michigan’s annual Mackinac policy conference, where Whitmer is set to be honored and deliver remarks later Thursday. The news rippled through the bipartisan gathering of lawmakers, with many Democrats expressing disappointment.

“I certainly think we need more Midwestern voices. So I'm sorry to see that the governor is excluding this option,” said Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich.

Whitmer has previously said she plans to take time before deciding on her next move politically.

“I don’t know that I’ll put my name on the ballot again. I’m just not sure,” Whitmer said at an April breakfast in Detroit. “But I also am 54 years old. I got a lot of gas in the tank.”

The Mackinac conference has become a hub of presidential speculation, with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Slotkin — both considered possible 2028 contenders — also in attendance.

“If there was someone I believed in, I'd be all in,” Slotkin told The Associated Press. “But I'm not taking it off the table because I want to be a part of that next generation of leaders.”

The new nonprofit, Stop AAPI Hate Action, will be a political and advocacy arm dedicated to getting more Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders registered to vote — and to mobilize current voters, ensuring they make it to the polls. The initiative was sparked in part by President Donald Trump's pressure — and moves by Republican lawmakers — to redraw voting maps and strip parts of the Voting Rights Act.

The organization announced Thursday that this initiative will build on Stop AAPI Hate's name recognition and reputation for elevating conversations about racism, discrimination and allyship. It's a major step for the group, which has also done policy work and advocacy over the past six years, Manjusha Kulkarni, the organization's co-founder, exclusively told The Associated Press.

“Those pieces — alongside what we're seeing from our community in terms of data — really motivated and inspired us to make this move," Kulkarni said. "Because we see how our communities are being harmed and exactly what needs to be done to address the harm, and prevent it in the future.”

Stop AAPI Hate Action will be established as a social welfare organization that can get involved in political campaigns.

Trump's immigration policies fuel more anti-Asian racism since COVID-19

A majority of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders believe President Donald Trump has done more harm than good on immigration and border security in his second term, according to an AAPI Data/AP-NORC poll.

Stop AAPI Hate's annual report — released in May, AAPI Heritage Month — found roughly half of AAPI adults said they or someone they personally know were negatively impacted by immigration policies or anti-immigrant attitudes in 2025. Last year, Trump signed an order restricting H-1B visa holders — thousands of whom come from Asian countries — and added a $100,000 annual fee for highly skilled foreign workers.

Plus, Chinese nationals face a plethora of anti-China laws in various states.

Navia Gutta, 28, was rattled by an encounter last summer at a Chipotle restaurant in Atlanta, where a woman approached her and a friend, calling the two — who are Indian American — “murderers” and “rapists." It escalated and she threatened to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport them “back” to India, which the woman called a “dirty country.” Both of them were born in the U.S.

“Our hands were shaking and we full-on cried in the car,” Gutta said. “It made me realize that I grew up still very privileged, and I felt like I lived in a bubble up until then, because nothing like that had ever happened to me."

She later shared the experience with Stop AAPI Hate, and after talking at great length with a staff member was emboldened to volunteer with the group.

“It made me realize I would love to be a part of this solution,” Gutta said. “I would love to educate people. I would look at these issues and continue educating myself further because I think politics can be really scary.”

Reaching AAPI voters in red states, too

Stop AAPI Hate Action is ready to dive head first into the November midterms. That does not mean blindly advocating for all Democratic candidates, Kulkarni said. The group's main goal is to support candidates who share core values on immigration policies and civil rights.

“It is really, at its core, about harnessing the pain felt at an individual level and turning it into a collective power,” Kulkarni said. “This really has been an existential threat to our community."

The nonprofit is also not trying to compete or duplicate other AAPI-focused civic engagement organizations. The group is looking beyond blue states and swing states. A primary goal is to flip red districts with a significant presence of Asian American voters and turn them blue. There are areas in Republican-run states “that deserve to be reached out to,” said Andy Wong, Stop AAPI Hate Action managing director of advocacy.

“The ones in Iowa and Nebraska and Alaska and other places where there are competitive purple districts — many of them with GOP incumbents," Wong said. “We are going to reach voters in those places,” by enlisting phone bank volunteers who speak Korean, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Mandarin.

That effort starts in July, and they plan to focus on reaching people who only turn out to vote in big general elections. To help build rapport, they also plan to match volunteers with voters of the same ethnicity.

Building longevity as a voting bloc

This new political entity is not a one-and-done operation, Stop AAPI Hate staffers say. The Asian American and Pacific Islander community is one of the fastest growing populations in the U.S., which means with each election year, there's potential for new voters.

But the political parties have overlooked this fact, and failed to invest in voter outreach and other civic engagement, Kulkarni said. “We’ve really been an afterthought. We're 24 million people."

Stop AAPI Hate sees the next few years not just as an opportunity to win over voters but also to increase AAPI power as an entire voting bloc. Kulkarni says some data indicates Latino, Black and Asian Americans who moved somewhat to the right during the 2024 election are edging back to the left.

“Where you see that especially is the South Asian or Indian American community specifically. You've seen that in some of the other (Asian American communities)," she said. "How do we harness that?”

The group needs to build an infrastructure to get people involved not just when there's a major election, Wong said. They also hope to empower Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who are already doing the work to become leaders in their patches.

“They're putting in the phone calls. They're showing up at public hearings, delivering comments,” Wong said. “It’s about building long-term civic and political power.”

Women are the primary driver of that growth.

TNT Sports reported female viewership is up 66% and ESPN reported a 106% increase, with plenty of that audience coming from 18-to-34-year-olds tuning in to hockey at its most exciting time of year.

“We see the numbers up everywhere,” ESPN VP of production Linda Schulz said. “(Hockey) is a particular challenge because sports fans tend to follow something that they themselves have participated in and hockey is one that is not as commonplace for people to have actually strapped on skates. I approach it with, if I get a new fan coming to hockey, what is going to keep them."

What's bringing fans in, Schulz and other executives said, is a result of a handful of factors. The success of the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament last year, the Olympics in February when the U.S. men and women won gold, the quality of play, an influx of young talent and the viral popularity of the “Heated Rivalry” and “Off Campus” hockey romance shows have combined to bring more women to the sport.

“It’s not any one thing,” TNT Sports executive VP and chief content officer Craig Barry said. “It’s the collective of the planets aligning that has shown dramatic increases in the female audience.”

The NHL says the playoffs are averaging 1.4 million viewers, up 63% from last year and up 24% from the previous high set in 2024. Some of the increase can be attributed to a change in how Nielsen is counting viewers, causing bumps across the board, though hockey has been seeing an upward trend in viewership predating that.

That began after the 4 Nations, which NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said caused a viewership increase late in the 2024-25 season and into the playoffs. The Olympics built off that, with the Milan Cortina Games drawing huge ratings.

"The Olympics was a cultural moment," NHL chief operating officer Stephen McArdle said. “We know that Olympic viewership does appeal to those demographics, to that female demographic, and so I think the Olympic bump that we saw was really in part influenced by that female Olympic audience.”

How big a role “Heated Rivalry” plays is difficult to measure. Schulz, who grew up as a sports fan in the Boston area, said it does not enter her mind, but the networks and the league are well aware of the conversation going around it.

“We know that the fictional series are a gateway to our sport,” McArdle said. “We know that it opens doors to an interest in the sport of hockey, and it’s incumbent upon us to make sure that new audiences that are coming through those doors feel welcomed as they come in, and also that we help them find their way through the door.”

Schulz said technology helps with that, pointing to aerial sky cams that highlight the speed and physicality of the game, and the addition of a camera person on the ice to capture emotional moments like a player expressing frustration after getting called for a penalty.

“It is incredible how that emotional draw, to me, is the real way to pull in a casual fan,” Schulz said. “It’s that balance of getting the feel of the ice through something like your aerial coverage and the feel of the player or the emotion of the player.”

McArdle said the NHL has also leaned into TikTok, where many of the top videos were viewed by more women than men. A clip of Carolina's Jordan Martinook losing a skate blade particularly stood out as something that was popular beyond highlight-reel goals, saves and hits.

Social media has drawn in more young fans, men and women, and promotion of broadcasts on ESPN, ABC, TNT, TruTV and on HBO Max has gotten them to watching live on one platform or another.

"That’s why it’s so important to meet them where they are," Barry said. “That’s why our kind of strategy is put it everywhere in a simulcast capacity, so regardless of where you are consuming and digesting your content, in this particular case, NHL games, it’s there for you.”

___

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

The National Assembly voted 254-0 — a rare show of unanimity — to adopt a bill repealing Code Noir, or Black Code, the 1685 decree King Louis XIV signed to govern slaves across France’s colonies.

The law turned human beings into chattel, allowing them to be worked, beaten, sold, raped and murdered.

And the realization that France never formally did away with it left many aghast. Debate in the chamber turned raw on Thursday.

Steevy Gustave — a lawmaker descended from enslaved people on the Caribbean island of Martinique, now a French overseas department — told colleagues that the repeal was necessary, “but no vote alone can repair centuries of shattered lives.”

“We are not descendants of slaves,” he said, bursting into tears. “We are descendants of human beings born free, then reduced to the worst — reduced to slavery.”

The code’s reach was total. Article 44 declared the enslaved “movable property” — assets a master could acquire like real estate. Those who fled faced branding, the amputation of their ears, and even death. The word of an enslaved person counted for nothing.

Code Noir’s 60 articles “should never have survived the abolition of slavery” in the 19th century, President Emmanuel Macron said last week.

“The silence, even the indifference, that we have maintained for nearly two centuries toward this Black Code is no longer an oversight,” Macron said. “It has become a form of offense.”

Like French presidents before him, Macron stopped short of an apology.

France ran the third-largest slave trade, shipping about 1.4 million Africans to plantations whose sugar wealth built the French cities of Nantes and Bordeaux. The French empire later spanned four continents.

Others see the repeal as something more telling — a symptom, they argue, of a country that has yet to reckon fully with that past, one of many slow steps along the way.

Calls for France to face its past

In law, officially eliminating it is the easy part, observers say. Code Noir lost all authority in 1848, when France abolished slavery.

France didn't relinquish its slave colonies: the four oldest — Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana and Réunion — were made full French overseas departments in 1946. That means they're governed from Paris like any other.

Their roughly 1.9 million people, most descended from the enslaved, are French citizens.

Despite being fully part of France, the overseas departments remain among its poorest territories. Unemployment runs roughly double the mainland rate, and more than three-quarters of households in the Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte live below the national poverty line.

Shocked to find the law wasn't annulled

Before he discovered the truth, the French lawmaker who put forward the proposal to repeal the law didn't know it still existed.

Max Mathiasin, from Guadeloupe, had bought copies of the text over the years and left them on his shelf.

“As the great-great-grandson of people who were enslaved, I had never been able to read it in full,” he said. “This was made by human beings — against human beings.”

For him, the vote is “a way of restoring our ancestors, restoring our humanity” before a France whose motto is liberty, equality, fraternity. “It means living up to the Republican promise.”

That promise, he says, is still unkept at home.

“In Guadeloupe,” Mathiasin said, “in the most important positions, in the structures of the state, they are white.”

A colonial exception that never ended

The Foundation for the Memory of Slavery is chaired by a former prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, and its deputy director is Pierre-Yves Bocquet — both white men.

Bocquet calls Code Noir the birthplace of France’s “colonial exception” — the principle that the French Republic’s founding rights could be suspended for those under its rule.

The principle outlived the empire, he said: “Even today, we accept that people in the overseas territories can have fewer rights than in mainland France.”

France is hardly the only country still holding fragments of empire — the United Kingdom, the United States and the Netherlands still have overseas territories.

But what sets France apart, observers say, is that it made its slave colonies equal departments of the Republic, not dependencies it governs from afar.

The state insists that the overseas departments are France like anywhere else, even as the people who live there say they are treated as less.

Most major colonial powers, including Britain, Spain and Portugal, had laws governing slavery in their colonies. In each case, those laws fell away when slavery itself was abolished, leaving no single text to repeal.

France’s Code Noir was different, experts say: a single, named royal law that no one ever formally erased, even after France abolished slavery.

France is 'still in a form of apartheid’

For Max Relouzat, 81, president of the Association for the Memory of Slaveries, the repeal matters, because so little else has.

His African ancestor had no name under the law, only a number and a registration code — the family that lived in Martinique was given the name Relouzat at emancipation, likely after Nelouzat, a village in the Auvergne region of central France.

What galls him, he said, is what the symbolism leaves untouched: systemic racism in France.

“Under the cover of departmentalization, a colonial system was maintained,” Relouzat said. “If the overseas departments are part of France, why is there a ministry for the overseas?”

In France, he said, “we are still today in a form of apartheid … a form of colonial continuity.”

‘Racism is the legacy of slavery itself’

For some who have fought longest, Thursday isn't the milestone it appears.

For Florence Alexis, a slavery expert and daughter of the Haitian writer Jacques Stephen Alexis, the real turning point came 25 years ago. In 2001, the Taubira law made France the first country to call the slave trade, and slavery, crimes against humanity.

“That is what changed my life,” Alexis said.

For her, racism is the legacy of slavery itself, not of one edict.

“When I was a child at school, they called me the little monkey,” she said. “People made animal cries when I walked past — as they still do in football stadiums today.”

Paris-born Élodie Léon, 29, whose family is from French Guiana, welcomes the repeal, but resents the delay.

“Symbolic neglect is also neglect,” she said.

“It shocks me,” said Muriel Jean-Baptiste, a Paris-born nurse whose parents are from Martinique. “A law that treated Black people as property was left sitting there.”

The history of reparations

At the Taubira law’s 25th anniversary on May 21, Macron floated the idea of reparations — something that France has long stayed away from addressing.

He called it “a question we must not refuse,” but one on which “we must not make false promises.”

He committed no money, instead defining repair first as truth-telling, education and historical work.

The wealthiest of France's plantations were in Saint-Domingue, in the Caribbean, where the enslaved rose up and won independence in 1804 as Haiti. France then forced the freed to pay reparations for the loss of their masters — a debt cleared only in 1947.

France isn't alone. In the United States, federal reparations legislation has stalled for decades. California approved an apology, but no cash.

But the timing of Macron's latest speech was awkward. Two months earlier, France abstained when the U.N. General Assembly voted 123-3, with 52 abstentions, to call the trans-Atlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity.

And this month at the Africa Forward Summit in Kenya, days after declaring himself a “pan-Africanist,” Macron seized a microphone and ordered the room to quiet down.

“As soon as he sets foot on the African continent,” French opposition lawmaker Danièle Obono said, “he can’t help but behave like a colonizer.”

The repeal of the nCode Noir, said Bocquet, “will have no direct effect.” Whether it helps France fight racism and inequality in its overseas territories, he said, “remains to be seen.”

“It is easy for the French authorities, and for Macron, to do this,” Alexis added. “Because it commits them to nothing.”

The state party chairs of five Democratic parties wrote a letter Thursday to the Democratic National Committee calling on party leaders "to do everything in your power to ensure South Carolina continues to serve as the indispensable first proving ground for Democratic presidential nominees." The DNC is currently debating the order in which states will vote in the next round of presidential primaries.

The state should hold the first presidential balloting in 2028, they argued, in part because it “is not simply a geographic starting point. It is a moral and political compass for our party and our nation.”

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting this week, hearing presentations from the dozen states seeking to lead off its 2028 calendar. Other southern states, including Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, are in the mix.

South Carolina chair Christale Spain, who is set to make her argument on behalf of the state later Thursday, has said she believes her state has “more to offer than other states do,” including “the role of Black folks.”

“The fight for voting rights is no longer just a courtroom battle, it is an electoral one,” the Democratic chairs from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia wrote in the letter, provided to The Associated Press ahead of its release. “And it begins in South Carolina.”

“Any effort to diminish South Carolina’s role in the primary process would be a step backward for the Democratic Party’s stated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” they wrote. “It would signal to Southern Democrats and to Black voters in particular, that their loyalty to this party is taken for granted. We refuse to accept that, and we will stand firmly against it.”

In a separate letter to DNC leaders, Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus Institute — which has partnered with the South Carolina Democratic Party on several presidential debates in the past — reiterated those sentiments.

“To remove or diminish South Carolina’s standing in the primary calendar would send precisely the wrong message to Black voters and to every voter who has been told their voice does not matter until after the outcome is already decided,” Thompson wrote.

For years, South Carolina has held one of the earliest Democratic primaries in the country. As the first southern state to hold its primary, South Carolina has been the initial gauge of a candidate’s ability to appeal to Black voters, who play an outsized role among the state's Democratic voters.

In 2020, Joe Biden's ability to make that appeal — along with a coveted endorsement from Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state's lone congressional Democrat and for a time the top Black Democratic lawmaker on Capitol Hill — helped him revive a flagging primary campaign, win a resounding victory in South Carolina, and go on to secure the nomination.

For the 2024 cycle, Biden led a DNC effort to have South Carolina go first overall in the party’s primary, citing the state’s more racially diverse population compared to the traditional first-in-the-nation states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are overwhelmingly white. New Hampshire, which rejected the DNC’s plan, held a leadoff primary ahead of South Carolina anyway, and Biden — who didn’t campaign or have his name on the ballot — still won by a sizable margin after supporters mounted a write-in campaign on his behalf.

Biden, who also handily won South Carolina's 2024 contest, pushed for a revamped primary calendar that saw Nevada go second. He also pushed the Democratic primary in Michigan — a large and diverse swing state — ahead of the expansive field of states voting on Super Tuesday, the date in early March when multiple states hold primaries and the largest number of delegates needed to win the nomination are up for grabs.

Although the calendar won't officially be set until later this summer, Democrats likely to be among their party's 2028 have been making the rounds in South Carolina for months. ___

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

“It’s been so eye-opening to see who my people are,” Adler said. “I feel the love, I feel the compassion, the care — it’s nice to have a family again.”

Adopted by an American family when he was 9 months old, the 36-year-old is one of thousands of children who were stolen from Chilean families during the 17-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet and among hundreds who have been reunited with their birth families thanks to DNA tracing and organizations that are helping Chilean adoptees investigate their pasts. Others are also working toward justice for the families ripped apart.

The American family that adopted Adler in 1990 raised him in an affluent Chicago suburb.

“My parents didn’t steal me; they didn’t name me Kyle out of malice. They saw me as who they wanted me to become, and there’s a lot of love that was put into that,” Adler said of his adoptive parents Mike and Connie Adler. Adler believes neither of them knew the circumstances surrounding his adoption. He said neither were initially supportive of his decision to find his birth mother before they died in 2022.

He grew up to be an overachiever who in adulthood wanted more meaning to his life, he said.

“Suddenly now I found myself where I didn’t know what to do. I knew I was adopted and at that point, I was just like, I need to find my mom.”

The day he was taken

Adler’s biological mother, Ana Maria Navarrete, was a 19-year-old single parent working nights at a fish shop in the seaside city of Coronel, some 533 kilometers (331 miles) south of the capital. She had named him Marcos Antonio Navarrete.

She could only afford a room for herself, so she hired a woman who took Adler into her home as a baby and looked after him. Navarrete told The Associated Press she visited him whenever she was not working.

One day, the caregiver told her he was taken by an American couple after a local priest made arrangements for a baby “in need of a family.”

“And she let them have him,” Navarrete told AP, furious and ashamed. The AP could not independently verify all the details of what occurred.

A police investigator told her the baby had likely been taken as part of a wide-reaching counterfeit adoption network that involved adoption agencies, immigration officials, judges, nurses and even doctors.

No one was held accountable, Navarrete said, and “those years afterward were some of the worst years of my life.”

Lacking family support, she said she eventually surrendered the idea she would get her son back.

No justice

“Justice for the poor did not exist in Chile and it still does not,” said Constanza Del Rio, founder and executive director of Nos Buscamos, a nonprofit organization with online data for thousands of cases. The government estimates more than 20,000 children were stolen from families.

Children of the poor and Indigenous populations were targeted during the Pinochet regime from 1973 to 1990, said Jimmy Lippert Thyden González, who was also illegally adopted and became a human rights lawyer.

“It was an effort to eliminate and eradicate the poor class. It was a way of eradicating the Indigenous population, the uneducated population,” he said.

Uncovering the past

In early 2017, Adler came across the Nos Buscamos Facebook group while Googling the term “Chilean birth mom search” online, he said. And that’s when he messaged Del Rio.

Within three months, Del Rio had confirmed Adler's origin story and organized a virtual reunion.

Initially, Adler felt crushed to find out he was adopted illegally, sending him into an identity crisis that led to years of therapy.

Then last year, Adler finally felt ready for answers.

A DNA test provided by genealogy platform MyHeritage, a global family history company based in Israel, confirmed a match between Adler and 56-year-old Navarrete of Santiago and “made it official,” he said.

MyHeritage partners with both Nos Buscamos and Connecting Roots, and other nonprofits doing similar work, to provide free at-home DNA testing kits for distribution to Chilean adoptees and suspected victims of child trafficking.

Tyler Graf, the founder and CEO of Connecting Roots, traveled with Adler.

Graf had also reunited with his birth mother Hilda Quezada Godoy decades after he was taken from her, and said it is now his mission to track others taken from families in Chile.

