Anthropic said Friday it has taken its latest artificial intelligence models, known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5, offline to comply with the directive. The AI giant said it did not believe the steps taken by the government were warranted by the concern it flagged about a potential security issue.

Anthropic has said it was limiting use of some its latest technology to select customers because of its ability to surpass human cybersecurity experts in finding and exploiting computer vulnerabilities. The San Francisco-based company has had discussions with the White House previously about the latest models' capabilities.

In the letter Sunday, more than 100 cybersecurity experts and leaders from companies including Adobe and Nvidia asked the U.S. government to lift the export control directives on the Anthropic models and “commit to an open, scientific and transparent process of handling AI risk assessments in the future.”

The letter said that while Anthropic’s Mythos models are “quite good" at finding flaws in software and weaponizing exploits, they are ”not uniquely good at these tasks" and many of the letter's signatories regularly use other foundation and open-source models for security audits and training.

The letter said it is dangerous to take away the best cyber defense capabilities “without a good reason” when America's adversaries are rapidly advancing.

China's models, the letter said, are “only months behind the best American models,” and it is even likely that China's government has access to private capabilities beyond what's been made public.

The export controls marked the U.S. government’s most significant step yet to restrict access to the most advanced AI models. Anthropic released Fable widely last week. That model is a limited version of the more advanced Mythos, to which the company has tightly limited access due to cybersecurity fears.

The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Friday's directive came 10 days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to a month before their public release. Participation by AI developers would be voluntary, the order said.

Tensions have been running high between the Trump administration and the safety-conscious Anthropic, which has sought to put guardrails on the development of AI to minimize any potential risks and maximize its economic and national security benefits for the U.S.

After a contract dispute with the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sought to declare Anthropic a supply chain risk, an unprecedented move against a U.S. company that Anthropic has challenged in two federal courts. The company said it wanted assurance the Pentagon would not use its technology in fully autonomous weapons and the surveillance of Americans. Hegseth said the company must allow for any uses the Pentagon deemed lawful.

Roku will continue to be run as an open, partner-friendly platform, the companies said Monday, and there appears to be no immediate changes that customers will see. Fox and Roku said that the combined company will become the third-largest player in U.S. television by share of viewing.

Media reports had surfaced on Friday that Roku was looking at its strategic options, including a possible sale. Speculation was rampant as to which companies might be interested in an acquisition. Aside from Fox, names being tossed about as potential buyers included Netflix, Amazon, Comcast and Disney.

The deal will give Fox access to more than 100 million global households, along with the Roku channel and its first-party data. Fox oversees a massive sports, news and entertainment network, as well as Tubi, which it acquired in 2020.

Roku founder Anthony Wood had initially worked within Netflix in the early 2000s as that company attempted to make the seismic shift from renting DVDs, to streaming.

Roku was spun off by Netflix, however, and the company released its first set-top box in 2008.

Wood, who is Roku's chairman and CEO, said his motivation in pursuing the technology was his desire to record and play his favorite show, “Star Trek.”

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement that combining the businesses will bring together Fox's live news and sports content with a streaming platform with large viewership. It will also give Fox more exposure to advertising and streaming subscriptions.

“The combination with FOX is an extraordinary opportunity to accelerate our vision, scale faster and innovate more aggressively for viewers, partners and advertisers,” Wood said in prepared remarks.

Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester, said in an emailed statement that advertising revenue is a critical component of the deal.

“The bigger play here is advertising revenue, something all the major streamers are now jockeying for," he said. "This deal accelerates Fox into that shift with built-in audience scale. With 2026 shaping up as a defining year of streaming consolidation, the market shift is that streaming is no longer just about quality content slates. It’s about controlling the full stack. If this deal closes, Fox will control more of what viewers watch, how they discover it, and how it gets monetized.”

Wood will have an ongoing role at the company and will join the Fox board of directors after the transaction closes.

Murdoch said during a conference call that the combined company will be better positioned for the next decade of video than either company would've been alone.

“We are confident this is the right transaction, at the right moment, for all the right reasons,” he said.

Fox will pay $96 in cash and 0.9693 shares of its Class A common stock for each Roku Class A and Class B share outstanding. The transaction is valued at $160 per Roku share.

Existing Fox shareholders are expected to own approximately 73% of the combined company and Roku shareholders will own about 27%, once the deal closes.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year. It still needs approval from Fox and Roku shareholders and also regulatory approval.

Fox's shares tumbled 15% on Monday and Roku declined nearly 2%.

He says he called and came back and kept getting the cold shoulder on reimbursement, until Local 4 checked in.