“Now it’s time to mend these families and bring everyone back home so they can see where they came from,” Graf told the AP.

Fighting for justice for the families that were separated

Lippert Thyden González sued the Chilean government two years ago and hopes to lead the fight all the way to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He also founded the organization Grafting Hope, a nonprofit focused on educating U.S. lawmakers and fighting for the rights of survivors of counterfeit adoptions.

The Chilean government didn’t immediately respond to several messages seeking comment from AP.

“I want justice. Not just for me, but also for him because I don’t know the type of life he had,” Navarrete told AP days after reuniting with her son.

Navarrete is working with a law firm and hopes those involved will get jail-time.

The reunion

“My birth mom’s just been wanting me to be alive,” Adler said ahead of boarding the flight from Miami in February.

The two were reunited two days after her 56th birthday on Valentine’s Day and an AP team was with them in Miami and Chile.

Tears flowed as Adler exited the international arrivals gate in Chile. Both mother and son were wearing white as Navarrete ran to embrace him. The tall, dark-haired son bent over to bury his face in his mother's hair.

“I’m so happy to be finally meeting him, my dream has finally come true,” Navarrete said.

The emotional reunion led to a fruitful week together visiting the beach in Coronel, the hospital where Adler was born and the house where he was taken from. They recovered a copy of his original birth certificate, and he met one of his four siblings. In Miami, he had previously met another sister and her daughter.

Back in Santiago, the two enjoyed keepsakes Adler brought with him as gifts: A framed graduation diploma, childhood photographs and a pair of baby shoes his adoptive parents had kept.

Adler is not a Spanish speaker so Connecting Roots provided a translator. These days, translation apps help them continue the conversation.

Navarrete said the time spent with her son was joyful but it also made her relive much of the pain of the past 35 years.

“It took me so long to find him. And then to spend a week together only to have him leave,” Navarrete said amid tears, “it's like I found him but I've now lost him all over again.”

She said she's hopeful the family will reunite in December. For Adler, the road to forgiveness continues but he hopes Navarrete is able to let go of the trauma.

“I’m not just the son that you lost, I’m the son that you found. I’m back to being your son,” he said.

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The story has been updated to correct that Lippert Thyden González sued two years ago, not three years ago.

Chad Wiebesick, Director of Media Relations for Destination Ann Arbor, is helping spread the word about three signature events that span late spring through July - each of them, he says, a record-setter in its own right.

Peonies in peak bloom

The season kicks off at the University of Michigan’s Nichols Arboretum, home to what Wiebesick calls the largest heirloom peony collection in the entire United States, with some plants more than 100 years old.

The garden draws photographers, families and flower enthusiasts, but timing is everything. “It’s such a short peak bloom window from late May to early June,” Wiebesick said. Admission and a shuttle from remote parking are both free.

The appeal, he added, is multisensory. “I don’t know what I love more, the beautiful sight of these flowers or the beautiful smell of these flowers.”

Beer, wrestling and a Maker’s Fair

On June 13, the spotlight shifts to Ypsilanti for the Michigan Summer Beer Festival - “the largest Michigan-only beer festival in the entire state,” according to Wiebesick, with hundreds of brewers pouring a wide range of styles.

Among the pours: a Scottish-inspired ale from Ipsy Ale House, brewed by Ted Badgerow, who opened one of the first microbreweries in the Midwest some 40 years ago. The dark, malt-forward beer clocks in at 8 to 9.5% alcohol by volume. When asked whether festival-goers should pace themselves, Wiebesick was philosophical: “It’s all in perspective.”

Half a million people, 30 city blocks

July brings the marquee event: the Ann Arbor Art Fair, which Wiebesick called “the largest juried art fair in the US” - and one that most people don’t fully understand in scope. It is actually three independently juried fairs running simultaneously.

“Something like almost 500,000 people are expected to come in Ann Arbor,” he said. “The size and scale is pretty immense - it spans a footprint of 30 city blocks in downtown Ann Arbor.”

Beyond the art itself, the weekend features sidewalk sales, kids’ programming, live music and food trucks across a highly walkable downtown grid.

More information on all three events is available at annarbor.org.

Roger Roy, 61, matched the five white balls (03-19-35-51-67) in the April 29 drawing to win a $1 million prize.

He bought the winning ticket online at MichiganLottery.com.

“I have a Powerball subscription set up on my online account so I don’t miss a drawing,” said Roger Roy, of Ortonville. “They day after the drawing, I saw an email from the Lottery that was different from the ones I’m used to when I win a few dollars. I knew I must have won big, but I wanted to wait for my wife to get home so we could find out the prize amount together.”

“I’m sure we will do something fun with the money down the road, but for now we just plan to save it and use it as a financial cushion,” said Roy.

The championship weekend will be held at Ford Field on May 30-31.

Spectators can watch both in-person and from a live stream.

This season participation is at over 2k girls.

The league was officially launched in 2023 and has support from the Detroit Lions and local schools across the state.

The league played its first season with 4 teams.

This year the league has 80 teams.

Here is a full list of all participating schools for this year.

Girls flag football continues to gain popularity.

Eastern Michigan University plans to add girls flag football as a varsity sport in 2027.

The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will debut Girls flag football.

Chris Fritzsching, Detroit Lions executive director of football education, joined Local 4 Live to tell us more about girls flag football and the championship.

You can watch the full interview in the video at the beginning of this article.

Although it serves the country's biggest Mexican community, all 53 Mexican consulates in the U.S. provide services that make Mexican people's lives easier — just like the nine U.S. consulates in Mexico improve the lives of Americans south of the border.

The U.S. State Department, though, has launched a review that might lead to the closure of an unknown number of Mexican consulates. Although it hasn't said why, the review is happening against the backdrop of the immigration crackdown, some thorny bilateral issues and far-right theories that the consulates have been interfering in U.S. politics and encouraging Mexicans to migrate northward.

Azucena Aviles, a 33-year-old mother who drove more than an hour to the LA consulate this month to renew her Mexican passport and get one for her daughter, said consular services are invaluable, especially in California, which is home to nearly 13 million people of Mexican descent, including an estimated 1.7 million who are in the U.S. illegally.

“It wouldn’t be fair if they messed with the Mexican people, especially with our support systems, which come from the Mexican consulate and which, in some way, help or protect our fellow Mexicans,” she said.

Strained relations

Trump has been exerting growing pressure on Mexico, with questions looming over issues including human rights, national sovereignty and regional diplomacy.

His administration, though, has given only the broadest of explanations for launching its review.

“Department of State is constantly reviewing all aspects of American foreign relations to ensure they are in line with the President’s America First foreign policy agenda and advance American interests,” Dylan Johnson, Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs, wrote in an email.

Among the possible reasons for the review is that it could somehow fit into the Trump administration's immigration efforts to deport people in the U.S. illegally. The largest contingent of such people — an estimated 4.3 million, according to the Pew Research Center — are Mexican.

Relations between the two countries could also play a role, with Trump increasing pressure on Mexico in the run-up to free trade negotiations important to both nations’ economies, taking a more aggressive approach toward the U.S.'s southern neighbor and even threatening to take military action against Mexican cartels.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has avoided head-on conflicts with Trump and instead relied on diplomacy, including sending top officials to Washington and seeking to maintain a strong relationship with the Trump administration by cracking down on Mexican cartels. Sheinbaum and her predecessor have also been key allies in slowing migration to the U.S. and speeding up the deportation of other Latin American migrants.

But Sheinbaum has taken a firmer stance in regards to the deaths of Mexicans in U.S. immigration detention centers, calling them “unacceptable” and saying the conditions in such lockups were “incompatible with human rights standards and the protection of life.” She instructed Mexican consulates to visit detention centers daily to help ensure detained citizens are being held in safe conditions.

Relations rapidly deteriorated in recent weeks after the U.S. indicted several Mexican officials on drug trafficking charges, and two CIA officers died following an anti-narcotics operation in northern Mexico — American involvement that Sheinbaum said her government hadn't authorized. That drug raid raised uncomfortable questions in Mexico about the extent of U.S. involvement in domestic security operations. And years of tit-for-tat tariffs between the two countries have also added strain.

A review of foreign consulates is “usually a sign that a bilateral relationship is in a very, very rocky moment,” said Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the U.S. In Mexico’s case, it comes at “the worst moment of the U.S.-Mexico relations” in decades, given all the current points of contention, he said.

Further straining relations is a theory being amplified by Peter Schweizer, a writer with a following among Trump loyalist who has claimed that Mexican consulates interfere in U.S. politics and encourage migration to the U.S. Experts say that although a few Mexican consulate officials may have sought to influence politics back home, there is no evidence of them interfering in U.S. elections.

In response to the State Department review, Sheinbaum said the idea that Mexican consulates are “playing politics in the United States is completely false.” She said the job of consulates anywhere is to “always protect” citizens.

Sarukhan, too, said that although consulates defend the rights of Mexican citizens, there is no evidence that they are interfering in U.S. elections.

Worries about possible closures

Whatever the reasons for the consulate review, it has stoked worries.

During a weekly public forum at the LA consulate, a woman who didn't give her name and whose husband had been in U.S. immigration detention asked for help finding him a lawyer, highlighting one crucial service consulates provide for their citizens.

An older man, meanwhile, said he had heard about the review and asked about possible closures.

Carlos González Gutiérrez, Mexico’s top diplomat in Los Angeles, responded that, as Sheinbaum said, there would be “no reason whatsoever” for the U.S. to close a Mexican consulate.

Indeed, closing consulates “would have significant, devastating effects for Mexican immigrants,” especially in isolated areas, Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute, told The Associated Press.

Every day, consular officials go to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding center in downtown LA to identify and interview as many detained Mexican nationals as they can.

González Gutiérrez, 62, begins every weekly public forum by noting how many detained Mexicans consular officials have interviewed since last June's Los Angeles immigration crackdown. At that May 11 meeting, the figure stood at 1,940. Nearly half had deep roots in the U.S., he said. About 46% have been deported, 35% have children born in the U.S., 69% entered the country through a port of entry, 6% overstayed a visa, and 2.5% requested asylum. Most were men, and many worked in construction, agriculture, gardening and the service industry.

He also disputed the claim that Mexican consulates are interfering in U.S. politics.

“We are guests of this country’s government, just as U.S. consuls are guests of the Mexican government. In that sense, we are neither activists nor spies,” said González Gutiérrez, who has held similar roles at other Mexican consulates in the U.S. “We carry out our work openly, within a pluralistic and democratic society.”

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Janetsky reported from Mexico City.

The strike hit an apartment building but it was not immediately clear who might have been targeted. Videos from the suburb of Choueifat, close to Beirut's international airport, showed white smoke billowing from a residential neighborhood.

Tensions have been increasing in southern Lebanon, where Israeli troops in recent days have crossed the strategic Litani River, which the Israeli military has used as a de facto boundary. Large areas to the south are under Israeli military control despite the Washington-brokered ceasefire that’s been in place since April 17.

This was the first attack close to the Lebanese capital since May 6, where an Israeli strike killed a military official with Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces in another southern Beirut suburb.

Overnight, Israeli forces pounded the coastal city of Tyre, Lebanon's fourth-largest city, killing at least 14 people across the south of the country in its ongoing military escalation against the Hezbollah group ahead of the Washington talks.

Among those killed in the flurry of strikes were five women and children and a Lebanese soldier. Dozens of others were wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry and the state-run National News Agency.

The Israeli military said meanwhile that one of its soldiers was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack in northern Israel.

Lebanese minister seeks end to attacks on Tyre

On Thursday afternoon, the Israeli military issued another evacuation warning for Tyre and its suburbs.

Considered one of the oldest metropolises of the world, Tyre has several archeological sites, some of them submerged, including Roman baths, a colonnaded road, a Roman residential quarter, the remains of a cathedral built in 1127, a hippodrome built in the 2nd century and the remains of El-Bass necropolis.

The city was officially declared a UNESCO World heritage site in 1984.

Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi said in a statement Thursday that he has been following “with deep pain and profound concern” the ongoing Israeli attacks on Tyre.

“I have begun a series of intensive diplomatic contacts to demand an immediate halt to these attacks and to raise the voice in defense of a civilizational heritage” that should matter not only to Lebanon, but to the conscience of the entire world, he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday announced an expansion in the Israeli military's attacks in Lebanon, apparently sparked by Hezbollah's use of fiber-optic exploding drones that have struck Israeli troops in Lebanon and reached some of Israel's northern border towns. The Israeli military said it has launched hundreds of attacks targeting what they said were Hezbollah military assets.

Lebanese and Israeli military officials are set to hold their first security talks on Friday in the U.S. capital. Despite the nominal ceasefire, Israeli attacks have recently intensified, while largely sparing Beirut.

Hezbollah has dismissed the talks and instead endorsed its key ally Iran, which has made ending the war in Lebanon a condition for its own talks with Washington brokered by Pakistan.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Netanyahu instructed the military “to deepen our operation in Lebanon,” describing it as involving “a large number of our forces on the ground," seizing the dominant terrain and fortifying the security zone to protect the communities of Israel’s north.

Despite the escalation, Mencer said Israel would continue U.S.-mediated negotiations with Lebanon in Washington, saying the talks aim to disarm Hezbollah and reach “a peace agreement that will strengthen security and stability in our region and promote prosperity and peace."

Further north in the city of Sidon, an Israeli drone struck an apartment building where some displaced families lived, killing five people and wounding 21 others, among them five children. Among the dead was Hossan Zeidan, who once was a correspondent for Iran's Arabic-language al-Aalam television.

Mohammad Al-Gharbi, who lived across the street from the building in Sidon, woke to the sound of the explosion.

“I was in my room when part of the wall and shattered glass fell on me, and everything was thrown into chaos,” he said. “This building that was hit had six apartments occupied by poor families who had fled from the south to escape the attacks there, only to be hit here.”

In the nearby coastal town of Adloun, an Israeli drone struck a car with a family that was fleeing, killing six people, of which four were two children and their parents, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Another drone strike that came without warning killed two people on a motorcycle near Tyre. The target of the attack was not immediately clear, NNA reported.

Elsewhere near the city of Nabatiyeh, the Lebanese military said a soldier was killed in an Israeli drone strike while he was riding his motorcycle.

Hezbollah attacks targets Israeli forces that have crossed the Litani River

The Israeli military said Thursday that a soldier in northern Israel was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack and two reservists were wounded.

Hezbollah has claimed dozens of drone and rocket attacks that it says targeted Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. The group said Thursday it has launched several attacks on Israeli troops and tanks that have crossed the Litani River into the town of Zawtar al-Sharqieh near Nabatiyeh, as close-range fighting continues.

Over 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced by the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which was sparked when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran, two days after the Iran war began.

At least 3,269 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since the start of the war, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, with over 9,800 wounded.

According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 23 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon and two civilians have been killed in northern Israel, the vast majority by drones.

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Associated Press journalists Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Koral Saeed in Abu Snan, Israel and Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, contributed to this report.

The proposal is widely popular in Brazil ahead of presidential elections in October, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sponsored the move and has repeatedly promoted it. The amendment approved late Wednesday, which must now also pass the Senate, is part of a push within the region that has been lauded by labor rights groups but highly criticized by the business sector.

Currently, Brazilians work five eight-hour days and four hours on a sixth day for 44 hours total. The amendment would end the six-day workweek without reducing pay for at least 37 million people and establishes a 40-hour weekly work limit. It would guarantee two consecutive 24-hour rest days each week, preferably Saturdays and Sundays.

“People who have this workweek from Monday to Saturday are the ones that have to work the hardest and are paid the least,” lawmaker Paulo Pimenta, Brazil’s government whip in the lower house, told his peers as they voted. “We need to be brave and do justice.”

Many opposition lawmakers voted for it after months of pressure from their constituents, but some continued to criticize the initiative.

“I don't care if this is an election year. I think we need to be responsible. This will be a problem for many companies," lawmaker Kim Kataguiri said. “We are doing this in a rush and workers should know they might end up worse than they are now if business leaders stop hiring.”

The amendment would give businesses 14 months to adapt, which was a key point in negotiations. Many business leaders and lawmakers wanted the changes to be made gradually over 10 years.

“This was built with a lot of responsibility, thinking about workers and families in Brazil,” said lawmaker Leo Prates, who drafted the amendment in the lower house. “We need to accomplish this for the Brazilian people.”

The lower house votes late Wednesday sent the amendment to the upper house. Brazil’s Senate has not set a date for its vote and could make changes before Lula’s approval for the constitution to be amended.

Lula's main rival in the election, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, wants to replace the current workweek system with a more flexible payment-by-the-hour strategy, which so far seems to be popular only among some business leaders.

Other Latin American nations have also recently shortened the workweek.

In February, Mexican lawmakers approved a proposal by President Claudia Sheinbaum to trim the 48-hour workweek. Working hours will be shortened gradually to a 40-hour workweek by 2030.

Chile in 2023 passed the so-called 40-Hour Law, which reduced its workweek to 40 hours as of last year. It applies to all workers under Chile’s Labor Code, without reducing pay.

But Argentina has bucked that trend under libertarian President Javier Milei and may extend its 48-hour workweek. A labor overhaul package passed earlier this year extends the maximum workday from eight to 12 hours and scraps overtime pay, among other measures that Argentine labor unions say favor companies over employees.

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AP journalists Megan Janetsky, Isabel DeBre and Nayara Batschke contributed to this report from Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile.

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

Dong Guangping, 68, was aboard a 3.3-meter (10.8-foot) rubber boat in the waters off a western South Korean island on Monday night when he was detained by South Korea's coast guard for allegedly violating the country’s immigration law.

The coast guard sought a warrant to formally arrest him, but a local court on Thursday refused, saying it's “difficult to recognize sufficient grounds and necessity” for his arrest. The coast guard said later Thursday it will hand him over to an immigration office but will continue to investigate him.

Dong's prospects are unclear. Investigative authorities could pursue his arrest again or indict him without his physical detention. If Dong applies for refugee status, South Korea’s Justice Ministry said it will review it.

While Dong's possible submission of evidence of his political oppression in China could increase his chances for getting refugee status, observers still note that South Korea's acceptance rate for refugee status applications has been less than 2% in recent years.

Dong, a former police officer in China, had previously been detained in China several times for his activism. He was imprisoned for three years in 2001 for “inciting subversion of state power” and spent more than eight months behind bars after being arrested in 2014 for participating in a memorial for victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, according to past statements from Amnesty International.

It is his fourth known attempt to flee China. Appearing at the court hearing Thursday, he told reporters that he hopes to go to Canada via South Korea to reunite with his wife and daughters, who already resettled there, according to South Korean media.

He previously escaped to Thailand and Vietnam, but authorities there deported him back to China. Dong also unsuccessfully tried to swim to a Taiwanese island.

In a post Wednesday on X, Sheng Xue, a Chinese Canadian activist, praised Dong's braveness. She said Dong had discussed fleeing by boat with her, though she felt it was too dangerous. She said she talked again to Dong through Messenger, after he arrived in South Korea.

“Dong Guangping said that when he reached Korean waters, he was already in a state of unconsciousness. He hadn’t slept for over 50 hours and had been blown by sea winds for over 30 hours,” she said.

A local coast guard office handling Dong's case said he had no major health issues when he was detained. The office said Dong told investigators that he came from Weihai city in China’s eastern Shandong province though he’s refused to respond to most other questions.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, asked about Dong's case at a regular briefing Wednesday, answered that she was “not familiar with that.”

South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Park Il told reporters Thursday that Dong's case would likely be handled in line with the local law, though he referred questions to immigration authorities at the Justice Ministry.

Danielle Hickey, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, told The Associated Press in an emailed statement that the department could not comment on individual cases but that the country has a “proud tradition of protecting refugees and supporting their resettlement with compassion, respect, and dignity.”

Dong is not the first Chinese dissident to flee to South Korea by boat, though such an incident is highly unusual. In 2023, Kwon Pyong, another Chinese dissident, reached South Korea on a jet ski, saying he was trying to escape persecution in China for mocking its communist leadership. He was initially detained in South Korea but later reportedly moved to the U.S. to seek asylum.

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Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul and Kanis Leung in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

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This version corrects the pronoun referring to the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson to “she.”

Inflation jumped to 3.8% in April compared with a year ago, the Commerce Department said Thursday, up from 3.5% in March and the highest since May 2023. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.4%, down from the 0.7% jump in March but still higher than the inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve would prefer.

Thursday’s inflation report also showed that in addition to gasoline, prices for groceries, clothing and electricity are also on the rise, indicating that inflation may be growing more entrenched. Inflation is notably above the Federal Reserve's target of 2%, which means Fed policymakers may decide to forego any cuts to their key short-term interest rate this year. Some officials have signaled that the central bank's most substantial move under new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh could be a rate hike, rather than a cut.

Yet Trump and some his top officials are showing little concern about higher prices and the impact of the Iran war on Americans' financial health. Consumers have a dim view of the economy and have soured on the Trump administration's economic policies. Thursday's report showed that Americans' after-tax, inflation-adjusted incomes fell for the third straight month, while spending, adjusted for inflation, barely rose.

Trump has said that increases in gas prices — up more than 50% since the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran — amount to “peanuts.” He previously said he does not consider Americans’ personal finances “even a little bit” when mulling his options on the war.

And on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said higher prices would be “transitory,” reviving an ill-fated term used by former Fed Chair Jerome Powell to describe the 2021-22 inflation spike that became a forceful political tailwind for Trump in his campaign for a second presidential term.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation rose to 3.3% in April from 3.2% the previous month. It is the highest core figure since October 2023. One positive sign in the report: Core prices rose just 0.2% in April from March, down from 0.3% the previous month.

Dan North, senior economist at Allianz Trade North America, acknowledged the core price increase isn't “huge,” but added, “it’s the wrong way, and we think it will continue in the wrong way because there are so many inflation pressures in the pipeline.”

Americans' incomes were unchanged in April from March, in part because farm incomes fell after a large government aid package ended last month. Adjusted for inflation, personal income actually slipped 0.1% last month.

Spending rose 0.5% in April from March, though most of that reflected price increases. Adjusted for inflation, spending rose just 0.1% in April, down from 0.3% the previous month.

“Signs of stress are building inside the American household across the economy,” Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, a tax advisory firm, said. “Inflation-adjusted spending, disposable income ... point to a slowing in May spending as inflation approaches a peak on the back of a historic supply shock."

The U.S. economy grew at a modest 1.6% annual pace from January through March, according to a separate report from the Commerce Department Thursday. The country’s gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — rebounded from a lackluster 0.5% expansion the last quarter of 2025 when growth was hobbled by the 43-day federal government shutdown.

The first-quarter growth, which covered the first month of the Iran war, was a downgrade from the 2% expansion Commerce initially reported.

Resilient consumer spending — mostly by upper-income households — and ongoing investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure are helping propel modest growth.

Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, slowed to 1.4% in the first quarter from 1.9% at the end of 2025 and was down from the 1.6% preliminary first-quarter estimate. But business investment, likely driven by spending on artificial intelligence, rose at a 7% pace.

Gas prices averaged of about $4.50 a gallon nationwide for three weeks this month before slipping to $4.43 on Thursday, according to the AAA motor club. Gas averaged $2.98 a gallon the day before the Iran war began.

Yet the cost of many other goods and services have picked up in recent months, raising concerns among many Fed officials that inflation is being pushed higher by tariffs and other factors in addition to the war. The cost of services such as dental visits, car repairs and veterinarian visits have been rising sharply, and clothes, toys, and groceries are also seeing outsize price gains.

Rapid investment in artificial intelligence centers also appears to be driving up the cost of computer equipment and software, adding to inflationary pressures. Electricity prices have also spiked from a year ago.

State-run Yemeni TV said that he died at his residence in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, but gave no other details.

Rashad al-Alimi, the head of the Presidential Leadership Council — the leadership body of Yemen’s internationally recognized government — said Hadi believed in the Yemeni people’s “right to a just state, freedom and human dignity.”

“He led the battle to defend the republican system," al-Alimi said on X.

The government announced three days of mourning, during which flags will be flown at half-staff.

Hadi's presidency

Hadi became president in 2012 after the resignation of longtime leader Ali Abdullah Saleh during the Arab Spring uprisings. Backed by the United States and Gulf states, Hadi emerged as a compromise candidate in a one-person election meant to guide Yemen through a political transition.

But his presidency soon got bogged down in unrest.

During his first years in office, Hadi tried to implement wide-reaching reforms, including the unification of the country’s various armed factions.

His opponents accused him of favoring the country’s eastern oil-rich provinces at the expense of the mountainous heartlands dominated by Houthis, the Iran-aligned movement.

Another challenge came from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, long considered one of the global network’s most dangerous branches. The group carried out a bombing in Sanaa in 2012 that killed more than 100 people.

The defining moment of Hadi’s presidency came in 2014, when Houthi fighters swept south from their northern strongholds and captured Sanaa amid growing public anger over economic hardship and political instability.

With support from forces loyal to Saleh, Houthi forces took control of Yemen’s presidential palace in January 2015. Hadi resigned and escaped to Aden. But he later withdrew his resignation, and a Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in March 2015 in a bid to restore Hadi’s government.

Although Hadi remained the internationally recognized president, much of the real decision-making was influenced by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the coalition's main players.

His authority weakened further as divisions emerged in the anti-Houthi alliance.

Tensions with the UAE deepened after Hadi dismissed senior Emirati-backed figures, including Aidarous al-Zubaidi, who led the separatist Southern Transitional Council, or STC.

The STC eventually took control of Aden and parts of southern Yemen, leaving Hadi’s government confined to exile in Riyadh and to scattered territories in the east.

While the STC stopped short of openly demanding Hadi’s removal, it refused to place its forces under his command and accused his government of accommodating Islamist factions linked to the Islah party, Yemen’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The STC was dismantled earlier this year.

Hadi spent his final years in office largely out of public view in the Saudi capital. In April 2022, shortly after a U.N.-brokered ceasefire was announced, he transferred power to al-Alimi, who began leading the newly formed presidential council backed by Saudi Arabia.

His rise as a military officer

Mansour Hadi was born Sept. 1, 1945, in Yemen’s coastal Abyan province at a time when the southern of the half country was a British protectorate. His family was part of the influential Al-Fadl tribe, one of the largest and most established in the south.

After completing school, Hadi pursued a career in the army, graduating from the United Kingdom's Sandhurst military academy. His early military years saw him serve in Egypt and Russia, before returning to Yemen.

Hadi was a senior officer when civil war erupted in 1986, following a fallout between rival factions of Southern Yemen’s then governing Socialist party. He sided with President Ali Nasser Mohammed, fleeing with him to northern Yemen, then an independent state.

In the immediate years after Yemen’s reunification in 1990, Hadi was promoted first to the rank of general and later to defense minister by Saleh. As a reward for leading numerous successful military campaigns against southern separatists in 1994, Saleh appointed Hadi as vice president of the new republic.

Hadi is survived by his wife, Hala, and six children. Funeral arrangements weren't yet known.

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Fatma Khaled reported from Cairo. Jack Jeffery provided reporting for this story from Cairo before leaving The Associated Press.

The initiative is part of an effort to keep kids safe and preventing tragedies before they happen.

Warren police will have free gun locks and education available for it’s residents.

Since 2020 guns are the leading cause of death for children age 1 to 17.

The Oxford High School shooting created push for Michigan’s secure storage law.

The law went into affect in 2024, the law states that guns must be unloaded and locked away if kids are around.

According to the CDC more than 1,200 kids in the country have died in accidental shootings between 2003-2021

In 74% of these shooting the gun was stored and loaded.

In 76% of these shootings, the gun left unlocked.

In 30% of these shootings the gun was kept in a nightstand or around an adult’s sleeping area.

Between 2010 and 2023 about 41% of gun deaths in the country were homicides.

56.9% were deaths of people taking their own life.

The department’s goal is to reduce accidental shootings, keep guns out of the hands of children and prevent gun violence as the summer begins.

Eric Hawkins, Warren Police Commissioner and Lori Stone, Warren Mayor joined Local 4 Live to discuss gun safety and the city’s gun safety initiative.

You can watch the full interview in the video at the beginning of this article.

The vehicle crashed at about 9 a.m., Thursday, May 28, at the intersection of Hall Road (M-59) and Garfield. Multiple vehicles were hit.

The driver was reportedly fleeing police, although the chase was terminated before the crash.

Authorities said it started in Clinton Township, where police spotted an alleged stolen U-Haul truck. The chase ventured south into Fraser and Roseville before heading back north and crashing in Macomb Township.

The U-Haul ended up on its passenger side, requiring first responders to cut the windshield of the vehicle out to extricate the driver, who was taken into custody.

She did not appear to suffer any serious injuries.

It is currently unknown if anyone else was injured.

Drivers are urged to avoid the area.

She practices yoga. She performs free flow dance. And while she works, she frequently listens to house music tuned to 432 hertz, a frequency lower than typical concert pitch.

“Music is medicine. Sound is medicine,” said Sanchez, who provides telehealth services for a healthcare management organization in California. “It helps me focus and be engaged with the patient I’m assisting, and it also helps me relax."

Music recorded in 432 hertz (cycles per second) is taking off on social media platforms and music streaming services, where users can find an increasing number of tracks and playlists employing the alternate tuning, everything from meditation soundscapes to reggae songs recorded by Ziggy Marley.

Many proponents assert that 432 hertz is aligned with nature. Others assign the frequency healing properties or the power to reduce blood pressure. So far, there's no robust scientific evidence to support those claims.

“There are frequencies going on right now that are higher than what we can hear and lower than what can hear. And they’re not special because they’re one of the billions and billions of frequencies that we’re receiving right now,” said Susan Rogers, a Berklee College of Music professor emeritus who worked as Prince's sound engineer during the 1980s. “To set one aside and say that it is the frequency of the universe is, as far as the science community is concerned, nonsense.”

To Sanchez, it doesn't matter if the pain relief and emotional benefits she ascribes to 432 hertz music have a scientific explanation.

“When it comes to music, it could activate different feelings in people, the vibrations of it. It’s not like a one-size-fits-all,” she said.

The story behind 440 and 432 hertz

Throughout history, as people sang or played music together, they tuned their instruments to the same pitch to create a harmonious sound. Singers and musicians often chose a musical note — typically the A above middle C on a piano — as a reference point.

The music genre known as “432 Hz” is characterized by its tuning, in which the A above middle C is pitch-adjusted to vibrate at 432 hertz instead of the standard 440 hertz. The lower frequency is noticeable to the naked ear, sounding like slightly lower notes. Some people feel the alteration produces a warmer, more harmonious sound that resonates with the human body and the natural world.

Many orchestras and musicians now tune their instruments to 440 hertz. But that wasn't always the case.

Until the 19th century, musicians tuned instruments according to local standards, which varied from one country to the next, said Fanny Gribenski, a music historian at New York University. “For most of music history, people are just singing within their own vocal range,” she added.

Eventually, there were orchestras and musical groups tuning to higher frequencies, and some composers became concerned that singers would be unable to perform music from the past, Gribenski said.

“The idea that it should be mainly a lower frequency than the ones that were in use at the time is really the cultural concern for protecting music from the past, protecting the voices of singers,” she said.

At the same time, as international travel became more widespread, the desire for a common tuning frequency grew. In 1939, representatives from multiple European countries and the U.S. agreed to accept 440 hertz as the international standard.

Artists continued to experiment with pitch over the decades that followed. In the 1980s and ’90s, sound engineers sometimes took a recorded song and sped it up or slowed it down to achieve a brighter or slower sound, moving away from the frequency of 440 hertz, Rogers said.

But Rogers doubts that retuning a whole band or orchestra to 432 hertz would improve its sound since many modern instruments were designed sound prettiest while tuned to 440 hertz.

“Some of those instruments might sound a little sweeter, but it’s likely that most won’t,” she said.

Higher pitch generally means more brilliance, or perhaps a little more power in some instruments, Gribenski said. For those listeners who appreciate the lower 432 hertz music, “I wonder if there is a sense of deceleration, slowing down slightly, and also taking one step down from the bright sounds of modernity,” she said.

Working and 432 hertz music

Fans of working while accompanied by a 432 hertz soundtrack cite a variety of reasons.

Amelia Beamer, who handles marketing at the North Carolina pharmacy her parents own, Andrews Apothecary, says she thinks taking work breaks to listen to music tuned to 432 hertz helps with her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She's noticed that she feels more focused if she listens before she starts a project.

Beamer works for 25 minutes, takes a five-minute listening break and then returns to the task at hand. She also listens to other frequencies, such as music tuned to 528 hertz.

“It definitely helps me feel more grounded and more centered,” Beamer said of 432 hertz music. “It helps me slow down and to take some intentional space and time for myself.”

Diana Wolf Torres, who creates videos and writes a newsletter about robots, frequently gets migraines and is sensitive to noises. If a gardener is using a leaf blower next door, she has difficulty ignoring it. Listening to music tuned to 432 hertz or other sounds such as white noise while wearing noise-canceling headphones helps.

“I just want to be there and get it done and feel like I’m doing my best writing possible, and anything that keeps me in the zone is a fantastic tool,” Torres said.

Torres doesn't think there's any science or special properties behind 432 hertz music but that “maybe some people find this lower tuning more soothing.” She noted that most listeners won't know if music labeled 432 hertz on social media is labeled accurately.

“What does it matter? If you're getting an effect, are you really going to check the resonance? Do you care?” Torres asked.

Sanchez, the telehealth worker, also enjoys listening to tunes fixed to other alternative frequencies, such as 528 hertz and 963 hertz.

“It’s something worth exploring and finding out for yourself whether it has any benefits or not,” Sanchez said. “For me, I find that grounding is beneficial to my overall wellbeing, so I see how it helps my livelihood."

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Share your stories and questions about workplace wellness at cbussewitz@ap.org. Follow AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health at https://apnews.com/hub/be-well

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the move was not being announced.

Reworking Thomas' deal comes in the middle of offseason workouts and with No. 5 pick Arvell Reese still not yet signed to his rookie contract. The rest of the draft class, including No. 10 pick Francis “Sisi” Mauigoa, is all signed.

The Giants now have just under $12 million in salary cap space, according to the NFL Players Association’s public accounting. Reese's contract is expected to take up a big chunk of that, so more maneuvering could take place in the coming months before the season begins in September.

Thomas, 27, is one of the team's highest-paid players and the anchor of an offensive line that showed improvement last season from previous years. New coach John Harbaugh said Thomas was dealing with foot and shoulder injuries that led the staff to limit use on the field during organized team activities.

“They have a nice ramp-up planned for me,” Thomas said last week. “Just a precautionary thing. Obviously, what we care about is September, being ready, so I’ve been trusting that. It’s definitely tough sometimes because I want to push it and I want to get better, but I’m trying to trust the process to make sure I’m ready to go when it counts.”

Thomas had surgery to repair a Lisfranc injury in his right foot in October 2024 and missed the first two games of last season before returning Sept. 21. A hamstring injury caused him to miss the final two games, but now it's a lingering shoulder problem that is being managed.

“Something that I’ve been dealing with,” Thomas said. “I think I’m in a good place.”

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

Zelenskyy said he hasn’t yet received a reply to a letter he sent earlier this week to U.S. President Donald Trump and Congress asking for more of the American-made ammunition. He warned that deliveries to Ukraine are falling dangerously short as the Iran war diverts and depletes U.S. stocks.

“I believe (the U.S.) must act quicker. We are being very persistent,” Zelenskyy told reporters during a visit to Sweden.

Zelenskyy is keen to secure more deliveries of foreign weaponry that it can’t produce itself as it battles Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022. In exchange, he's offering to share the cutting-edge drone expertise that Ukraine has built up during the war.

Russia has used its long-range ballistic missiles to damage Ukraine’s power grid and hammer cities.

The Ukrainian capital is bracing for further heavy bombardments. But no foreign diplomats are known to have heeded Moscow’s recommendation to leave Kyiv before what the Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier this week would be upcoming “systemic strikes” on Kyiv.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that all diplomatic missions in the capital have continued operations.

Sweden's advanced fighter jets

Ukraine plans to buy 20 advanced Gripen fighter jets from Sweden for 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion), with Sweden also donating 16 older Gripen models once the purchase goes through, Zelenskyy announced on his trip to Sweden.

The money for the jets will come out of a 90 billion-euro ($105 billion) loan to Ukraine that the European Union recently approved, Zelenskyy said during a trip to Sweden.

The combat aircraft will be especially helpful in stopping Russian planes that launch powerful glide bombs at Ukraine, he said at an aircraft hangar standing in front of Gripen jets alongside Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

Ukraine will get the older models early next year and the new models from 2030, Kristersson said. The planes will be equipped with weaponry, and Sweden will provide maintenance and training, he said.

Ukraine eventually wants 150 Gripen jets, Zelenskyy said.

Meanwhile, Sweden is “extremely eager” to learn from Ukraine’s drone warfare experience, Kristersson said.

Ukrainian drones limiting Russian advances, analysts say

Zelenskyy says Ukrainian specialists have helped countries in the Middle East — specifically the Gulf Arab region — strengthen their air defenses during the Iran war. They have helped at American military bases in the Middle East as well, he says.

Ukraine has also entered into joint drone production agreements with countries in the European Union, which fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin has military ambitions beyond Ukraine.

Ukrainian drones that patrol the 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line and strike deeper at supply routes have pinned back Russia's bigger army.

“Ukraine’s successful midrange and front-line drone strike campaigns are limiting Russia’s ability to transport personnel to the front line and to supply and sustain front-line positions,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in an assessment late Wednesday.

Russia has occupied about 20% of Ukraine so far. That includes the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014. The cost of capturing that land has been huge, with the head of the U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ saying Wednesday that almost 500,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the conflict.

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

In two international studies, about 1 in 5 patients given the experimental drug saw their virus reduced to levels low enough for the immune system to keep in check.

“We have not had a treatment which has come to this level of cure,” Dr. Seng Gee Lim of the National University Health System of Singapore, who helped lead the GSK-funded studies, told reporters before presenting the findings at a scientific meeting in Barcelona, Spain.

The data also was published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Chronic hepatitis B can cause liver cancer or liver failure, and kills about 1.1 million people around the world each year. Improvements to today’s lifelong therapy, which can be hard to stick with or to access in some countries, have been sought for decades.

The new findings “represent a major step,” Dr. Anna Lok, a hepatitis expert at the University of Michigan who wasn’t involved in the research, wrote in the journal. But she cautioned that more study is needed to see how long that remission-like state lasts.

The drug is bepirovirsen, nicknamed “bepi” and developed by GSK and Ionis Pharmaceuticals. It is under fast-track review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, with a decision expected in October. Regulators in Japan, China and Europe also are considering the drug.

Hepatitis B is a serious liver infection spread through contact with blood or other bodily fluids, including childbirth. A highly effective vaccine can prevent it. For people who are infected, many have an “acute” illness that lasts several months. But for some — about 1.7 million people in the U.S. and more than 250 million worldwide — it becomes a chronic form that gradually damages the liver.

Standard treatments, including daily pills, reduce levels of the virus and prevent liver damage. But a true cure is elusive because hepatitis B has an unusual ability to hide in the body, ready to rebound if therapy stops.

The new drug attacks hepatitis B by binding to its genetic components, suppressing viral replication as well as a key protein, the “S” or surface protein, and stimulates the immune system, said GSK vice president Melanie Paff.

The trials included 1,838 patients assigned to get either a bepi shot or a dummy shot weekly for six months, in addition to their regular pills. If the virus was undetectable for six months after stopping the shots, they could stop their regular pills, too. In about 20% of the bepi recipients, the virus remained undetectable for six more months after they stopped all treatment — that “functional cure” — something no patients given the dummy shots achieved, the researchers reported.

Bepi recipients who started the study with lower levels of that S protein were slightly more likely to achieve a functional cure, Lim said. He is doing additional research to try to determine why only some people respond.

As for how long the functional cure lasts, GSK has tracked a small number of patients from earlier-stage studies and found most still faring well up to three years later, Paff said.

Lim said side effects included mild injection-site redness or pain and a temporary rise in enzymes that can indicate liver stress.

Lok, the Michigan hepatitis expert, noted the trials didn’t include patients with cirrhosis, high S protein levels or other complicating factors.

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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 World Meteorological Organization also forecasts an overheating Arctic that warms nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.66 degrees Celsius) between now and 2030 and a dangerous drought with potential wildfires for the Amazon, a crucial part of Earth's natural defenses to lessen human-caused climate change. A hotter globe from the burning of coal, oil and gas means more extreme weather including floods, droughts and heat waves, scientists said.

The projections by the U.N. climate agency and the United Kingdom's Meteorological Office said there's a 75% chance that the average global temperature between 2026 and 2030 will be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher compared to pre-industrial times. That threshold is the agreed-upon limit of warming — averaged over 20 years — set in 2015 by the Paris climate agreement.

A U.N. science report a few years later detailed how exceeding that 1.5 mark means more likely death, danger and species loss. Even though it's only a few tenths of a degree, some of the planet's ecosystems, such as coral and glaciers, can't handle the strain.

Passing warming limit has consequences, but no cliff

There’s a 91% chance that at least one of the next five years will shoot past the 1.5 degree threshold and an 86% chance that one of those years will smash the record for Earth’s hottest year set in 2024, the WMO report said. The WMO projects each year between now and 2030 to be between 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and 1.9 degrees Celsius (3.4 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s.

“It’s important to note that (1.5) is not kind of a cliff edge that we’re going to fall off,” said report co-author Melissa Seabrook, a climate scientist at the U.K. Meteorological Office. “Every kind of 0.1 of a degree has more and more severe impact.”

She pointed to unprecedented May heat in Europe this week.

An entire year or more above the 1.5 degree mark “means a whole range of extreme weather events, probably many so hot/wet/dry that it exceeds anything we’ve experienced in the past and thus crucially, anything our city planning, agriculture etc. has anticipated,” Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto, who wasn’t part of the report, said in an email. “This will mean many people will lose their lives, we are in for a lot of food price shocks, and more intense wildfires.”