On May 29, Vince Johnson pulled up to get his car washed. The attendant helped him line his car up, he put it in neutral and thought all was fine.

Until it wasn’t.

“It came off the track and I crashed into the equipment,” Johnson said.

He showed Local 4 the dashcam video of the moment it happened. You can hear him asking if there’s any damage.

“He said, ‘No,’ so then, he lined me up again and we went through no problem that time,” Johnson said.

Then he drove home.

“But, when I got home, I saw the damage,” he said. “I even told them I had a video.”

First, he called. They said they would call him back. He says they never did.

Then, he went back up the next day. The manager said she’d not heard about it.

She said she’d make a report and get back with him. He never heard from her.

He went back up a few days later. He was told to reach out to their customer support, so he sent them photos of the damage.

“I sent them probably about 5 or 6 emails. No response,” he said.

Finally, he decided to get an estimate of the damage. It would cost $863.63.

“I decided to fix it. I figured, they aren’t going to fix it,” Johnson said.

He still wants his money back. He wasn’t getting anywhere on his own.

So, Johnson reached out to Local 4. Local 4 reached out to the car wash company.

Johnson got two messages soon after.

“They told me they would send it off to the district manager and have that person get back with me,” Johnson said.

“If the person that could fix this were standing right here, what would you say to them?” Local 4 asked.

“I want my money back for the damages and now I have three memberships with Jax,” he said. “I don’t trust them now after this – so I want my money back for the membership that I had not used also.”

Local 4 reached out to Jax Kar Wash about Johnson’s situation, and they said they are fully refunding Johnson for the repairs and are offering several years of free membership.

Ibrahim, formerly known as Dollar Brand, passed away peacefully in Germany following a short illness, surrounded by loved ones, the statement issued on behalf of his family said.

Born in Cape Town, Ibrahim rose to international prominence as a pianist, composer and bandleader. With a career spanning more than seven decades, he forged a unique blend of jazz and South African musical traditions, making him a cultural ambassador whose music struck a chord with listeners worldwide.

As one of South Africa’s most respected jazz figures, he famously played at Nelson Mandela ’s 1994 presidential inauguration.

His final public concert in South Africa took place at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival in March, when he once again captivated audiences with the musical skill that defined his career.

Paying tribute to her partner, Dr. Marina Umari said he “passed away peacefully with South Africa and its people in his heart.”

“His love for his country never wavered, no matter where in the world he found himself,” she said.

His family said that even though his life is over, his influence and voice would continue to resonate around the world.

President Cyril Ramaphosa paid tribute to the musician, praising his contribution to the anti-apartheid struggle and acknowledging his lasting impact through music.

“Today our nation mourns the passing of an international icon and global citizen whose profound creations honored the South Africa that shaped his political commitment and musical brilliance,” said Ramaphosa.

In 2009, Ibrahim received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from Wits University and the Order of Ikhamanga, a prestigious civilian award, from former President Jacob Zuma in the same year.

Alan Winde, the mayor of the Western Cape, where Ibrahim’s hometown is located, honored the performer and commended him for capturing South Africa’s cultural richness and history in his music.

“South Africa has lost a legend,” Winde said. “Abdullah Ibrahim represented everything that makes South Africa and the Western Cape so remarkable. His music told the story of our unique cultural diversity and past.”

According to his family, Ibrahim will be laid to rest in the German state of Bavaria, where he lived.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher, in a letter sent to the challenger Sullivan, said she concluded that his declaration of candidacy “was not filed in order to declare an actual good-faith candidacy for the office of United States Senator, but was instead filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality.”

The challenger can appeal the ruling, she said.

A message seeking comment from Sullivan, the challenger, was not immediately returned. In a social media post Sunday, he said he “met the qualification and I entered this race because I am unhappy with the 12 year record of the current Senator and I feel we need a change. It’s that simple.”

It’s been a whirlwind chain of events in one of the nation’s most prominent U.S. Senate races, one both parties consider crucial to controlling the chamber.

The kerfuffle was set off by the challenger Sullivan filing days before the June 1 candidate deadline. Sen. Sullivan and Republicans called the challenger a “sham” candidate who was working with Democrats to boost Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola’s chances in the race. Both the challenger Sullivan and Peltola’s campaign denied the allegation.

Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom a week ago announced an investigation into the challenger Sullivan’s run, citing “credible allegations” that he declared his candidacy “in coordination with another candidate and campaign” with an intent to confuse and “manipulate” voters.