Nearly all the shorter-term forecasts call for a strong El Nino — a natural warming of parts of the central Pacific that alters weather worldwide and spikes global temperatures — to form soon. The WMO report said it could stretch all the way to 2028. Because of that, Seabrook said 2027 will likely break the 2024 heat record.

And if the next five years do average more than 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, that means Earth will have warmed a quarter of a degree Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) in a decade, which is faster than the previous rates of warming. Those were closer to two-tenths of a degree Celsius per decade.

Climate scientists are debating whether global warming is accelerating, “which obviously is quite scary,” and if these projections come true it would give additional evidence to those who see a speeded up rate of change, Seabrook said.

Accelerating warmth forecast in the Arctic

The projections, based on the averaging of about 200 runs of computer simulations using 13 different climate models from various countries, show warming in the Arctic rising 3.5 times faster than the rest of the globe, because there's less ice and snow that had been reflecting solar radiation to space, Seabrook said. It becomes a vicious cycle.

“As the temperature warms, more sea ice melts, the worse this makes it,” Seabrook said.

Winters in the Arctic from 2020 to 2025 on average were 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1991-2020 average. The WMO projects the next five winters will average 5.1 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 degrees Celsius) warmer than that recent normal, Seabrook said.

The report also forecasts Arctic sea ice to continue to shrink in the summer.

Amazon may get drier, sparking fire worries

The report calls for even warmer and unusually dry conditions in the Amazon basin, and that could be devastating for both local residents and the planet as a whole, Seabrook said.

People rely on the Amazon for water and the hotter, drier conditions should increase wildfire risk, Seabrook said, threatening to turn the Amazon, which now sucks heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, into a region that worsens the problem.

Africa's Sahel area, which has been extra dry, is likely to get more than normal rain and that could lead to flooding, Seabrook said.

United Nations officials said efforts to curb climate change haven't been enough.

“Despite the progress of recent years, it’s clear that global heating is still outpacing global efforts to contain it, and the baking temperatures in Europe, India and elsewhere show yet again the brutal human and economic impacts of humanity still burning colossal amounts of coal, oil and gas,” U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said about the WMO report.

“Whether it’s extreme heat, mega-storms, floods, massive wildfires or droughts hitting food supply and prices,” he said, “every nation is already paying a huge price from this global climate crisis.”

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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.

Reyna and Scally are old friends who've had a blast playing together this season at German club Borussia Moenchengladbach and both made the U.S. roster for the World Cup this week.

“The chemistry’s there and it will always be there,” Reyna said this month in a joint media availability with Scally.

“We’re already close, but it feels like we’ve gotten even closer, which felt impossible, but it's been a good year together,” Reyna said.

He added his wife is friends with Scally's fiancee and even their dogs are buddies.

Reyna told the Associated Press last year his friend was the “cherry on top” in his decision to join Gladbach to revive his career this season after injuries and a controversial time at the 2022 World Cup.

Scally argues their bond brings on-field benefits.

“On the training field, in the locker room, in the car rides every day, I think we’ve definitely enjoyed every day because we know it doesn’t last forever,” Scally said. “I think we understand each other very well on the field. We want to play together more than we have. In the time that we do play together, something good normally comes out of it.”

The 23-year-olds were youth players together at New York City FC a decade ago and have both made their names in Europe but the on-field similarities end there.

Scally is a versatile, reliable defender who rarely misses a game. Reyna’s a creative, unpredictable attacking midfielder who can make a sudden impact in games but has been repeatedly sidelined with fitness and injury issues for large parts of the last few seasons.

It's the second World Cup appearance for Scally and Reyna and follows a dispute which overshadowed Reyna's time with the team in Qatar in 2022.

Reyna played only twice off the bench and then-U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter said after the tournament that an unnamed player, later identified as Reyna, was nearly sent home for a lack of effort in training.

Reyna’s parents — Claudio and Danielle Reyna, both former national team players — lobbied the U.S. Soccer Federation for more playing time for Gio and contacted the USSF about a three-decades-old domestic violence allegation involving Berhalter and the woman who later became his wife — Danielle’s former college roommate.

Reyna told the AP last year he’d now handle the 2022 incident differently “in certain ways” and his actions stemmed from frustration, but the dispute wasn’t “completely” his fault or that of his family.

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

The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims were up to 215,000, up from 210,000 the week before. The four-week moving average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, rose by nearly 6,300 to 209,000.

“Initial claims are still impressively low, near historic lows,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a commentary. “The uptick from last week to this week is trivial in a labor market of 159 million workers.″

The number of Americans signing up for unemployment benefits — a proxy for layoffs — has stabilized in a low range of mostly 200,000 to 250,000 a week since the U.S. economy emerged from a brief but nasty pandemic recession in 2020.

The total number of people collecting jobless aid rose by 15,000 to 1.79 million the week that ended May 16.

The persistently low number of claims suggests that most U.S. companies have not resorted to layoffs. But even if they’re not cutting jobs, employers haven’t been adding many either. Last year, companies, nonprofits and government agencies added fewer than 10,000 jobs a month, weakest hiring outside recession years since 2002.

Job creation has picked up a bit so far this year — to an average of 76,000 a month from January through April. By contrast, employers added 122,000 a month in 2024 and averaged nearly 400,000 a month from 2021 through 2023 as the economy roared back from COVID-19 lockdowns.

But the United States now needs fewer jobs to keep the unemployment rate from rising. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and ongoing Baby Boomer retirements means that the monthly “break-even rate″ of monthly hiring may be as low as zero. And the unemployment rate — 4.3% in April — has, in fact, remained low by historic standards.

The Iran war has clouded the economic outlook as higher energy prices squeeze consumers and businesses. Iran responded to U.S. and Israeli attacks by turning to economic warfare — closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes, and causing the biggest disruption of global oil supplies in history. In response, U.S. gasoline prices have surged to an average of $4.43 a gallon from an average $2.98 a gallon on the eve of the conflict, according to AAA.

The Ann Arbor Fire Department responded around 12:10 a.m. after the semi driver reportedly fell asleep behind the wheel and breached the median wall, sending concrete debris into the eastbound lane and causing several other crashes.

Both the eastbound and westbound lanes of I-94 were closed for several hours while officials cleared the scene, and all lanes have since reopened.

The truck was carrying a variety of hazardous materials, including a 55-gallon drum containing 38% nitric acid — which fully ruptured, spilling its contents onto the shoulder of the freeway.

The Washtenaw County Hazardous Materials Response Team were called to assess the scene and conduct atmospheric monitoring. Crews are using sodium bicarbonate to neutralize the acid and the spill poses no risk to the public, officials said.

Michigan Department of Transportation, Washtenaw County Road Commission, Michigan State Police, Pittsfield Township Fire Department, Huron Valley Ambulance and HART assisted on scene.

No injuries were reported.

A day before Major League Baseball is expected to make a salary cap proposal, the union outlined its initial economic proposals during a bargaining session at the players' association office in Manhattan. It included what it called a “competitive integrity tax” that would penalize teams dropping below a payroll floor and called for the luxury tax threshold to rise to $300 million next year.

Baseball’s labor contract expires Dec. 1 and MLB is expected to institute a lockout, management’s equivalent of a strike under federal labor law. Players have vowed they never will accept a salary cap.

“Attendance, viewership, interest — by any measure you want to use, our game is moving in a positive direction,” Baltimore pitcher Chris Bassitt, a member of the union's eight-man executive subcommittee, said in a statement. “We’ve put forward proposals designed to continue that trend. Support, incentivize, and reward clubs who are committed to competing, especially small-market clubs. Compensate players fairly for the work they are doing.”

MLB clearly is not in favor of what the union presented and maintains the players' plan would decrease revenue sharing.

“We understand their proposals are designed to benefit players. Unfortunately, they do not address and in fact exacerbate the competitive balance problem our fans are telling us we must address,” MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement. "The MLBPA’s proposal would reduce the amount transferred to lower-revenue clubs, weaken the competitive balance tax and lead to even more payroll disparity than exists today. For example, under the union’s proposal, the Dodgers would pay less in luxury tax payments, giving them an additional $70 million to spend on payroll.”

Marcus Semien and Sean Manaea of the Mets and Eugenio Suárez of Cincinnati attended the session while other players participated online.

“The players’ proposals provide increased revenue sharing initially guaranteeing every small-market club a minimum of $240 million in revenue every season,” interim union head Bruce Meyer, who replaced Tony Clark in February, said in a statement. “This enhanced revenue sharing includes added protections to ensure clubs prioritize winning over profiteering.”

According to details obtained by The Associated Press:

— The luxury tax threshold, which starts at $244 million this season, would rise to $300 million in 2027 and then increase by $15 million annually. Penalties such as moving back a team’s pick in the amateur draft would be eliminated. Surcharge levels, currently as much as 110%, would drop to 10% above the preceding level.

— Free agent eligibility, which has been six seasons of major league service since the 1976 agreement would drop to five for players who have reached age 30 by Nov. 1. A team could retain the player by making a qualifying offer. If a player in that group refuses the qualifying offer, he would become arbitration eligible.

— The minimum salary would rise from $780,000 this year to $1.5 million next season, $1.65 million in 2028, $1,825,000 in 2029, $2 million in 2030 and $2.2 million in 2031.

— Salary arbitration eligibility would expand and teams would have to offer at least $3 million to eligible players. The threshold increased from two years to three years in 1986 and the so-called super 2 class with those of two to three years began in 1991 at 17% and it increased to 22% in 2013. The union proposed it be expanded to 44%. In addition, salaries in cases decided by arbitration panels would be guaranteed and the union asked that some salaries used for comparisons be given 120% of their value.

— The pre-arbitration bonus pool, established at $50 million in the 2022-26 deal, would increase to $180 million next year and then rise by $15 million annually. Players coming up to the major leagues for the first time who sign multiyear deals either before opening day or during the first 21 days of the season would become ineligible.

— The qualifying offer for players with six years of service would be eliminated. It has diminished the markets of some free agents since it began after the 2012 season because of penalties on signing teams.

— The amateur draft lottery would expand from six teams to eight.

— Rules instituted in 2022 designed to decrease service time manipulation would be expanded, such as ensuring a full year of service to eligible prospects who finish among the top five in MVP voting.

— Lower-revenue teams who lose players as free agents would get increased benefits and low-revenue teams would get more draft selections.

— A competitive integrity tax would be imposed on teams who do not reach 50% of the lowest tax threshold and teams further below would face surcharges. Teams would be penalized for not spending revenue-sharing money they receive on payrolls.

— Each small-market team would be guaranteed at least $240 million in revenue annually and teams would keep more ballpark-related revenue.

— Low-revenue teams with winning records or reaching the playoffs would get more revenue sharing money and local media revenue would be shared among teams more extensively.

A five-year deal was reached on March 10, 2022, the 99th day of a lockout, preserving a 162-game regular-season schedule. That was the sport’s ninth work stoppage and first since a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 caused cancellation of the World Series for the first time since 1904.

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

Trump told reporters on Wednesday that New York Knicks owner James Dolan has invited him to the NBA Finals, when the Eastern Conference champion Knicks host either the Oklahoma City Thunder or the San Antonio Spurs next month at Madison Square Garden.

New York, which is riding an 11-game postseason winning streak after sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers in the conference finals, is scheduled to host Game 3 on June 8 and Game 4 on June 10.

Trump, a New York native, said he initially planned to attend Game 5 of the conference finals at MSG before the Knicks finished off the Cavaliers in four games. The president called Dolan a “great guy” and marveled at New York's run.

“Boy, what a team,” Trump said. “They have some really great players.”

Trump called the club's return to the finals for the first time since 1999 “great to see.”

“The Knicks have really suffered for years," Trump said to laughter. “They're doing (well) right now.”

Trump has routinely dropped in on prominent sporting events during his time in politics. He's taken in the College Football Playoff championship and caught a prime-time NFL game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Jets just days before the 2024 election.

The Knicks have a history of having high-profile celebrities sit courtside at MSG, including filmmaker Spike Lee, who has clashed with Trump in the past.

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

Miss Wayne County faces social media backlash

Ameera Hashwi was met with cheers as she rode in Dearborn’s Memorial Day parade Monday, but the reception online was a different story.

Hashwi, who wears a hijab as part of her Muslim faith, faced a wave of negative comments on social media following her appearance.

Read more here.

Westbound I-94 closed in Ann Arbor following semi crash, chemical spill

Emergency crews are working to clear the scene of a tractor-trailer crash that occurred overnight Thursday on westbound Interstate 94 near Jackson Road in Ann Arbor.

The Ann Arbor Fire Department responded around 12:10 a.m. after the semi driver reportedly fell asleep behind the wheel and breached the median wall, sending concrete debris into the eastbound lane and causing several other crashes. No injuries have been reported and the eastbound lanes have since been reopened.

Read more here.

Police release body cam of Eminem’s ex-wife Kim Mathers after DUI crash, arrest

Body camera footage released by Chesterfield Township police captured the moments following a car crash and the field sobriety tests that led to the arrest of Kimberly Anne Mathers on suspicion of drunken driving.

Mathers, 51, of Chesterfield, is the ex-wife of rapper Eminem. She was arrested on Thursday, May 14, booked into the Macomb County Jail, and later released.

Watch the video here.

‘I do love younger girls’: Michigan man accused of using Reddit to target children

A federal agent in Detroit says a Flint man is facing charges after he used Reddit to discuss child exploitation, sent explicit images and tried to solicit illegal material from someone who appeared to be a child.

Kenneth Herman Gianlorenzo, 42, of Flint, a registered sex offender, is accused of the attempted transfer of obscene material to minors and penalties for registered sex offenders.

Read more here.

Weather: Sunny skies and seasonal temperatures continue across Metro Detroit

Sunshine returns across Southeast Michigan today as we can enjoy a beautiful stretch of seasonal weather. High temperatures will be closer to late-May averages, in the low to mid-70s. Low humidity will provide comfortable conditions for outdoor activities, yard work, and time spent outside.

A large area of high pressure remains in control of the weather pattern, keeping skies mostly sunny and preventing any significant storm systems from reaching the region. As a result, dry weather is expected to continue not only today but for the foreseeable future. That high pressure to our west will push eastward on Friday bringing a nice little bump in temperatures, low 80s.

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Sinner was serving for the match at 5-4, 0-40 in the third set when he bent over on the court and then walked to his chair. He asked for assistance and left the court. Hs entire light blue outfit appeared soaked through with sweat.

When he came back with an ice pack around his neck, he proceeded to lose the next point with a poorly sliced backhand wide and lost the third set 7-5. Sinner left the court again.

He won the first two sets 6-3, 6-2.

The temperature at the start of the match was 29 degrees C (84 F), and was forecast to rise to 33 C (91 F).

Sinner is on a 30-match winning streak stretching back to February.

Sinner also struggled in the heat at the Australian Open against Eliot Spizzirri in January. The roof was closed and the third-round match swung his way.

Sinner is attempting to complete a career Grand Slam by winning his first French Open title.

___

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

A large area of high pressure remains in control of the weather pattern, keeping skies mostly sunny and preventing any significant storm systems from reaching the region. As a result, dry weather is expected to continue not only today but for the foreseeable future. That high pressure to our west will push eastward on Friday bringing a nice little bump in temperatures, low 80s.

Looking ahead, there are no immediate signs of rain in the forecast for Metro Detroit. The extended outlook continues to favor dry conditions with temperatures remaining near or slightly above average for this time of year, upper 70s through the weekend.

A Winning Detroit Grand Prix Forecast

Fans heading downtown for the Detroit Grand Prix can expect ideal weather conditions throughout the weekend: mostly sunny skies, dry weather, and afternoon temperatures ranging from the low 70s to low 80s through Sunday, creating comfortable conditions for both spectators and drivers. With no significant rain chances expected, the weather should cooperate for race festivities from start to finish.

Forecast Highlights

• Thursday: Mostly sunny, less humid, and seasonable with highs in the low to mid-70s.
• Friday: Dry, sunny and warmer with highs in the upper 70s.
• Saturday: Mostly sunny and cooler with highs in the low 70s.
• Sunday: Dry and comfortable with plenty of sunshine and highs in the upper 70s.

May 29-June 1, EB I-94 from M-3 to Metro Parkway will be closed.

The following 3 weekends are also scheduled to have closures.

Closures are set to begin 8p.m. Friday, May 29 until 5a.m., Monday, June 1.

There will be a detour - NB M-3/Gratiot to EB Metro Pkway.

The following ramps will also be closed:

• EB I-696 ramp to EB I-94
• 11 Mile ramp to EB I-94
• 12 Mile ramp to EB I-94
• Little Mack ramp to EB I-94
• Harper Rd ramp to EB I-94
• Shook Rd ramp to EB I-94

All work is weather dependent. Project info can be found at MovingMacomb.org . Please drive slowly and safely through construction zones.

The trooper was driving eastbound on 9 Mile Road approaching Brittany Avenue when he was hit in the intersection by another driver traveling on Brittany around 9:20 p.m.

Neither the trooper or the woman driving the other vehicle were injured in the collision. After investigating, the trooper determined that the woman was impaired and subsequently placed her under arrest for operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

“Thankfully our trooper was not injured in this crash,” said MSP Spl/Lt. Ty Howard. “This incident serves as another reminder that impaired driving puts everyone at risk. If you are impaired, please do not get behind the wheel of a vehicle. Make a plan ahead of time and help keep our roadways safe.”

The 27-nation EU's fine follows preliminary findings last year that Temu was exposing consumers to a high risk of products sold on its platform like baby toys and small electronics that didn't comply with EU consumer safety rules.

The bloc's executive arm issued the penalty under the Digital Services Act, or DSA, a wide-ranging rulebook that requires online platforms to do more to keep internet users safe from harmful content or dodgy goods, under the threat of hefty fines.

It's the second time Brussels has issued a fine under three-year-old DSA, following a $120 million penalty last year for Elon Musk's social media site X.

Temu said it disagreed with the decision and considered the fine “disproportionate.”

The decision relates to the commission's first DSA evaluation of Temu in 2024 “and does not reflect the current state of our systems,” the company said.

“Temu engaged constructively with the Commission throughout the process and has since taken further steps to strengthen risk assessment, platform governance, and user protection," it said in a statement.

The company is popular because it offers cheap goods - from clothing to home products — shipped from sellers in China. The platform has 92 million users in the EU and is owned by PDD Holdings Inc., which also owns the popular Chinese e-commerce site Pinduoduo.

The European Commission said Temu failed to identify, analyze and assess the systemic risks of illegal goods for sale on the platform and the resulting harm to European consumers.

Investigators had carried out a “mystery shopping exercise” that turned up a number of "non-compliant" products, including many electronic device chargers that failed basic safety tests. They also found a very high percentage of baby toys that posed safety risks, either because they contained chemicals at levels that exceeded safety limits or because they had parts that came off and could be a suffocation risk.

The commission said failing to do proper risk assessments is a particularly serious breach of the bloc's digital rules.

Risk assessments are “not box‐ticking exercises," European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkunnen said.

“Temu’s risk assessment underestimates concrete risks, lacks specificity, is not grounded in solid evidence, and is not comprehensive,” she said in a prepared statement. "It leaves regulators, users, and the public in the dark about the true scale of potential harm posed by illegal products sold on Temu. Now it is time for Temu to comply with the law.”

Temu has until the end of August to submit an “action plan” to remedy the problem. It could be hit with additional daily, weekly or monthly fines if it fails to comply.

___

AP writer Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed to this report.

A bonus: The brilliant star Antares will photobomb Sunday's spectacle for a celestial three-for-one.

A blue moon occurs every two to three years when a second full moon squeezes into a single month. May 1 saw this month’s first full moon.

Since the moon's orbit isn't a perfect circle, the upcoming full moon will be farther from Earth than usual at a distance of 252,360 miles (406,135 kilometers), making it seem a bit smaller and dimmer. It's the opposite of a supermoon when a full moon comes closer to us than normal. The most recent supermoon, for instance, was just 225,130 miles (362,312 kilometers) away.

The Virtual Telescope Project’s Gianluca Masi, who will provide a live webcast from Italy, said Sunday’s micromoon will appear about 6% smaller and 10% dimmer than that of an average full moon — “differences that are subtle enough to likely go unnoticed by most observers.”

The scene will be especially thrilling south of the equator across the Pacific.

For stargazers in Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, eastern Australia, parts of Antarctica and a smattering of other islands, Antares will vanish temporarily as the blue micromoon passes in front of it.

The red supergiant star, 550 light-years away, is known as the “heart of scorpion” in the constellation Scorpius. A light-year is almost 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers).

There won't be any disappearing act for those looking up elsewhere in the world, with Antares constantly visible alongside the full moon.

And despite the name, this blue moon won’t appear turquoise, sapphire or any other shade. The term simply refers to the uncommon occurrence of two full moons in one month.

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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.

They withdrew on Thursday and no reason was given by organizers.

But Baptiste was forced to retire during her second-round singles against Wang Xiyu on Wednesday after landing awkwardly on her left leg late in the first set.

The Americans were replaced by Eudice Chong and Veronika Rejvec in the draw.

Williams, who turns 46 next month, was a singles wild-card entry at the Australian Open. She lost in the first round and became the oldest woman to compete in an Australian Open singles main draw.

A seven-time major singles winner, Williams previously held the No. 1 ranking in singles and doubles.

Williams lost the French Open singles final to younger sister Serena in 2002 and they twice won the French Open doubles together, in 1999 and 2010.

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

Caesars became an iconic name after the opening of Caesar's Palace on the Las Vegas Strip in 1966. However, its roots date back to the 1930s in Reno, Nevada.

Fertitta Entertainment will pay $5.7 billion and take on close to $12 billion in debt from Caesars, putting the total value of the deal at about $17.6 billion.

As part of the agreement, Caesars can seek competing bids through July 11.

Caesars investors will get $31 in cash for each share they own, a 49% premium over the share price before chatter about a possible tie-up between the two entertainment companies began in February.

Shares of Caesars Entertainment Inc., which are up 15% since merger rumors emerged, rose almost 2% before the opening bell Thursday.

Yet the eerily empty Bamy Hotel is not a refuge for adventure-seeking tourists or international business travelers these days. Since late last year, only a small number of people have been staying there, and they aren't on vacation. They are being held against their will.

Under an opaque $7.5 million deal with the Trump administration, Equatorial Guinea's all-powerful president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has turned this hotel owned by his family into a prison for asylum seekers deported from the United States.

The hotel is just a way station, though. Of the at least 32 people imprisoned there since November — all of whom had previously been granted protection from U.S. judges, their lawyers said — 25 have been forced to go back to home countries across Africa where their lives might be in danger. The rest face pressure from authorities to leave.

“Government people would come all the time and say: Where is your passport? You need to go back to your own country,” said a 26-year-old man from an East African country imprisoned at the hotel. Out of fear of retaliation, he spoke on condition of anonymity, as did two other deportees interviewed by The Associated Press.

The Trump administration uses deportations to third countries as a legal loophole, immigration lawyers say, to indirectly force asylum seekers back to their home countries.

Because Equatorial Guinea is run by an authoritarian government — as are some other countries that have signed similar deals — it is difficult for foreign journalists to visit and report directly on conditions there. AP traveled to the island of Bioko as part of a recent visit by the first American pope, and is the only international news organization to visit the hotel detaining migrants.

Pressured to return to countries they fear

Trapped for now in a country many had never heard of before arriving, men and women from Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Mauritania wander the hotel’s long corridors and gaze out the windows at the shimmering pool they are not allowed to use.

They haven’t faced any physical abuse, but they feel intense psychological pressure knowing they are likely headed back to home countries they fear.

“I am scared and depressed,” said the East African man.

Because of his ethnicity and the fact he fled his home country, he said he would be imprisoned or killed if forced to return. All of the asylum seekers at the hotel face a high risk of persecution back home, human rights experts say.

Under a series of murky and often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that are not their own, advocates say, all part of the broad U.S. crackdown on immigration. The countries with agreements are mostly in the developing world, according to the group Third Country Deportation Watch, including roughly a dozen in Africa. Experts say countries accepting the deportees may be doing so to earn goodwill in negotiations with the U.S. over trade, migration or aid.

The Trump administration declined to comment on the details of its deal with Equatorial Guinea. A State Department spokesperson said, “we remain unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration.”

The Obiang administration did not respond to a request seeking comment.

Trapped in the surreal and the mundane

As the man from East Africa at the Bamy Hotel recounted his journey, a government minder who spoke little English sat nearby, scrolling on his phone in an otherwise empty conference room.

After traveling from Africa to Brazil, the man said, he arrived in August 2024 at the U.S. border, where he was detained. He then was shuffled between immigration centers in California, Arizona and Louisiana — before landing in Equatorial Guinea almost six months ago.

The deportees' daily routines at the hotel are mundane, though the setting makes it all seem surreal, he said.

They sleep in fancy rooms that rarely get cleaned, he said, and they are served rice and meat at white cloth tables set up inside the hotel's restaurant. After being sickened by the food several times, the East African man said he eats the bare minimum.

A local lawyer brings new toothbrushes, cellphone SIM cards, and, for women, sanitary products.

Medical care has been uneven. The East African man was driven to the hospital right away after complaining of an eye problem. But when he came down with malaria and typhoid, he was not taken to a hospital until his condition had greatly deteriorated, requiring an IV. Other detainees have had similar experiences, he said.

Recently, the East African man complained to a police officer about his situation. The officer responded by saying his problems would go away if he went to the hotel’s fourth floor and jumped out the window.

“What can I do now? It’s become worse,” he said, his frail body shaking. “I started losing my mind.”

The US has strong ties to, and criticisms of, Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea is one of the richest countries in Africa thanks to its oil resources. It is also rife with corruption and human rights abuses, according to U.S. officials.

A former Spanish colony, the country fell into economic despair after gaining independence in 1968. Its fate shifted in the 1990s when U.S. companies started drilling for oil along its vast coastline. The subsequent boom transformed the economy, yet over half the population still lives in poverty.

The country's oil-fueled wealth has been largely pocketed by Obiang and his family, according to rights groups. Obiang’s 57-year-old son and heir apparent, Teodoro “Teodorin” Obiang Nguema, chronicles his lavish lifestyle on TikTok — soaking in infinity pools, feasting on lobster, traveling on private jets — even as citizens of Equatorial Guinea are banned from the platform.

The younger Obiang, who serves as vice president, has faced international sanctions because of corruption across his father’s administration. But the U.S. lifted sanctions, allowing the younger Obiang to travel to a high-level U.N. meeting in New York last September, just weeks before the deportations to Equatorial Guinea began.

There are virtually no critical voices in Equatorial Guinea, where the government has been accused by rights groups and the U.S. State Department of detaining, torturing and even killing those that dare to speak out.

Despite that, its largest foreign investors are U.S. businesses, and its military receives funding for training from the U.S. government.

East African migrant awaits his fate

The deportees still at the Bamy Hotel know they can be sent home any day.

Representatives of the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration, and its refugee agency, visited the hotel in November, and promised the deportees they would come back. They never did.

The East African man is the only one among them that has been allowed to see a lawyer, though it's not clear why.

While Equatorial Guinea has no asylum policy, his lawyer made a formal request with the prime minister's office — a long shot worth taking if there was any chance of being released from the hotel.

He was told to plead for mercy with the country's vice president, but his asylum claim was rejected.

The next morning, authorities deported five other people, leaving him anguished as he awaits his fate. He was told he would be next.

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Associated Press writer Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

The concert plot was thwarted, but Austrian authorities still canceled Swift’s three performances in August 2024.

The defendant, a 21-year-old Austrian citizen known only as Beran A. in line with Austrian privacy rules, faces charges including terrorist offenses and membership in a terrorist organization.

His defense attorney said he pleaded guilty to the charges related to the concert plot during the opening day of the trial last month. He could face up to 20 years in prison.

Beran A. allegedly planned to target people outside the Ernst Happel Stadium with knives or homemade explosives. Tens of thousands of Taylor Swift fans, known as Swifties, had traveled to Austria to attend the performances of the American singer’s record-setting Eras Tour. Devastated by the cancellations, many gathered in central Vienna to trade friendship bracelets and commiserate about the cancellations.

Beran A. also allegedly networked with other members of the Islamic State group ahead of the planned attack. Prosecutors have said they discussed purchasing weapons and making bombs, and that the defendant also sought to illegally buy weapons in the days ahead of the performance, as well as swearing allegiance to the militant group.

He is on trial alongside Arda K., whose full name also has not been made public. They, along with a third man who was arrested and remains in pretrial detention in Saudi Arabia, allegedly planned to carry out simultaneous attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates during Ramadan 2024 in the name of IS.

Only Beran A. was charged in connection with the concert plot. He pleaded not guilty to the charges related to the plot for simultaneous attacks.

In closing arguments Thursday at the state court in Wiener Neustadt, south of Vienna, prosecutors called for the men's conviction, the Austria Press Agency reported.

Beran A.'s defense lawyer, Anna Mair, told the court that her client was “not an ideological mastermind.”

In short final words to the court before it adjourned to consider a verdict, Beran A. said: “I would just like to say that I am sorry.”

But progress stalled over concerns about the inclusion of White House ballroom security funding in the package and the creation of a $1.8 billion fund to finance claims of government mistreatment. The stumble has not only delayed action on a top GOP priority but also is raising questions about other parts of the party's legislative agenda, including whether Republicans can enact another catchall, party-line bill referred to in Washington parlance as “Reconciliation 3.0.”

Republicans have spent recent weeks laying the groundwork for such a bill, which they hope will serve as a final sales pitch to voters going into the midterms.

Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both of Louisiana, have been meeting with committee and caucus chairs to screen for proposals that have strong buy-in from the rank and file. They are aiming to follow up on last summer's big tax and spending cuts bill with a measure that would increase Pentagon spending by hundreds of billions of dollars and would include cuts elsewhere to help pay for it, which they are couching as tackling government waste and fraud.

It's a high-stakes gambit in an election year. Success will reinforce the GOP's message of being able to deliver on legislative priorities. Failure will underscore some of the Republican fractures under Trump that could leave voters seeking an alternative.

Here's a look at the coming debate as Republicans hope to pass a bill before leaving for their August recess.

House Republicans sound confident

Johnson navigated the House GOP's slim majority in passing Trump's tax and spending cuts bill last summer. The vote was 218-214. At the time, Republicans could afford to lose three votes from within their ranks. They lost just two.

They'll have a thin margin of error again, but Johnson said he's even more confident of success this time around.

“It will be just as beautiful, but not as big, so it’ll have less provisions and less things to get everybody to yes on," he said.

Rep. Jodey Arrington, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said Republicans are just as motivated as they were last year on the tax cuts bill.

“This one, I think you’ll have potentially money to support our troops in conflict," said Arrington, of Texas. "I can’t imagine a Republican not wanting to support our troops and military community in a time of conflict.”

The Trump administration has called on Republicans to provide $350 billion to defense through a reconciliation bill.

But Rep. Brendan Boyle, the lead Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said Republicans will have a more difficult path than they did with Trump's big tax and spending cuts bill.

“I think it will be for a couple of reasons. First is the president’s approval rating. He was at a much higher level a year ago than he is right now,” said Boyle, of Pennsylvania. "Number 2, we are much closer to the November midterm elections. So, if you’re one of a dozen or a couple dozen House Republicans who are really vulnerable in a swing district, you have to think even more carefully about voting for something that has even more health care cuts in it.”

The tax cuts bill that passed last summer reduced spending on Medicaid by more than $900 billion over a decade. It also reduced spending on nutrition assistance by about $187 billion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Caution in the Senate

Senate Majority Leader John Thune called a third reconciliation bill to get around the filibuster a “potential option,” hardly a ringing endorsement.

“We haven’t made any commitments on that, but we’re hearing people out,” said Thune, of South Dakota.

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said lawmakers should know what will be in the bill before the legislative process begins. That way, it's less likely to unravel.

“If it just becomes another exercise where you’re not really sure what’s going to be the end product, then I think it’s a mistake even to pursue it,” Tillis said. "We ought to be smart about it if we do a third one, but it is kind of a moonshot.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she worried about the strategy.

“A third reconciliation may or may not happen. I’m just being direct," she said.

Little time and fractured relations

The House is expected to be in session for about 24 more days before it breaks for its August recess. That leaves little time to pass a budget blueprint in both chambers, which is the first hurdle for pursuing party-line tax and spending bills. Committees would also have to wrap up their work advancing their portions of the legislation.

Another hurdle could be Trump's treatment of current senators whose votes he will need for any package to become law. Trump endorsed opponents of two senators who faced stiff primary challenges and eventually lost — Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas.

Cassidy has already shown more willingness to buck the president. Fresh off his primary loss, he voted last week to advance a bill that seeks to force Trump to withdraw from hostilities with Iran.

What could make it into the bill

Lawmakers said they could tweak and resurrect some proposals that did not pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian for inclusion in last year's reconciliation bill. For example, Republicans tried to prevent states from providing Medicaid coverage for immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.

Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said the bill should rest on three pillars, making the country more affordable and secure while reducing fraud.

Among the group's recommendations is a proposal to eliminate the capital gains tax on the sale of homes to first-time homebuyers, which they say would incentivize the market, and a proposal to impose a 5% tax on funds sent by noncitizens back to their home countries.

Arrington said he would also like to tighten the rules for the earned income tax credit, a program that increases the financial reward for working but that also has a high rate of improper payments. He also called for prohibiting immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally from living in housing units financed by a housing tax credit paid to developers who construct and rehab affordable housing for renters.

“There's a lot more work to be done to build on what we did in the first one with Medicaid and SNAP (nutrition assistance), with respect to fraud,” Arrington said.

___

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

The seizures included more than 12 kilograms (26 pounds) in gold bars, millions in cash, premium watches and some 20 luxury properties, investigators told a news conference.

Messina Denaro died in a prison hospital some nine months after he was arrested in January 2023, ending three decades as a fugitive. He had been tried in absentia and convicted in dozens of murders, including helping to mastermind a pair of 1992 bombings that killed top anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

As part of the investigation into a decades-long drug-trafficking money trail linked, authorities arrested three people and ordered the seizure of assets, companies and financial holdings worth more than 200 million euros.

More than 150 Italian financial police officers carried out searches in Italy and abroad, including in Andorra, Gibraltar, the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, Lebanon, Monaco and Spain.

Italy’s national anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, said the seizures form part of a broader effort to dismantle the Sicilian Mafia’s economic infrastructure and prevent it from rebuilding criminal networks capable of exerting global financial and social influence, including intimidation.

🍇 Grapevine

🌅 Good morning! On this day in 2006, San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds hit his 715th home run, passing baseball legend Babe Ruth for the second-most home runs in MLB history. Bonds, who called the feat “a great honor,” finished his career with 762 home runs, outpacing Hank Aaron as MLB’s greatest home run hitter.

Here are a few things to know about for Thursday, May 28, 2026:

☀️ 4Warn Weather: Today is expected to be comfortable with highs in the low 70s under mostly sunny skies, and plenty of sunshine extending all the way into next week.

Check out the 10 day forecast.

🚔 Kim Mathers Arrest: Body camera footage released by Chesterfield Township police captured the moments following a car crash and the field sobriety tests that led to the arrest of Kimberly Anne Mathers on suspicion of drunken driving. Watch here.

🏥 BCBSM, Michigan Medicine Deal: After months of tense negotiations, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has reached a new long-term contract with Michigan Medicine, allowing the Ann Arbor medical center and its affiliated physicians, clinics and facilities to keep their in-network status with the insurer. Read more.

⚖️ ‘No one is above the law’: A former Clinton Township attorney is facing felony charges for allegedly accepting a client’s retainer for legal fees, despite being suspended from practicing law in Michigan at the time. Read more.

🛠️ Repair Requests Ignored: Federal housing inspectors visited a Washtenaw County apartment complex Tuesday following a wave of resident complaints about mold, flooding, and other damage. Read more.

💰 Lottery Luck: A Michigan man won a $2 million lottery prize with $20 he won from two tickets moments before. The winner, who chose to remain anonymous, bought the winning tickets at at Clyde Park Fuel in Grand Rapids. Read more.

🏊 Morning Dive

Good morning 🌅

Michigan State University President Kevin Guskiewicz announced yesterday that he will be stepping down from his role to accept a leadership position at Clemson University in South Carolina.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Guskiewicz cited “discouraging behavior by a few trustees” as a contributing factor in his decision to leave, noting that “at times, too much energy has been spent revisiting past conflicts and internal disagreements rather than focusing collectively on the opportunities and aspirations ahead of us.”

“Effective university leadership requires a shared commitment to collaboration, trust and a forward-looking vision,” the statement read. “While many across this university community have embraced that spirit, it has become increasingly clear that there are differing perspectives within the Board of Trustees regarding how best to move MSU forward.”

Just eight days ago, the MSU Board of Trustees voted overwhelmingly to offer Guskiewicz a new, amended contract that would nearly double his annual base salary from $1.02 million to $2 million and extend his presidential term through 2031, among other changes, the university reported.

Trustees acknowledged that the raise was a preventative effort to keep Guskiewicz at MSU, as he was being “aggressively pursued” by other universities.

Get the full story here.

🗞️ Other headlines to know today

• Detroit police revise initial account after body cam shows man fatally shot himself during search of home
• ‘I do love younger girls’: Michigan man accused of using Reddit to target children
• Oakland County man accused of shooting wife in the face during argument
• Security camera captures the moment an e-bike battery explodes in Ann Arbor
• Michigan Girl’s High School Flag Football League championship heads to Ford Field
• Michigan ending early measles vaccine recommendations for infants in areas impacted by latest outbreak
• Detroit Pistons face franchise-altering call on Jalen Duren’s supermax contract
• City of Detroit gets credit rating upgrade to ‘A’ category
• Independent bookstores are multiplying, although many people still think they’re dying out
• He hid his gun in his infant’s room: Detroit felon sentenced to 200 months in prison
• This Detroit building was named among ’11 Most Endangered Historic Places’
• Detroit police want help finding missing 14-year-old girl
• Macomb County man accused of using elderly woman as ‘personal ATM’ charged in another fraud case
• Matthew Perry’s assistant is last to be sentenced over his ketamine death
• Man pleads no contest after police chase ends in crash that hospitalized 73-year-old from Warren
• Port Huron father admits to killing son, shooting 2 other children in September attack
• Police locate parents of child found wandering on Detroit’s east side
• Find more Local News headlines here
• Find more Entertainment headlines here
• Find more Health headlines here
• Check out the latest ClickOnDeals here
• Introducing the ClickOnDetroit Help Desk: How it works and how to use it

🌎 Meanwhile

News from around the world via the Associated Press:

Iranians began to regain internet access on Wednesday after authorities ended a months-long shutdown. But users said service was slow and spotty in some areas, with apps like YouTube and Instagram heavily restricted, as they were before the cutoff began during nationwide protests in January.

Authorities justified the outage as a military imperative after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Their decision to lift some restrictions this week came as negotiators appeared to be closing in on a more permanent truce. But many Iranians feared access could be cut off again at a moment’s notice.

Internet tracking company Netblocks said Iran’s connectivity, which measures the ability of devices to connect to the internet, is at around 86% of capacity from before the cutoff. (Read more)

----

A robot being developed at Duke University is almost ready to face the world, in any direction.

Instead of trying to copy symmetrical shapes from nature by building robots that look like people, dogs or insects, engineering professor Boyuan Chen and his team focused on uniformity in action, or what he calls “dynamic symmetry.”

The result was Argus. The roly-poly robot named after a mythological many-eyed giant has depth-sensing cameras attached to 20 telescoping legs that radiate from a central core. With no front, back, top or bottom, it can see and move in any direction instantly. (Read more)

----

Ugandan authorities on Wednesday ordered its border with Congo closed “with immediate effect” as suspected cases of a rare type of Ebola surge near 1,000 there and others emerge at home.

The measure, which goes against World Health Organization guidance, underscored growing fears of contagion in this East African country that, like Congo, has experience responding to Ebola outbreaks but faces a type this time, Bundibugyo, with no approved medicines or vaccines.

A local Ebola task force made the decision after Ugandan health workers were exposed to the virus by Congolese patients who crossed the border before the outbreak was declared on May 15. (Read more)

---> Find more headlines from around the world right here <---

📝 Word Up

Today’s Word Up is: Fugacious / fyo͞oˈɡāSHəs / (adjective) -- defined as “Lasting a short time; fleeting.”

Example: “The hummingbird made a fugacious stop on my flowers.”

🧹 Housekeeping

Hey, if you like this newsletter, let us know. We’d love your feedback. We also offer several other newsletters, including Live in the D, All 4 Pets and more. Hopefully, we have one that caters to your interests -- unless you’re only interested in Sears Catalogs. We don’t have one for that, sorry.

✍🏽 Written and curated by: Jenny Sherman (Have something to say? Feel free to send an email here.)

Three months on, he still has no force to lead as none of the five countries that pledged troops have come through with any significant contributions.

Efforts to shore up the fragile ceasefire have stalled as Hamas has refused to disarm and Israel has seized more territory while continuing to strike what it says are militant targets, often killing civilians.

The Iran war has meanwhile made it more difficult for Arab and Muslim leaders to openly cooperate with the United States and Israel, which many in the region view as aggressors, and the resulting global energy crisis has sapped their resources.

Indonesian commitment of 8,000 troops is on indefinite hold

The biggest blow to the planned force came about a week after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, when Indonesia put its commitment of 8,000 troops on indefinite hold. Some 1,000 were to have been sent in April, followed by the remainder in June.

Indonesia's pledge was by far the largest of the group, which also includes Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania. U.S. Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, who spoke at the Board of Peace event, was to command the force.

Indonesia suspended its plans over what Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin said last week seemed to be a lack of commitment from a distracted Washington, saying “we have not yet received any implementation guidelines.”