Sullivan, a retired teacher from the small, southeast Alaska fishing community of Petersburg, has said he’s done nothing wrong and insisted that Dahlstrom lacks a legal basis to exclude him from the ballot. He said in a recent interview that he has been weighing a run for years but decided to try now because he is unhappy with the status quo. He called sharing a name with Sullivan a “matter of fate.”

“The Lieutenant Governor’s job is to oversee elections fairly and impartially,” he said in a statement last week. “Instead, her actions create the impression that the state government is being used to protect an incumbent senator from facing competition at the ballot box.”

Newsom, a longtime political rival of the Republican president, said in a video posted on X that federal agents in recent days have knocked on the doors of his friends and former employees, and have asked for records “not because they found a crime, but because they’re simply trying to find one.”

“Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets,” Newsom said, referencing his use of social media to mock Trump. “He’s coming after me because I’m considering running for president, because he hates that I’ve consistently called him out over and over again for his lies and deceit.”

The full details of any investigations related to Newsom were not immediately clear.

A person familiar with the matter confirmed that there are multiple federal investigations into people around Newsom, including one related to his wife’s taxes. The probes began last year after whistleblower complaints in California government, and political leadership in Washington was not involved in the decision to open them, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss ongoing investigations.

They are the latest known Justice Department investigations related to one of Trump’s foes, a trend that has sparked criticism that the administration is using the law enforcement agency as a political weapon.

The Justice Department has also opened investigations into or brought prosecutions against former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former CIA director John Brennan and former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, among other perceived political enemies of the president.

“One by one, anyone who has challenged Donald Trump has ended up on his hit list, and today I proudly join that list,” Newsom said in the video.

The president has repeatedly gone after the Democrat-dominated state during his second term including by curbing a signature plan to reduce planet-warning emissions from cars, withholding aid for wildfire recovery and suing over state policies supporting transgender student-athletes. The state has pushed back by suing the federal government dozens of times.

Newsom also led a push to counteract a Trump-backed effort in Texas to redraw congressional districts to favor Republicans by championing a successful redistricting measure in California designed to win Democrats five additional House seats.

Tiny Cape Verde, making its debut at the World Cup, pulled off a stunning upset to shut out heavily favored Spain in a 0-0 draw on Monday.

“This means everything for our country," said Cape Verde coach Pedro Leitão Brito. “We have always said that we wanted everybody to see our country, our team and we have shown organization and braveness and this is proof of what our country is about — resilience and to try to overcome hardships.”

European champion Spain is one of the favorites to win the tournament and was -1200 to beat Cape Verde in its opening game. But it could not find a way past a 40-year-old goalkeeper and a stubborn defense that had an answer to everything Spain’s superstars threw at them.

Not even sensational teenager Lamine Yamal, who came in off the bench in the second half, could turn a game that ended with wild and emotional celebrations from Cape Verde players and fans inside the stadium.

“A dream" was how Cape Verde defender Steven Moreira described it.

Veteran goalkeeper Vozinha broke down in tears after the final whistle following his impressive performance to keep Spain at bay.

He was the player of the match, pulling off a string of saves at the end of the first half to deny Ferran Torres, Pedri and Aymeric Laporte.

The closest Spain came to finding a breakthrough was when Torres struck the bar shortly before halftime.

“We should have won today’s match with everything that happened, with all the favorable situations we created, but we lacked freshness and a clinical edge," said Spain coach Luis de la Fuente, who had warned before the match that Cape Verde could be one of the surprise teams of the World Cup.

Spain could have been the victim of an even bigger upset when Diney Borges had a late chance to win the game, but saw his header saved by Spain keeper Unai Simon.

Cape Verde's performance rebuked some of the criticisms that the expansion of the World Cup from 32 teams to 48 would weaken the tournament.

A group of islands with around half a million inhabitants is the third smallest nation to qualify for the tournament. And even against a Spain team that is filled with superstar players, Cape Verde proved its worth on soccer's biggest stage.

“All of us, we are happy because we work a lot to be here. We deserve to be here," said Vozinha.

The 2010 champion Spain is aiming to win the World Cup for a second time, but a disappointing start echoes its performances in recent tournaments when it has failed to advance beyond the round of 16 in each of the last three editions.

“What doubts do you think my team is going to have? Zero doubts," said De la Fuente. “We know how difficult this competition is. The idea we need to follow is what took us here and what made us European champions.”

Spain plays Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Cape Verde faces Uruguay.

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James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson

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

Strider, who had been placed on the 15-day injured list Saturday, had a consultation with Dr. Keith Meister before they decided on four weeks. Strider will have another MRI at the end of that period and would begin “throwing progression” if test were to show the inflammation had cleared, the team said.

Strider left Friday's 7-5 loss at the New York Mets in the fourth inning due to right shoulder and elbow soreness. Braves manager Walt Weiss said the team also was concerned about a dramatic decline in Strider's velocity.

Strider has a history of arm problems. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019 and had the UCL in his right elbow repaired with an internal brace in April 2024.

Rookie right-hander JR Ritchie, who pitched in relief behind Strider on Friday, will move into the rotation and has been scheduled to start Wednesday night's game against San Francisco.

Strider allowed six hits, including three homers, and a season-worst seven earned runs in three innings on Friday.

Strider was making his eighth start of the season for the first-place Braves after missing the first 34 games recovering from a strained left oblique. He is 4-2 with a 5.31 ERA this season.

Strider led the major leagues with 20 wins and an Atlanta-record 281 strikeouts in 2023.

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

Trump arrived in Evian-les-Bains, France, on Monday for talks with G7 leaders, including some who have been sharply critical of his managing of the roughly 15-week conflict that has led to a surge in global energy prices.

Trump has had sharp disagreement with host French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni over failing to consult them before the decision to go to war. Trump has threatened reprisals, including drawing down U.S. troops in all four countries, all members of the NATO military alliance, for their lack of support.

The G7 includes France, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Guest nations at this summit include Brazil, Egypt, India, Kenya, South Korea, Qatar, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates.

Here's the latest:

UN chief’s message after US-Iran deal: Israel and Hezbollah must stop fighting

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Hezbollah to allow Lebanon’s government “to have the primacy of arms and authority throughout its territory,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday.

Guterres also called on Israel to respect Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and withdraw its troops, he said.

The U,N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL reports that from midnight until 4 p.m. local time Monday, it observed a decrease in violence and exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah, Dujarric said.

UNIFIL recorded 133 trajectories of projectiles and two airstrikes attributed to Israeli forces during that time period and none from Hezbollah or other armed groups, he said. It also recorded 25 violations of Lebanese airspace.

Before the agreement was announced on Sunday, UNIFIL recorded 1,374 trajectories of projectiles over the weekend, with 1,328 attributed to Israeli forces and the rest “presumably” to Hezbollah, Dujarric said. It also recorded 135 Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom says Trump’s Justice Department is investigating him and his wife

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and longtime political rival of Republican President Donald Trump, said Monday the president ordered the Justice Department to investigate him and his wife.

The nature of the alleged investigation was unclear Monday morning. Newsom, said in a video posted on X that federal agents in recent days have knocked on the doors of his friends and former employees, and have asked for records “not because they found a crime, but because they’re simply trying to find one.”

The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the alleged investigation.

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G7 leaders are meeting over dinner

The leaders of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan were dining outdoors at a large round table at Hotel Royal Évian with views of Lake Geneva.

Canadian firm wins first contract under major EU defense fund as Carney looks beyond US

Prime Minister Mark Carney says a Canadian company has become the first to land a contract under a major European Union defense fund.

Carney made the announcement after meeting with the President of the European Council, António Costa, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at the G7 summit.

His office says Montreal-based Marconi Technologies won a contract worth more than $7 million to supply tactical radios made in Canada to Poland’s military.

Canada joined the fund last year as Ottawa looks to diversify away from the United States. The fund allows Canadian defense companies access to a $174 billion (150 billion euros) EU loan program, known as Security Action for Europe, or SAFE. Canadians firms can secure cheap, EU-backed loans

France’s Macron tells Trump that European forces are ready to deploy in Strait of Hormuz

Speaking at a meeting with the U.S. president, the French leader said France could dispatch fighter aircraft as early as Tuesday to fly observation flights over the vital waterway and that France’s nuclear powered aircraft carrier, already in the Middle East, could help out quickly, too.

It is part of a pitch that France and other G7 allies are making at their summit in Evian-les-Bains to reopen the strait as soon as possible so energy supplies flow freely again to world markets, in the wake of the tentative U.S.-Iran deal to end the war.

“Within 48 hours, frigates could also be deployed. And within two to three days, the aircraft carrier,” Macron said.

Trump said: “I don’t think we’re gonna need much help” because the strait is ”going to be open.”

“But I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have a ship or two up here from a few countries. You’d be a great country to do it,” Trump said, addressing Macron.

Trump scheduled greet world leaders before heading to working dinner

After his bilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump is scheduled to participate in an official greeting with other G7 leaders.

He is then expected to head to a working dinner for leaders at 7:30 p.m. local time. That’s the last thing on Trump’s public schedule for Monday after he arrived in Evian-les-Bains for the three-day summit.