“New dynamics have emerged,” he told parliament. “Because the intensity of the conflict between U.S. and Iranian forces remains very high, the BoP has tended to be left behind. Since the BoP has been left behind, the ISF has also been left behind.”

US attack on Iran influenced Indonesia's decision

Domestic issues may have factored into Indonesia's decision, said Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, director of the Indonesia-Middle East/North Africa desk at Jakarta's Center for Economic and Law Studies.

The Iran war is extremely unpopular in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country. The economy is suffering from soaring prices as a result of the conflict, and there is widespread skepticism of the Board of Peace.

“If you talk to the people on the street, I don’t think they believe that the Board of Peace will actually help the people of Gaza,” Rakhmat said. There are also concerns about sending troops to the Middle East when the economy is faltering, he added.

Indonesia lost four peacekeepers who were part of the United Nations mission in Lebanon during fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah. That has further soured public opinion on such international commitments, he said.

Board of Peace blames stalled ceasefire on Hamas

The U.S. military’s Central Command declined to comment or make Jeffers available for an interview, referring all queries to the Board of Peace.

Board of Peace spokesman Brad Klapper also declined to comment on Indonesia's decision or the future of the stabilization force, pointing instead to May 21 remarks made at the U.N. by Nickolay Mladenov, a former Bulgarian defense minister who Trump appointed director of the Board of Peace.

Mladenov said the international force would not be able to begin operations until there was agreement and implementation of a second phase of the ceasefire, which would see Hamas disarm and Israel begin to withdraw. Israeli troops control some 60% of Gaza.

Mladenov has blamed the deadlock on Hamas, saying its disarmament is “non-negotiable” and is holding up progress on other fronts, including Israel's withdrawal and reconstruction.

“You cannot build a future with armed groups running the streets, hiding in tunnels and stockpiling weapons,” Mladenov said in Jerusalem this month. “You cannot deliver reconstruction with militias on every corner.”

Hamas blames delays on Israel

Hamas says Israel has repeatedly violated the ceasefire, holding up its further implementation, and has accused Mladenov of siding with Israel.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 880 Palestinians since the ceasefire, according to local health officials. Israel says it was responding to violations of the truce.

Hamas is also demanding Israel withdraw from areas seized since the start of the ceasefire, according to an Egyptian official with knowledge of the discussions, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door talks. Egypt has long served as a mediator with Hamas.

Many of the countries that have pledged forces have refused to send troops without a deal on Hamas disarming, the official said.

Token forces committed and none yet known to be on the ground

Kazakhstan has said its support for the stabilization force would be limited to “the humanitarian component,” including sending medical units with a field hospital. Its Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Albania's Defense Ministry also declined to comment on its troop commitment, saying it was a “dynamic and ongoing process.”

Earlier this month, its chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Arben Kingji, told reporters that while the military had “participated in reconnaissance activities,” no troops had yet been sent. He said only a few would be dispatched as part of the stabilization force headquarters, without giving numbers, adding that further contributions would be considered.

Kosovo, which is expected to send 20 troops, said in April that it was in the “final phase of preparations.” The Defense Ministry did not reply to a request for an update.

Morocco's Foreign Ministry also did not reply. At the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace, Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said it would deploy “high-level military officers to the joint military command of the ISF.”

Indonesian turnaround can't be ruled out

Despite the delays from Indonesia, Rakhmat said it was too early to rule out eventual participation in the stabilization force.

President Prabowo Subianto is a former army general who has been keen to raise Indonesia’s profile on the world stage and wants to avoid jeopardizing economic ties with the U.S., Rakhmat said.

“Prabowo wants to strengthen ties to Washington and sign different agreements with the U.S., so to completely withdraw and completely cancel the plan, I don't think it's on the table,” he said.

___

Associated Press reporters Samy Magdy in Cairo, Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, Akram Oubachir in Casablanca, Morocco, and Zana Cimili in Pristina, Kosovo, contributed.

According to the sheriff’s office, deputies responded to a complaint involving a reported felonious assault before the incident escalated into a police pursuit.

Police said the encounter ended in a fatal shooting involving deputies from the sheriff’s office.

In keeping with department protocol, the deputies involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave following the incident.

The Michigan State Police was requested to conduct an external and independent investigation.

The sheriff’s office said it has since been informed that Michigan State Police completed its investigation and submitted the case to the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office.

Officials said the matter is currently under review by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.

Police said no additional updates have been provided at this time.

The sheriff’s office said it currently has no further updates from the attorney general’s office.

Among the dozens of companies taking part, including well-known players like Boston Dynamics and Toyota Motor Corp., the big stars now were clearly the Chinese.

Chinese newcomers, like Booster Robotics and LimX Dynamics, took the technology initially developed in Japan and the U.S. and fine-tuned it, often for cheaper mass production. It’s a repeat of what happened in other Japanese industries, from consumer electronics to cellphones and electric vehicles. In humanoids, Japan was initially ahead but then failed to produce major commercial solutions.

Tim Hornyuk, author of “Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots,” who was at the event, categorized it as the so-called “Galapagos syndrome,” referring to how innovative Japanese products evolve in isolation and end up not translating for the international market.

“I really hope that Japan can come up with a Ford Model T-version of humanoid roots. But I think China has already stolen their lunch. It’s a bit too little too late,” he said.

The dancing and wiggling Mini Pi Plus robot from High Torque of China, for instance, still can’t help at an auto plant or do your dishes. But it’s cute. And it doesn’t come with an eye-popping price tag, starting at $5,500.

Chinese robots are dominating

One telling example of Chinese robotics use in Japan was GMO, a Tokyo-based AI and robotics company working on a humanoid with camera eyes that will help with Japan Airlines cargo and other chores at an airport.

The key is to have the robot do the work in the same way as people so they would be interchangeable, an initiative meant to tackle the labor shortage problem that is increasingly serious in Japan.

The inner robotics workings were all courtesy of Unitree, a Chinese outfit, which is also working on a four-legged dog-like “stellar explorer.”

Experts say Japan, with its finesse in manufacturing, proved a good breeding ground for robotics development. The sociological backdrop of a public receptive to robotics also helped.

A recent Pew global survey showed that people in Japan are highly aware of AI but are less anxious about it, at about 28%, than people in the U.S. at 50%.

Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co., a leader in robotics with its walking humanoid Asimo, first shown in 2000, was demonstrating a motorized four-fingered robotic hand that could screw on and off tiny bolts, or thread a needle.

It didn’t seem to bother Keisuke Tsuta, assistant chief engineer, that similar mechanical hands were on display galore near his booth, many of them from Chinese makers.

Japanese robotics show their prowess

The technology Honda had developed is more durable and powerful than rival offerings, and the Japanese have historically shown they can excel at quality mass production, according to Tsuta.

The looming threat of a Chinese robotics domination didn’t seem to phase Osaka University Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, who has worked on humanoids for decades, including one that’s his clone.

“What’s significant is that Japan has a culture that’s receptive to robotics. If we’re going to really start using robots in society, Japan is the ideal place,” he said, stressing that Japanese don’t discriminate against robots.

His robotic counterpart, dressed all in black like the professor, did as good a job, if not better, of answering a key existentialist question on the meaning of robots.

“I think robots will coexist with people. Robots are the mirror of human beings,” the robot replied in a slightly monotonous but human-like voice.

Earlier, the professor had answered a similar question, but a bit differently.

“No one is interested in me. All everyone cares about is my robot,” he said, sitting next to his twin-like humanoid.

“As long as people identify with what I have produced, I am a success,” he added.

___

Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama

The seven villagers entered the cave in Xaisomboun province on May 19, but heavy rain triggered flash flooding that blocked the exit, according to Lao and Thai rescue teams involved in the operation.

Thai rescuer Chakkit Taengtang posted video of himself in the cave saying divers were delivering food and water to the five and planning to extract them as soon as possible.

All of the villagers are men, according to a Facebook post by the Lao group Rescue Volunteer for People.

“I’m still shaking. Our team made it happen,” Bounkham Luanglath, a member of the Lao rescue team, said in a voice message to The Associated Press. He said the search for the missing would continue.

A video posted by the rescue group appeared to show the moment divers emerged from the water and discovered the trapped men. In the footage, the men are wearing headlamps and sitting on a rock surrounded by floodwater.

Other videos showed rescuers inside and outside the cave cheering, jumping and hugging each other in joy after the discovery.

Another villager who went into the cave with the seven was able to escape when the flooding began, and he raised the alarm about the trapped men.

Rescue workers from neighboring Thailand arrived at the site over the weekend. Those helping out included several divers who took part in the complicated 2018 rescue in northern Thailand of 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach who were trapped for more than two weeks in a cave.

Miiko Paasi, a Thai-based Finnish diving instructor who participated in the rescue of the schoolboys and joined the search effort in Laos, said in a social media post that the men were “healthy and in good spirits,” but he warned that the extraction would not be easy.

The cave is in a rugged, remote area in Xaisomboun province’s Longcheng district, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital, Vientiane. Rescuers have detailed on social media the challenging mountainous terrain and heavy rain that has hampered their work.

Videos shared online by Thai rescuers showed that reaching the cave’s entrance requires a steep hike of roughly 4 kilometers (2.5 miles). The entrance is also steep and rocky and barely wide enough for a single person.

It's not clear why the villagers went into the cave. Bounkham has said that the cave was frequented by local residents looking for gold, despite repeated warnings about safety.

___

Associated Press journalists Tian Macleod Ji and Haruka Nuga in Bangkok contributed to this report.

The Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office announced that Robert Jordan was arraigned on Wednesday (May 27) in 41B District Court on three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Prosecutors allege the assaults occurred multiple times between June 2009 and December 2015 involving a juvenile victim.

Jordan is charged with three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a person under the age of 13 with a defendant at least 17 years old.

The felony carries a possible penalty of life in prison or any term of years, a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years, and lifetime electronic monitoring upon release.

Jordan also faces two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a person under the age of 13 with a defendant at least 17 years old.

The charge is punishable by up to 15 years in prison and lifetime electronic monitoring.

Prosecutors said the charges are the maximum allowed under the law based on the evidence currently available.

Jordan’s bond was set at $250,000 cash or surety only.

If released on bond, Jordan will be placed on house arrest with a steel-cuff GPS tether and ordered to have no contact with the victim or anyone younger than 18.

Jordan is scheduled to appear for a probable cause conference on June 8 at the 41B District Court in Clinton Township.

Court records did not indicate whether Jordan had retained an attorney.

Kenneth Herman Gianlorenzo, 42, of Flint, a registered sex offender, is accused of the attempted transfer of obscene material to minors and penalties for registered sex offenders.

An FBI Special Agent with the agency’s Detroit Division, Flint Resident Agency (FLRA) and member of the Northeast Michigan Trafficking and Exploitation Crimes Task Force (NEMTEC) -- which addresses crimes against children and human trafficking with local and state partners – who previously worked for the Livonia Police Department said the case against Gianlorenzo started on May 2, 2025, and lasted to about June 14, 2025.

Reddit user: ‘Pervdaddy84′

Law enforcement working undercover interacted on Reddit with a user named “Pervdaddy84.” The undercover agent said the user, later said to be Gianlorenzo, discussed child exploitation, expressed a desire for sexual contact with an undercover agent’s 12-year-old daughter, and said their age preference was “between 4 and 10 years old.” The user also identified themselves as being “from Flint, Michigan,” the complaint said.

The FBI said it received an “emergency disclosure” from Reddit saying another user, “Then-Inevitable-****,” was planning to bring children to “Pervdaddy84” in Michigan for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity. In that exchange, “Then-Inevitable-****” said he had a “6-year-old and 10-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son” who were to be sexually exploited, according to the feds.

Here is part of that alleged conversation (edited because of its graphic nature):

“Then-Inevitable-****”: “yeah, one of my girls is six other one is 10 boys is an eight. I’m more bisexual. I love [explicit] if you could pleasure my daughters and just let me (explicit act) and (explicit act) and maybe (explicit act) as payment and let my (explicit) and maybe (explicit) dressed up that would be cool.”

“Pervdaddy84”: “Why wouldn’t I. F---…”

“Pervdaddy84” and “Then-Inevitable-****” allegedly further described the plans shown below:

“Then-Inevitable-****”: First of all, where are you at? Are you single? Can you host or be my motel?

“Pervdaddy84”: “I can host. Or meet at a hotel. Doesn’t matter. I’m in Flint”

The feds said “Then-Inevitable-****” later asked for a picture of “Pervdaddy84”’s genitals to show his daughter and said his daughter was “right there” at the time. The FBI then said “Pervdaddy84” sent “two images of an adult male penis,” describing details in the photos including an “olive-colored blanket with a distinct design” and pants pulled down to the knees with an “orange and black waistband” that was visible.

According to the FBI, “Then-Inevitable-****” was identified as being in New York. Information, they said, was quickly given to New York law enforcement “for immediate action.” The feds also said the two users tried to make plans to meet so “Pervdaddy84” could have sex with at least some of the other user’s children, discussing trying to do so in Lapeer, Michigan. The complaint said it did not appear the other user really had children, but it was unclear whether he had access to other minors.

Reddit also reported additional conversations to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

Explicit chats allegedly reach the Netherlands

One reported exchange involved “Pervdaddy84” and a user named “emma-c*ms” on May 7, 2025, tied to a CyberTip. The feds said “emma-c*ms” claimed to have a “9-year-old daughter” and asked whether “Pervdaddy84” had consent to take the girl’s virginity and what he would do if she resisted. The FBI said “Pervdaddy84” replied: “Tell her, Daddy loves her and she’ll learn to like it…” That’s when, according to the complaint, “Pervdaddy84” used graphic terms and described how “force” would be used.

In that conversation, the feds said “Pervdaddy84” identified being from Michigan and “emma-c*ms” said they were on the “opposite side of the world.” NCMEC records identified “emma-c*ms” as located in the Netherlands, and the information was given to the Dutch Child Exploitation Team. The feds said “emma-c*ms” described “hands on” sexual acts she had performed with her two children.

Another NCMEC-reported conversation involved “Pervdaddy84” and the user “sadgurl000***” on April 9, 2025, court records show. The FBI said “sadgurl000***” said they were a minor -- saying they did not drive yet, raising concerns about how to address an aunt if “Pervdaddy84” came over. The alleged minor also expressed fear of getting in trouble.

The context of the conversation allegedly further described knowledge of age detailed below:

“sadgurl000***”: “Have you done stuff with someone my age before”“sadgurl000***”: “I’m scared to be hurt”“Pervdaddy84”: “Well I do love younger girls… so yeah. I wouldn’t hurt you. I fall so deep in love. It’s been forever and I just want someone that gets me and I can have a family with”

The FBI said in the same conversation, when the user said they were bathing, “Pervdaddy84” attempted to solicit child sexually abusive material (CSAM). Investigators worked quickly to identify who was behind the “Pervdaddy84” account.

Tracking down ‘Pervdaddy84′

The FBI then sent subpoenas to Reddit, and received an email address, IP logs and an IP address. They then sent a subpoena to Yahoo for that email address and received a recovery phone number. After searching multiple logs and numbers, an FBI CAST Special Agent determined the only common identifier across the available IP logs and addresses was a single phone number. The Special Agent then searched for that number in Cash App and found the name Ken Gianlorenzo, the complaint said.

Federal investigators said they were able to narrow their search in Michigan to one man: Kenneth Herman Gianlorenzo, born in 1984, with an address in Flint. The FBI said a criminal history search showed a prior felony conviction for Sexual Assault from New Hampshire, making Gianlorenzo a registered sex offender. Based on the statute of conviction, the feds said, the offense “likely involved a minor.”

More criminal convictions

On May 12, 2026, a search of the Michigan Sex Offender Registry confirmed Gianlorenzo was “in compliance,” and had last reported on May 11, 2026. Registry information listed the same Flint address and the same phone number.

That same day, the FBI searched his phone. Then, on May 20, 2026, they searched his Flint home and said Gianlorenzo was inside at the time. Agents seized a Samsung phone from him and said a sticker on the back listed the same International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI).

During the search, agents also found an olive blanket with a distinct design that matched the blanket seen in the earlier explicit images. They said they also found those orange pajama pants that appeared to match the waistband seen in previous images.

Gianlorenzo was scheduled for a detention hearing on May 26, 2026, and records show an order of detention pending trial.

The Asian elephant was put to sleep Tuesday at the zoo where she lived for almost a half-century. Zoo officials said some age-related conditions accelerated in recent weeks, and she showed signs of a falloff in kidney or liver function. A necropsy revealed arthritis and large, inoperable uterine tumors that are impossible to diagnose in elephants through exams or imaging, the zoo said.

“She was a wonderful elephant,” interim zoo director Craig Piper said in an interview Wednesday, as heavy-hearted staffers absorbed the loss of an animal some had tended for over 30 years. “She served as a tremendous ambassador for elephants and for elephant conservation.”

Since Happy’s death, the zoo's 57-year-old Patty is the last elephant on exhibit in the United States’ largest city. The zoo’s parent institution, the Wildlife Conservation Society, decided 20 years ago to stop acquiring pachyderms.

Born in the wild in Asia, Happy was brought to the U.S. as a 1-year-old. She was named for a character from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” before arriving at the zoo in 1977.

Happy keenly engaged with her keepers and was easy to motivate with favorite treats, such as watermelon or strawberries, said Keith Lovett, the zoo’s director of animal programs. Piper said she sometimes stashed treats in her ear to save for later.

In 2005, she showed researchers that elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror — a sign of self-awareness seen in only a few other species. During the experiment, Happy faced her reflection and repeatedly used her trunk to touch an "X" painted above her eye, a mark she could see only in the mirror.

She was paired with other elephants until her last partner died in 2006. Happy then lived separately from Patty and a third elephant out of concern that they wouldn't get along, though Lovett said the animals could see, smell and touch each other over a divider. The third elephant, called Maxine, died in 2018.

Zoo officials said the median life expectancy for Asian elephants in U.S. zoos is about 45 years. Their life expectancy in the wild is more difficult to pinpoint.

During Happy’s lifetime, zoo elephant exhibits came under increased scrutiny. Some experts said urban animal parks were too small for creatures that roam extensive distances in the wild. Animal rights activists argued that zoo enclosures were no place for big-brained, social pachyderms.

Some zoos phased out their exhibits and sent elephants to sanctuaries, though some other zoos remain committed to keeping and breeding the creatures, arguing that they help keep people interested in saving wildlife.

One activist group, the Nonhuman Rights Project, sued the Bronx Zoo in 2018, seeking to have Happy declared a “person” for legal purposes and moved to a large animal sanctuary. It was the first such case about an elephant, according to the group.

Citing a principle that’s used to challenge the legality of a person’s imprisonment, the activist group said Happy was “an extraordinarily cognitively complex and autonomous nonhuman being” who was unlawfully deprived of her liberty and suffered from being pent up in a exhibit without other elephants.

Zoo officials said Happy was assiduously cared for and had space for swimming, foraging and other natural behavior. Uprooting her from her longtime home could harm her, the zoo said.

New York’s top court ultimately rejected the activists’ claim, by a 5-2 majority. Colorado's highest court later issued a similar ruling about five elephants in a zoo there.

Still, two of the New York high court judges wrote pointed dissents. One called Happy’s captivity “inherently unjust and inhumane” and “an affront to a civilized society.”

The Nonhuman Rights Project has continued pursuing cases about elephants in various other states.

The group's executive director, Christopher Berry, said in an statement Wednesday night that Happy “will always be remembered as the elephant who opened the courtroom doors to consideration of nonhuman animals’ legal rights.”

Happy spent her final weeks, by her choice, in an off-exhibit barn and yard within her enclosure, Piper said. In a zoo version of hospice care, staffers provided hydration, nutrition and pain management, he said.

Meanwhile, Patty is doing well, the zoo said.

The Wildlife Conservation Society said in 2006 that once there was only one elephant, the animal might be moved to another zoo if circumstances were right. Piper said the zoo will be “really thoughtful and careful” in contemplating whether to move Patty from her home of 53 years.

One day might not seem like much in the grand scheme, but it was a seismic delay in plans for the unprecedented and daring invasion, which would deploy nearly 160,000 Allied troops in Normandy. Ultimately it came down to a recommendation from a shrewd Scottish meteorologist, Group Capt. James Stagg, who had to tell everyone, including Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Allied leadership, something they didn’t want to hear: The weather was going to be catastrophically bad. And no, he wasn’t certain about it.

The tense 72 hours before the invasion are brought to life in “Pressure,” in theaters May 29, on the eve of the operation’s 82nd anniversary. An adaptation of David Haig’s acclaimed stage play, the film sheds light on this bit of history that would effectively change the course of the second World War.

The very different styles of Brendan Fraser and Andrew Scott

Filmmaker Anthony Maras assembled a unique group of actors for the task at hand, calling on Brendan Fraser to play Eisenhower and Andrew Scott to play Stagg.

“I didn’t think I was an Ike Eisenhower when Anthony Maras sent me the script,” Fraser said. “I got on a Zoom call and he said, ‘You gotta do this man.’ Me? Why? ‘It’s because he’s you, he’s like you. He’s just a regular guy.’ Really? I mean, I thought Eisenhower was this, you know, stern, staunch, something on coin.”

Fraser went deep in his preparation, reading and listening to everything he could get his hands on to help him understand the man who would ultimately have to make the decision. The research even continued on set. Maras laughed that right before they shot Eisenhower’s famous “soldiers, sailors and airmen” speech, something that they’d rehearsed many, many times, he looked up and saw Fraser reading yet another biography. But he appreciated that the Oscar-winner was passionate about knowing everything he possibly could to get it right.

“He cared intensely for his troops,” Fraser said. “It was my responsibility to honor their memory and to comport myself in a way that puts a human face on the seemingly academic decisions that go into an operation as massive as this.”

Scott was the opposite in terms of how he approached his role. Yes, he read Stagg’s book and wanted to have a working understanding of the metrological jargon he’d have to be spouting. While history was important, for him, character was king. And he liked that Stagg is not the most immediately likable person, but he has integrity.

“The thing with Stagg is that he’s just not interested in charm … or being liked at all,” Scott said. “I think that’s to be admired actually, because he’s just there to do a job. So I like the fact that at the beginning of the movie, you’re like, whoa, this guy is not pleasant.”

Maras said that for Scott, it was all about the inner, emotional life of the character — which was essential for a part that would require so much internal conflict.

“With Andrew, he has a quality to him where he can seemingly be doing very little — he’s sitting down, rearranging his tie, he can be reading a phone book — and you can’t look away,” Maras said.

In the shadow of ‘Saving Private Ryan’

The actors weren’t the only ones feeling pressure of the assignment: Maras also had a behemoth looming in attempting to stage, however briefly, the D-Day invasion.

“You’ve kind of got to be crazy maybe to attempt it, given that Spielberg did it so masterfully,” Maras said.

But unlike “Saving Private Ryan,” which focused on the men storming the beach, “Pressure” is about the ones making the decisions. It’s a different perspective. Still, once they make the call to go, there would have to be at least some of the operation shown to juxtapose with the “bloody tense, wire-type atmosphere of the control room,” Maras said.

Inspired by Peter Jackson’s World War I documentary “They Shall Not Grow Old,” and the existence of dozens of hours of pristine 35 mm black and white film from the event, Maras decided that perhaps archival footage, colorized, would be the way to go. It was a different way to present D-Day that gave it immediacy, he said, as opposed to looking like history.

‘Pressure’s’ relevance to today

Ultimately, “Pressure” isn’t just a history lesson, or even a character drama with big personalities and even bigger stakes: It’s a portrait of leadership and ego clashing with facts and science. And its relevance to the present day is the reason Maras wanted to make the film in the first place.

“How do you bring your best self to the table to make the decision? How do you have the humility to acknowledge when you don’t know something? And how do you have the wisdom to determine who to trust? … Eisenhower in the end showed that he was a maestro at that,” Maras said. “What I love about the Stagg character is he’s someone who feels compelled to tell someone something that they don’t want to hear, that they violently don’t want to but they need to hear. The world needs more of that.”

Years later, John F. Kennedy, on the way to his own inauguration, asked Eisenhower what gave them the edge on D-Day. His response? “We had better meteorologists than the Germans.”

“When life or death depends on you understanding the facts, it probably has a way of like cutting up the BS and getting to it,” Maras said. “It’s a very clear example of a time where the Allied worlds’ future was at stake and they listened to someone who knew what he was talking about and they did all right.”

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For more coverage of summer films, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/movies

The government’s largest-ever claim for compensation relates to contamination with per- and polyfluoroaklyl substances, known as PFAS, at 28 bases. Human-made PFAS are commonly referred to as “forever chemicals” because they don't break down naturally.

Australia filed the suit in the Federal Court of Australia against Minnesota-based 3M Company and its subsidiary 3M Australia.

3M said it would fight Australia’s claim.

“3M has never manufactured PFAS in Australia and ceased sales of the products at issue in Australia around two decades ago,” 3M said in a statement. “Despite this, the (Australian) Department of Defense continued to use PFAS-containing firefighting foams for nearly two decades longer.”

PFAS has been used since the 1950s in household and industrial products that resist heat, stains, grease and water. The firefighting foam containing PFAS was effective against fuel fires.

The Australian Defense Department warned residents near its Richmond Air Base outside Sydney in 2018 to reduce their consumption of locally produced fish and eggs, after PFAS was found in nearby groundwater.

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland on Thursday accused 3M of withholding information about environmental risks the foam posed.

“The Commonwealth (of Australia) is seeking more than AU$2 billion ($1.4 billion) in damages to recover significant past and future expenses incurred in investigating and managing contamination resulting from the historic storage and use of this foam,” Rowland told reporters.

Assistant Defense Minister Peter Khalil said his department had already spent AU$1.3 billion ($920 million) on managing and mitigating environmental impacts of the foam. The department had removed 200,000 metric tons (220,000 U.S. tons) of contaminated earth from bases and treated 13 billion liters (3.4 billion gallons) of contaminated water, Khalil said.

“We are prepared to take on powerful corporations when Australians and Australian communities have been impacted,” Khalil said.

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This story has been corrected to show the lawsuit has been lodged in an Australian court.

U.S. Southern Command posted video on social media showing a boat resting on the water before being struck by an explosion. The last few seconds of the video show smoke and fire rising from the boat.

A day earlier, U.S. forces had launched a strike on an alleged drug vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing one man and leaving two survivors. Southern Command said it “immediately notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors.”

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 196 people in total. The military has not provided evidence that any of the vessels were carrying drugs.

The Pentagon watchdog said last week that it will evaluate whether the U.S. military followed an established targeting framework when carrying out the attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats. The six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle include a military commander’s intent, target development, analysis, decision, execution and assessment.

The Pentagon inspector general’s office said the review was “self-initiated.” It will not probe the legality of the strikes, which have drawn intense scrutiny from some Democratic lawmakers and military legal scholars.

The Trump administration says the U.S. is at war against the Latin American drug cartels, which it says are responsible for the scourge of fatal drug overdoses plaguing many American communities.

Apart from social media and messaging, Tencent’s WeChat offers payment services called WeChat Pay, or Weixin Pay, in mainland China. Tencent said in a statement that the feature will be available to U.S.-based PayPal users first, with more markets to follow.

Since cashless payments have become increasingly common in China, the move is likely to provide greater convenience to foreign visitors.

WeChat Pay and Ant Group’s Alipay, part of the Alibaba e-commerce empire, are widely available across China including in taxis and restaurants.

Making cashless payments easier for tourists aligns with China’s efforts to bring in more foreign tourists, said Gary Ng, a senior economist for Asia Pacific at French bank Natixis.

Tourism contributed more than 4% of China’s economy in 2024, official data show.

China has been expanding visa free access to travelers from dozens of countries including the U.K., Spain and Australia. That change has not yet been extended to U.S. travelers, who still need a visa to enter China, except for brief transits for those heading on to third countries.

The number of foreign visitors, excluding those from Hong Kong and Taiwan, plunged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when China closed its doors to most foreign arrivals and imposed stringent quarantines in many places.

But it has since surged past the nearly 32 million visitors recorded in 2019, to over 35 million last year.

Ng said the PayPal move also aligns with a global trend of integration of payment platforms through mutually recognized cross-border QR codes.

Ivan Su, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said the impact of the QR code option with PayPal initially may be limited in terms of its overall benefit for Tencent given the current low volume of U.S. travelers to China.

WeChat Pay has allowed users to link their foreign bank cards since 2019. Tencent also said it will also be offering a transaction fee waiver for first time users linking their international bank cards to WeChat to encourage wider use of that option.

Tencent said such transactions by foreign travelers in China jumped nearly 80% year-on-year in January-April.

The 2 1/2-year investigation and prosecution that followed came to a close Wednesday with the sentencing of his personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, who bought him the drugs, gave him injections, and found him dead in the hot tub of the house they shared on Oct. 23, 2023. The 54-year-old “Friends” star had told Iwamasa to shoot him up “with a big one.”

Here’s a chronological look at the end of Perry’s life, drawn from federal court documents, a medical examiner’s investigation and law enforcement reports.

The final month

Sometime in September of 2023 — Perry asks Iwamasa to help him get illegal ketamine. Working with his regular doctor, Perry had been receiving legal ketamine treatments for depression — an increasingly common off-label use of the surgical anesthetic. But he wanted more. Perry’s family members would later say they had known Iwamasa for decades, and trusted him to help keep the actor sober.

Sept. 30, 2023 — Told by a patient that he knew a prominent person willing to pay big money for ketamine, Dr. Salvador Plasencia meets with Perry and Iwamasa at their home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. Plasencia texts a doctor friend, Mark Chavez, who agrees to obtain ketamine for him. “I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia texts Chavez. Later the same day, Plasencia returns to Perry’s house, where Iwamasa pays him $4,500 in cash for four vials. Plasencia gives Perry two injections, and teaches Iwamasa how to do it.

Oct. 2, 2023 — Iwamasa texts Plasencia seeking more ketamine, referring to it in code as “dr pepper.” Plasencia appears, gives Perry the injections, and leaves behind more vials.

Oct. 4. 2023 — Iwamasa injects Perry without help for the first time. He texts the doctor that he had found “the sweet spot” to put the needle into his boss, but that trying different spots on Perry had led to them running out of ketamine and says they need more. Plasencia texts Chavez asking if he can keep supplying the drug so they can become Perry’s “go-to.”

Oct. 8, 2023 — In a late night meetup at a Santa Monica shopping plaza, Plasencia sells Iwamasa four vials of ketamine for $6,000 in cash.

Oct. 10, 2023 — Iwamasa drives Perry to a public parking lot in Long Beach to meet with Plasencia. The doctor sells them more ketamine and gives an injection to Perry as he sits in a car. The same day, Perry asks a friend about other sources. She sends him to Erik Fleming, a licensed drug counselor she knows who has relapsed into addiction.

Oct. 11, 2023 — Fleming messages Iwamasa that he can get ketamine from a dealer he knows, Jasveen Sangha, who prosecutors dub “The Ketamine Queen.” Fleming says she only deals “with high end and celebs.”

Oct. 12, 2023 — Plasencia goes to Perry’s house, where he is paid $21,000 in cash, some of it owed to him for previous ketamine buys. While there, he injects Perry. The actor immediately freezes up and his blood pressure spikes. The assistant said the doctor told him, “let’s not do that again.”

Oct. 13, 2023 — Perry gets a sample of Sangha’s ketamine and tries it. He and Iwamasa ask for 25 vials of it, for which they pay $5,500 to Sangha and another $500 to Fleming. Fleming drops it off at Perry’s house a day later.

Around Oct. 20, 2023 — Perry receives his last legal ketamine treatment from his regular physician.

The final week

Oct. 23, 2023 — Iwamasa pays $6,000 to Fleming and Sangha for 25 more vials of ketamine.

Oct. 24, 2023 — Iwamasa gives Perry six to eight injections, a daily dosage that would continue until the actor’s death.

Oct. 25, 2023 — Fleming makes a third and final delivery of another 25 vials of ketamine for another $6,000. This batch includes the fatal dose.

Oct. 27, 2023 — With the supply coming from Sangha, Perry and Iwamasa had been out of touch with Plasencia for about two weeks. Plasencia texts Iwamasa, saying he had more to offer: “I know you mentioned taking a break. I have been stocking up.”

The final day

Oct. 28, 2023, about 8:30 a.m. — Using syringes from Plasencia and ketamine from Sangha, Iwamasa gives Perry an injection.

About 11 a.m. — Perry plays pickleball.

About 12:45 p.m. — Iwamasa gives Perry his second shot of the day, and the actor begins watching a movie.

About 1:30 p.m. — Iwamasa gives Perry his third and final injection of the day while Perry sits in or near his backyard Jacuzzi. “Shoot me up with a big one,” Iwamasa remembers Perry telling him. Iwamasa leaves to run errands.

About 4 p.m. — Iwamasa returns home to find Perry face down in the Jacuzzi. Paramedics arrive minutes later and declare Perry dead. When Iwamasa talks to police, he does not mention Perry’s illegal ketamine consumption, or his role in it, and hides evidence of it. Sangha and Fleming learn of Perry’s death and delete their message history.

The aftermath

Dec. 15 — An autopsy report is released, saying the acute effects of ketamine were the primary cause of Perry’s death, with drowning as a secondary cause.

January 2024 — A search warrant is served at Perry and Iwamasa’s home. Over the course of several interviews, the assistant admits to his role in Perry's illegal drug use. He points investigators to Fleming and gives them information on Plasencia, whom they have already identified.

March 2024 — A search warrant is served on Fleming's sister's home, where he was staying. He gave up Sangha to prosecutors and became an essential witness along with Iwamasa.

Aug. 7, 2024 — Iwamasa pleads guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death. He will be sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.

Aug. 8, 2024 — Fleming pleads guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. He will be sentenced to two years in prison.

Oct. 2, 2024 — Chavez pleads guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine. He will get eight months of home detention.

July 23, 2025 — Plasencia pleads guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine. He will get 2 1/2 years in prison.

Sept. 3, 2025 — Sangha pleads guilty to three counts of distribution of ketamine, one count of using her home for a drug operation and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. She will get 15 years in prison.

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A version of this story first moved on Aug. 16, 2024.

The national survey results, released Thursday, show the all-ages uninsured rate has stayed significantly down from where it was several years ago, but the ranks of the uninsured could soon expand as the Trump administration’s sweeping changes to the health landscape begin to take hold.

Massive changes to Medicaid, the government’s safety-net health program for low-income Americans, passed into law last year could result in 10 million more uninsured individuals over a decade, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.

And the expiration this year of certain Affordable Care Act subsidies — which had offset premium costs — is also contributing to reduced participation in marketplace health programs. Around 5 million fewer people are expected to enroll in those plans in 2026 compared with 2025, according to the healthcare research nonprofit KFF.

The government has multiple programs for tracking Americans’ insurance status, which can give different numbers depending on factors like timing and question wording. Many researchers consider the U.S. Census Bureau to be “the official scorekeeper,” said David Howard, an Emory University health policy and management professor.

But the CDC survey results tracks closely with that, and they offer the first complete data for all of 2025 — the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term in office.

The Trump administration has sought to expand access to low-premium catastrophic health insurance plans and lower drug prices for Americans who don’t have health insurance. It has also suggested that projected insurance enrollment declines indicate a drop-off of fraudulent and ineligible enrollees, rather than eligible Americans.

Although the share of insured and uninsured stayed roughly the same in 2025 as the year before, the number of uninsured grew by about 800,000 — 300,000 of them children. The growth of the overall U.S. population helps explain that.

The survey results also suggest a possible increased insured rate among Hispanic Americans. But that may in part reflect the effects of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, if uninsured members of that group left the country, Howard said.

Most Americans 65 and older have health insurance through the federal Medicare program. It's different for younger Americans, many of whom are covered through a patchwork of public and private insurance programs.

The percentage of Americans under 65 who were uninsured rose in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s — from 12% in 1980 to more than 18% in 2010. It fell following passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which expanded Medicaid programs and enacted measures to make affordable health insurance available to more people.

By 2016 it dropped nearly to 10%, before rising to 11 to 12% during Trump’s first administration, according to historical survey data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw the rate of uninsured fall again, as a result of government policies put in place to preserve coverage as people faced disruptions related to the pandemic. The rate hit an all-time low in 2023, falling below 9%.

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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.

Those processes can require significant amounts of water, energy and chemicals — part of the reason denim has become a growing target for sustainability efforts across the fashion industry, which is among the world’s biggest producers of greenhouse gas emissions.

Brands are responding to wider awareness by marketing their jeans as “sustainable,” touting regenerative cotton, recycled fibers and low-water manufacturing techniques. But figuring out if that's true is far more complicated. For one, sustainability is difficult to define — and there isn't a universal set of standards.

Last week, Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein acquired Everlane, a brand known for transparency and sustainability efforts, highlighting broader tensions over scale and affordability. Improvements in sustainable processes typically cost more, making it difficult for companies with fast production cycles and low prices to adopt them widely. Consumers are left to navigate a complicated web of tradeoffs involving farming practices, chemical processes, labor ethics and a wide range of prices.

Experts say people can find sustainable denim by learning how jeans are actually made.

It all starts with cotton farming

Most jeans are made from cotton, a crop that can require large amounts of water, fertilizer and pesticides.

Beth Jensen, chief impact officer at the nonprofit Textile Exchange, said many brands still lack full visibility into where their cotton comes from. Because denim production often spans multiple countries and suppliers, it can also be difficult to track labor conditions.

“We as an industry, collectively, have a long way to go on this,” she said.

As concern grows over fashion’s environmental impact, some brands have looked to solutions like regenerative cotton, which focuses on soil health, biodiversity and reducing synthetic chemical use. But as Jensen said, what’s feasible on a farm in California might not be in a place like India or Australia because of their different climates.

Why producing denim is labor and energy-intensive

After cotton is harvested, it is spun into yarn and dyed — typically with indigo, a process that can involve significant water use and chemical treatments. It's then woven into denim fabric, and cut and sewn into jeans.

Jeans then usually go through finishing treatments to create different shades, fades and distressed textures. Bill Curtin, owner of New Jersey-based BPD Washhouse, said denim-finishing is divided into “wet” and “dry” processes.

The wet process involves washing jeans with water, chemicals and treatments that lighten or tint the denim. Historically, brands have used pumice stones to achieve a worn, stonewashed look — with stones often shipped from Mexico, adding transport emissions and cost to the process. Many facilities are now switching to enzyme-based alternatives and ozone technologies that use less water.

The dry process creates abrasions, whiskers and ripped details either by hand or with laser technology, which Curtin said is more efficient and less labor-intensive.

Many stretchy jeans also contain fabrics like polyester or elastane — fossil fuel-derived synthetics that can shed microplastics over time.

But making sustainable denim is challenging

Fashion designer Maria McManus spent years wanting to add denim to her low-impact line but couldn’t find a way to do it that aligned with her values. The culprit, she said, was always the washing process.

“From a water and chemical perspective, it’s very invasive,” she said.

So instead she sourced dark, raw denim from Japan — indigo, minimal processing — and skipped the wash stage altogether, avoiding the faded and distressed look that define most commercial jeans. It was a deliberate constraint, and it held for years.

A breakthrough came when she collaborated on a collection with Agolde, a larger denim brand. Along with its parent company Citizens of Humanity, it's respected in the fashion industry for its focus on regenerative cotton farming.

Working with the company gave McManus access to infrastructure her small brand couldn’t build alone — a consulting agency that connected her with regenerative cotton farmers, a vetted indigo-dyeing process using biochemical rather than petrochemical dyes, and rigorous supply chain traceability.

But even that process, she said, isn’t simple. Organic and regenerative cotton crops can fail. Supply chains are hard to verify. “You know when they tell you their harvest failed” that they're honest, she said of one supplier. “I know I can trust them because really, what they should have done as business people or capitalists was just get regular cotton — because nobody is testing this stuff.”

But that often leads to higher prices. A pair of jeans from McManus’ brand is nearly $700 — a function of small production runs, she said. “It’s truly a units game.”

Finding the most sustainable pair of jeans

Experts say consumers should be wary of vague sustainability claims and instead look for brands that provide detailed information about their sourcing and manufacturing processes.

Dana Davis, a strategic fashion adviser who led sustainability efforts for the label Mara Hoffman, encouraged shoppers to look beyond a single product page and examine whether brands discuss labor rights, textiles and manufacturing sites across their entire business — not just in a capsule collection.

“If a brand really explains the whys behind why they’re doing these things, then you can get a sense of, ‘OK, this feels authentic,’” Davis said. But she added that “greenwashing” — overstating sustainability claims — can make it difficult for consumers to figure out what's legitimate.

Certifications can help, though Davis cautioned there is no single label that guarantees sustainability. One worth seeking out is the B Corp certification, which evaluates companies’ social and environmental performance. Some tree-based fibers like lyocell, a material commonly blended into jeans, may come from sources vetted by Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), indicating the wood pulp was sourced from responsibly managed forests.

But one of the simplest ways to reduce denim’s environmental footprint is also the least glamorous: To buy fewer jeans, wear them longer, wash them less and shop secondhand.

According to a life cycle assessment by Levi Strauss & Co., if 34.2 million people — or the equivalent of 1 in 10 Americans — bought a pair of secondhand jeans this year instead of new ones, it would avoid roughly 1.5 billion pounds (roughly 0.7 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the emissions of about 150,000 gasoline cars.

“The most sustainable thing you can do,” Jensen said, “is use a product that’s already been made.”

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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.

Talarico has given Democrats their best chance in years of winning a Senate race in Texas and has boosted their still-uphill chances of retaking the majority in the U.S. Senate in November. Talarico, a former middle school teacher and a state lawmaker from Austin, laid out a clear strategy for the months ahead: Litigating Paxton’s scandals to a weary electorate.

“Ken Paxton is the most corrupt politician in America,” Talarico told a crowd of about 1,000 supporters who packed a dance club in downtown Houston. “He has failed the character test. He has put his own interests above the laws of Texas. Those are not my words, those are the words of Ken Paxton’s fellow Republicans.”

He also sought to tie what he called the “rot” at the heart of the nation's political system to the everyday problems faced by many voters, driving home the concerns over rising costs that have been part of Democrats' wider messaging strategy for this year's midterm elections.

"In America, we have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis," Talarico told the crowd.

Talarico's messaging is tougher than in the primary

It was a stark pivot from the more sunny, spiritual theme of Talarico's Democratic primary campaign. Now, he's leaning into the same arguments against Paxton that Republican Senate leaders feared would make the attorney general a weaker candidate than Sen. John Cornyn, who Paxton beat in Tuesday's Republican runoff.

The diverse crowd in Houston held signs emblazoned with “Talarico,” but with a new twist. On the flipside was the campaign's new theme: “THE PEOPLE vs. KEN PAXTON.”

Phrased like a court case aimed at the state's chief law enforcement officer, the theme was launched on the day that also marked the third anniversary of Paxton's impeachment on allegations he used his office to benefit a wealthy political donor.

Paxton was acquitted on all 20 articles of impeachment, which has emboldened him and fueled his supporters. Many of them have long held that he and President Donald Trump, who endorsed him, have been victims of political persecution.

But the message seemed to resonate with many at Talarico's rally.

Monique Green, a retired elementary school teacher from Houston, said the most important part of the “The People vs. Ken Paxton” sign she clutched to her chest while standing in line to meet Talarico were its first two words.

“It’s a declaration that it’s about us," she said. "We are the ones, all of us, what we can definitely do together. And he inspires us to act. He doesn’t just talk — he believes.”

Campaign aides said Talarico had raised $600,000 in small, on-line donations within two hours of Paxton’s win in the Republican Texas runoff Tuesday, the most lucrative two hours for his campaign since he announced he was running in September 2025.

Turning personal attacks into campaign slogans

One of the first speakers at the rally was the Democratic state representative who co-led Paxton’s impeachment, Ann Johnson, alongside a Republican lawmaker.

Talarico emphasized that the impeachment over corruption allegations was brought by the Republican majority in the Texas statehouse, Paxton's own party. After his rally, he said he is making the campaign about Paxton’s record because “he has escaped accountability for years.”

Paxton's campaign declined to comment. But after Talarico finished speaking, Paxton posted a link to his campaign's donation page on the social platform X with a personal attack on his opponent: “James Talarico and his big vegan allies have raised a fortune trying to stop the America First agenda. I need your help!” he wrote.

It echoed a line from Paxton after his runoff victory on Tuesday, and Talarico had a response ready for his supporters at the Houston rally: "I’ve been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton’s first indictment,” he said.

The vegan jab is part of Paxton’s attempt to seek out what he considers weak points in Talarico’s campaign, including past statements in which Talarico said God is nonbinary and that there were six biological sexes. And in a strategy reminiscent of Trump, Paxton also has been testing nicknames for his opponent.

They included “TalaFreako," which Talarico turned to his advantage Wednesday night. He told his supporters they could go to his campaign website and buy T-shirts stamped with the new nickname.

In an interview with CBS News ahead of Wednesday's rally, Talarico responded to the claims about his beliefs on gender, saying that what he means is that “God cannot be defined by human categories" and there were “two sexes, men and women."

“I also know there’s a very small percentage of people who have these chromosomal abnormalities, and I believe that they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” he said.

A weak backdoor cold front sliding through the region Wednesday night may spark a couple of isolated showers, mainly south of M-59 and closer to the Ohio border, but many neighborhoods are expected to stay dry.

Any showers that develop will fade quickly after sunset as cooler, drier air settles into the area overnight.

Thursday

By Thursday, Southeast Michigan will feel noticeably different compared to the 80s this week.

Afternoon temperatures will top out mainly in the lower to mid-70s, much closer to the late-May average high of around 75 degrees.

Areas near Lake Huron could stay even cooler, with highs around 60 degrees in Port Huron and mid-60s in parts of the Thumb, thanks to a northeast breeze coming off the chilly water.

The cooler air will come with sunshine, lower humidity, and a refreshing feel that many people may find ideal for outdoor plans.

It will be a great day to mow the lawn, take a walk or bike ride, sit outside at a restaurant, or spend time on the water.

Boaters should still keep in mind that northeast winds may occasionally gust near 20 mph, especially near the lakeshore, creating choppier conditions on Lake Huron and parts of Lake St. Clair.

Thursday

Even though temperatures will be cooler on Thursday, the late-May sun remains strong.

UV levels are climbing this time of year, and it does not take long to get too much sun exposure, especially with extended time outdoors.

Sunglasses, sunscreen, and hydration are still important, even on a mild day.

Friday

The comfortable pattern continues into the weekend as Detroit prepares to welcome crowds downtown for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix beginning Friday.

Temperatures are expected to warm back to near 80 degrees on Friday, with sunshine and dry weather, making for excellent conditions for the race festivities, outdoor dining, concerts, and riverfront activities.

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday cools slightly back into the lower 70s before temperatures rebound into the upper 70s Sunday and early next week.

Right now, the forecast looks largely dry through the weekend with only a chance of a stray shower arriving late Sunday night into Monday morning.

Sunset times

The extended daylight is also becoming more noticeable. Sunset in Metro Detroit is now approaching the 9 p.m. mark, with Wednesday night’s official sunset time at Detroit Metro Airport at 8:59 p.m.

The region is nearing its latest sunsets of the year, which occur in late June and early July at 9:13 p.m.

If you have sunset or weather photos, share them with Local 4 at MIPics.

Mathers, 51, of Chesterfield, is the ex-wife of rapper Eminem.

She was arrested on Thursday, May 14, booked into the Macomb County Jail, and later released.

In the video, an officer approaches Mathers after the crash and asks whether anyone was hurt.

“No,” Mathers responds, before explaining what she said caused the crash.

“When I came around the corner, there was a truck coming high beam at me, and I tried to put my high beams on; this is a new car, and I couldn’t see it, and I swerved out of the way of it, and I clipped a (expletive) parked car,” Mathers told police.

The officer then asks whether she had been drinking.

“You’re slurring really bad,” the officer says in the video.

Mathers acknowledged she had been drinking earlier in the day but said it was not recent.

“I did drink earlier but not recently,” Mathers said.

Field sobriety tests conducted roadside

Police conducted field sobriety testing on the side of the road, including an eye movement test and a preliminary breath test.

After Mathers provided a breath sample, the officer informed her of the results.

“Do you know what legally intoxicated is in the state of Michigan? .08,” the officer says. “You’re .20. You’re almost three times the legal limit.”

The officer then placed Mathers under arrest.

“Unfortunately, I have to place you under arrest,” the officer says. “You made a mistake tonight. It sucks, but we got to get through.”

No additional injuries were reported. Information regarding court proceedings or potential charges was not immediately available.

Arrest followed recent no-contest plea

The arrest came just days after Mathers pleaded no contest to charges stemming from a separate hit-and-run crash involving a parked vehicle.

Mathers entered the plea Monday, May 11, in the 42-2 District Court in New Baltimore.

That incident occurred Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, when Mathers was driving a white Range Rover and struck a silver Dodge Ram pickup truck parked on a street.

Police said the truck was pushed approximately 50 feet from where it had been parked, and authorities alleged Mathers was impaired at the time.

She was charged with operating while impaired, a 93-day misdemeanor, and failure to stop after a collision, a 90-day misdemeanor.

Following her arraignment, Mathers immediately pleaded no contest to both counts.

Mathers is scheduled for a sentencing hearing at the 42-2 District Court on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, at 9 a.m.

Watch the full body cam video below

Initially, it was thought the man was killed by an officer.

“They encountered a male subject who fired one shot at our officers,” Detroit police Chief Todd Bettison said on Wednesday (May 27) afternoon. “One officer returned a shot, returned fire, fatally wounding the subject.“

The incident happened just after 2 p.m. at a home on Lansdowne Street near Moross Road.

Police were executing a search warrant connected to a shooting that happened on Waltham St. on Saturday, where two young men shot up a home.

20-year-old Anthony Boone and his brother, 17-year-old DeMarco Ballard, were wanted in connection with the shooting, and police had tracked them to the home.

However, what was thought to be a police-involved shooting appears to have been a different kind of tragedy.

“After viewing the body-worn camera, which I had not had an opportunity to do at that time, it has become clear that the subject fatally shot itself,” Bettison said on Wednesday evening. “I have watched it 15 times, and it’s clear to me that the subject shot himself in the head with a handgun.”

The footage, which is not being made public at this time, shows officers coming through a bedroom door after escorting two women and a child from the home.

As the officer opens the door, Boone is seen sitting on his bed with a handgun to his head.

As the officer entered, one gunshot was fired.

The officer returned fire, then realized that Boone was already down.

The officer can be heard saying, “I think he shot himself.”

Bettison says that the officer, who was visibly shaken by what he saw, will be on administrative leave, adding that the loss of a young life is doubly tragic because he chose to end it before he faced consequences.

“We see sometimes, and we have seen individuals that when it’s time to pay, they choose another way out, that is, suicide,” Bettison said.

No one else was hurt in this incident, and police are still looking for Boone’s brother, Ballard.

He’s considered armed and dangerous, and police say not to approach him if you see him.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to contact the Detroit Police Department.

The incident occurred on Wednesday (May 27) around 8:47 p.m. near Greenfield Road.

Injuries to the motorcycle rider were reported, though the extent of those injuries has not been released.

Eastbound I-96 is expected to remain closed while investigators work at the scene.

Drivers are urged to avoid the area and seek alternate routes.

Additional information will be released as it becomes available.

“Small sample size,” the former Cy Young winner said.

What a sample, though.

After allowing two hits over six scoreless innings against Tampa Bay in his first major league start since Game 5 of the 2024 World Series against the Dodgers, the 35-year-old Cole did even better against struggling Kansas City. He allowed four hits while striking out 10 without a single walk, sending the Yankees to a 7-0 victory — their 14th straight win over the Royals.

“I feel like maybe the first game was the appetizer,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, “and that was the main course right there. That was surgical. You saw everything, like, good fastball, both breaking balls going, mixed in the cutter a little bit, made some really good change-ups along the way. There was good defensive plays behind him early and then he kind of cruised.”

Cole (1-0) needed only 79 pitches to get through 6 2/3 innings, and he probably could have gone deeper into the game against Kansas City. But at this point in what the Yankees hope is a long season, there was no reason to push Cole's once-ailing right elbow.

The closest the Royals came to scoring off him came in the third, when Michael Massey hit a one-out double. Cole bounced back to strike out Isaac Collins, bringing Maikel Garcia to the plate. He ripped a single to right field, Aaron Judge fielded a tough hop cleanly, and then made a perfect throw to catch Massey at the plate for the final out of the inning.

Cole also stranded Garcia at second base after a two-out double in the sixth. Salvador Perez singled off him in the seventh.

And that was it. All the runners Kansas City managed against him.

“I think it just reminds you of who he is, and how great a consistent pitcher he is,” Boone said. “And to see him go through the process the last several months to get back to this, and go out there and execute like he is here to start, it's fun to watch.”

Cole was brutally efficient, especially with his 96 mph fastball. He threw first-pitch strikes to 16 of the 23 batters he faced, and only a couple of batters even managed to drive the count to three balls against him the entire night.

“I expect to execute pitches. I don’t necessarily expect to not give up any runs, especially on 75 percent strikes. You’re putting a lot of pressure on guys,” Cole said. “So you have to play good defense, which is what we did tonight."

There was pressure on Cole to execute, too, because the Yankees never really gave him a cushion. They managed a pair of runs on a single by Paul Goldschmidt, a triple by Ben Rice and Judge's sacrifice fly, but the rest of their offense came after Cole departed.

It wasn't nearly as prolific as the Yankees' memorable 15-1 win Tuesday night in which they belted six homers and had 24 hits — and, in a first for one of the game’s historic franchises, every player in the New York starting lineup had at least two hits.

But with Cole back on the mound, they only needed a fraction of that offense Wednesday night.

“It's two games. Small sample size,” Cole said. “We still have stuff to improve, and just have to keep the same mindset that we have right now, and that's to take it one outing at a time.”

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

According to multiple reports, Fears withdrew his name from the NBA Draft and is set to return to the Spartans for his redshirt junior season.

Jeremy Fears Jr. is withdrawing from the 2026 NBA Draft and will return to Michigan State next season, per his agent Mike Miller.

Will be an All-American entering the 2026-27 season.

Fears had second-round options, but opted to return to East Lansing.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) May 28, 2026

Players had until 11:59PM ET on Wednesday to stay in the draft or return to college basketball.

Fears declared for the NBA Draft last month while keeping his college eligibility, and participated in the NBA Scouting Combine.

The MSU point guard led the country in assists in the 2025-26 season, averaging 9.4 assists per game for the Spartans.

Update: Detroit police revise initial account after body cam shows man fatally shot himself during search of home

It happened just after 2 p.m., Wednesday, May 27, near the intersection of Moross and Kelly roads.

Police said they were executing a search warrant connected to a shooting on Waltham Street on May 23.

Two women and a child were cleared from the home as they searched.

The officers reportedly found a closed bedroom door and when they opened it, a 20-year-old man inside fired a single shot at them. An officer returned fire, killing the man.

No officers were injured. A large police presence remains on the scene.

A 17-year-old boy, Demarco Ballard, wanted in the Waltham Street shooting, is still being sought. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Detroit Police Department at 313-596-5900

This is a developing story.

Mize started the game and threw four scoreless innings, striking out six, before leaving the game. The 29-year-old was making his third start after returning from the injured list because of a similar injury against the Atlanta Braves.

When healthy, the right hander has pitched well this year with a 2-3 record and 2.27 ERA over nine starts.

“Same area — just the sensation of it was less than last time,” Mize said. “Obviously, we’ll know more in the next couple days. But I don’t think it was as bad as what I felt in Atlanta. We’ll see how I wake up and feel.”

Jansen earned the first two outs of the ninth inning before leaving the game with a trainer. He was replaced by Brenan Hanifee, who recorded the final out to secure the Tigers’ 4-0 victory and snap a season-long, seven-game home losing streak.

Jansen has a 1-3 record, a 4.80 ERA and seven saves this season.

The Tigers have a disappointing 22-34 record this season, partly due to injuries. Other players currently on the injured list include ace left-hander Tarik Skubal and veteran right-hander Justin Verlander, along with hitters Parker Meadows, Kerry Carpenter, Javier Baez and Gleyber Torres.

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

U.S. Central Command forces shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones that posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The U.S. military also struck an Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth drone, the officials said.

Details about the strikes emerged after Trump, at a Cabinet meeting earlier Wednesday, expressed confidence that his administration was making headway on settling the war, even though the talks still remain very much in flux.

The president is looking for a settlement that will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and provide him with a credible argument that Iran’s nuclear capability has been diminished enough to declare victory, winding down a conflict that's been politically unpopular for Republicans.

But as things stand, Trump also risks finding that closure to his war of choice comes with an unsatisfactory ending.

The emerging deal puts off many critical issues to be resolved later and has already exposed the Republican president to fierce criticism — even from some of his own supporters — that Iran's hardline leaders will emerge from the conflict battered but emboldened. It all comes to a head just as the midterm elections to determine control of Congress come into focus and as Republicans worry that rising costs and fuel prices are darkening the American electorate's mood.

But Trump on Wednesday dismissed the idea that the upcoming elections would shape his Iran strategy.

“They thought they were gonna outwait me. You know, 'We’ll outwait him. He’s got the midterms,'” Trump said. “I don’t care about the midterms.”

Trump acknowledged there's still work to do, but he spoke with a measure of certainty that the two sides would get there.

“They want very much to make a deal,” Trump said. “So far, they haven’t gotten there. We’re not satisfied with it, but we will be — either that or we’ll have to just finish the job.”

The new strikes came after U.S. forces carried out what the Pentagon called “defensive” strikes on missile launch sites and minelaying boats in southern Iran on Monday. The U.S. has said it has acted with restraint with both of this week's military actions in light of the fragile, weekslong ceasefire that continues to hold.

Some Trump backers are skeptical

While Trump insists a deal is within reach, there appears to be daylight between the U.S. and Iran on several key issues. The president is also facing scrutiny from Republican allies, including Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas, who have said the terms seem too favorable to Tehran.

They're balking at aspects of the deal that have emerged publicly that they say too closely resemble the nuclear agreement reached with Iran by Democratic President Barack Obama, which Trump scrapped during his first term.

Under the potential deal, Tehran would agree to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium — a key Trump demand — in return for sanctions relief. That's according to two regional officials and one senior Trump administration official, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

One regional official, with direct knowledge of the negotiations, said how Iran would give up the uranium would be subject to further talks during a 60-day period. Some would likely be diluted, while the rest would be transferred to a third country, the official said.

But Trump said Wednesday that he “wouldn’t be comfortable” with either Russia or China taking Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The two countries have the closest relations with Tehran, and nuclear analysts have said they could be a potential acceptable third party to the Iranian Republic to take possession of the enriched uranium as part of a potential deal.

Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran has not publicly committed to giving up its uranium.

How Trump's plan affects Israel's war in Lebanon

Another key issue unresolved is whether the ceasefire will also cover Israel’s operations against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group in Lebanon. Iran has insisted that Lebanon must be covered by any ceasefire agreement negotiated with the United States.

The administration appears to leave some wiggle room on the Lebanon question. The emerging memorandum of understanding calls for a ceasefire between the U.S. and its allies against Iran and its proxies, such as Hezbollah, but also underscores Israel's right to act against imminent threats and in self-defense.

Israel's military and Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group continue to clash along a strategic river in southern Lebanon as Israeli troops pushed farther north.

Jonathan Conricus, a former spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, said Israel expects that Iran would quickly move to direct any sanctions relief to restore its military capability and boost proxy groups, including Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza.

“We’re not done fighting, because the Iranian regime isn’t done,” said Conricus, who is a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank.

‘Stunned silence’ as Trump ties Abraham Accords to Iran deal

Trump on Wednesday also reinforced his call that the deal should include a requirement for several additional countries, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan, to join the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-brokered agreements from Trump’s first term aimed at normalizing diplomatic and economic relations with Israel.

“We’re, you know, requesting strongly that they join,” Trump said.

Trump’s optimism that the other Middle Eastern and majority-Muslim countries could soon sign on to the accords might be overly ambitious.

For example, Saudi Arabia, the most significant power in the Arab world and long seen as the biggest prize for the normalization effort, has insisted that establishing a guaranteed path to a Palestinian state remains a precondition. It's something that Israel vehemently opposes.

Trump pushed for the Abraham Accords during a call with leaders of Mideast allies over the weekend.

Barbara Leaf, a retired U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and senior State Department official during President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, said officials from Gulf countries who were on the call told her that Trump’s pitch was greeted by “stunned silence.”

A person familiar with the call disputed that characterization and said that some regional allies responded positively to the president’s call to join the accords. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity about the private conversation.

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AP writers Matthew Lee, Michelle L. Price and Darlene Superville in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., Samy Magdy in Cairo and Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

The sanctions were announced late Wednesday after U.S. forces carried out strikes on an Iran military facility after downing Iranian attack drones, according to U.S. officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The sanctions move, first reported by The Associated Press, is the latest U.S. effort to use economic leverage on top of military action to push Iran’s leadership into an agreement to end the war and open the waterway where a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas normally passes. President Donald Trump has said a deal is imminent, but talks are ongoing.

Rising energy prices and other costs stemming from Iran’s effective closure of the strait have heaped political pressure on Trump and other Republicans ahead of the midterm congressional elections.

“The Iranian military’s latest attempt to extort global maritime trade is proof that Economic Fury has left the regime desperate for cash,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

The sanctions target Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority and any person or entity cooperating with the agency, announced earlier this month, that approves transit in the strait and charges tolls that could reach as high as $2 million per vessel.

Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has defended this oversight effort, saying the only safe route for transit through the critical waterway is through the corridor it has designated and saying any ships that deviate from that path face a series of attacks and risks.

Iran’s chokehold on the strait has caused worldwide energy shocks and followed the U.S. and Israel launching the war on Feb. 28. Prices have spiked for oil, gas and related products, and experts say it would take several weeks or even months for shipping and prices to recover once the waterway reopens.

In turn, the U.S. has blockaded Iranian ports for over a month, and Trump said it “will remain in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed.”

The latest economic penalties come as Washington and Tehran have been engaged in some of the most intense diplomacy and negotiations in years, aimed at bringing an end to the war and a pathway for a longer-term solution to issues between the longtime adversaries.

Trump said Wednesday that Iran is “negotiating on fumes” and said the sides are closing in on a deal even after the U.S. military said Monday that it had carried out “self-defense” strikes on missile launch sites and boats placing mines. Wednesday’s strikes are likely to cause more complications.

“They want very much to make a deal,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. “So far, they haven’t gotten there. We’re not satisfied with it, but we will be — either that or we’ll have to just finish the job.”

The Republican president also has reiterated his warning that fighting would resume if no deal is reached but has pulled back from those threats several times now in the last few months.