Trump unsure if he’ll attend Iran deal signing

Trump says he isn’t sure whether he’ll attend the signing of the agreement to end the war in Iran on Friday.

“Well, it depends,” Trump says, during a joint appearance with French President Emmanuel Macron. “I may be involved. I may not.”

“JD was coming in for that,” Trump said, referring to Vice President JD Vance.

Trump is hailing the Iran deal as promising, but not a guarantee.

“Hopefully we get along,” he says. “If we don’t, we go back to where we started.”

Trump says ‘great things are going to happen’ as he discusses Iran deal

Speaking in a hoarse voice at the G7 alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump discussed an agreement he says was reached between the U.S. and Iran.

“I think a lot of great things are going to happen in the Middle East right now, and very importantly the oil is plummeting down and the stock market is shooting up like a rocket today,” Trump said.

Trump added that he “felt badly that we had to go back on the attack for two nights” and said “hopefully it’s going to be a good relationship, and we get along.”

Trump arrived for the summit after celebrating his 80th birthday at a UFC event hosted at the White House on Sunday.

Anti-G7 march organizers lash out at police “provocation and violence”

Activists behind Sunday’s “No G7” protest demanded an apology from Geneva security and judicial officials after police operations that included the use of tear gas and water cannons to disperse stone-throwing youths.

They said police surrounded about 300 people overnight Sunday to Monday, including minors, tourists and passers-by.

“The No G7 demonstration of June 14 surpassed all our expectations,” they said in a statement Monday, adding “30,000 took part despite the climate of anxiety created by the Geneva State Council (and sometimes by the media).”

Police put the turnout at 20,000, including some 600 “black bloc” militants.

Police give details on their response to anti-G7 protests

Geneva police hauled more than two dozen people to police stations and arrested three in connection with violence that marked anti-G7 protests in the city Sunday.

Monica Bonfanti, the Geneva police chief, said in a statement Monday that officers checked the identities of nearly 550 people as part of police operations that included firing tear gas and water cannons against stone-throwing youths at the “No G7” march.

Two demonstrators who fired pyrotechnic devices and another who damaged a police vehicle were arrested and later released, she said.

Bonfanti said the operational tactics of so-called “black bloc” militants complicated the identity checks. She said some had mixed in with peaceful protesters and changed their clothes during the demonstration.

US military says Iran blockade is still in effect

The blockade of shipping to Iranian ports will remain in place “pending execution” of the ceasefire deal scheduled for Friday, the U.S. military said in an advisory to merchant ships.

“Do not attempt to cross until explicit direction is given,” Monday’s notice said.

The advisory went on to tell ship captains to consider “the health and safety of their crews” and to not try to sail to or from Iranian ports “until direction is given.”

It warned ships that they should follow directions from those enforcing the blockade and “failure to immediately comply may result in rapid escalation to disabling or destructive fire.”

Ambassador Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law, greeted president upon arrival at G7

Kushner is Trump’s chief envoy to France, a plum diplomatic assignment, and was there to welcome Trump after Marine One landed in Evian-les-Bains.

His son, Jared Kushner, serves as an envoy in the negotiations with Iran and is also assisting ongoing efforts by the administration to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Charles Kushner, a real estate developer, was pardoned by Trump at the end of his first term after pleading guilty years earlier to tax evasion and making illegal campaign donations.

Vance says deal has been ‘digitally’ signed

The U.S. vice president disclosed that an interim deal to end the conflict in Iran was electronically signed Sunday ahead of a formal signing ceremony in Switzerland.

The signing ceremony is slated for Friday in Geneva, where Trump landed on his way to attend the Group of 7 summit in France.

“We already signed the deal digitally yesterday, and there’s been no money released, and that won’t change,” Vance said on “Good Morning America.” “Again, this is a performance-based thing.”

Critics of the agreement, as well as reports in Iranian media, have said assets would be released once the deal was signed. But Vance said that’s “not true.”

“We’ll be releasing the text this week, and what everybody will see is that Iran doesn’t get a dime of money unless they perform their obligations,” he added.

Trump to helicopter to the G7 site

The U.S. president is now headed to Evian-Les-Bains, France, where he’ll meet with French President Emmanuel Macron. Trump and Macron will then join the other G7 leaders for a working dinner.

Among those who greeted Trump at the airport in Geneva were Ambassador Callista Gingrich, the U.S. envoy to Switzerland, and her husband, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Trump has landed in Geneva

The president did not talk to reporters during the trip across the Atlantic, though he did send off a few social media posts.

The first item on his agenda once he gets to Evian-les-Bains is to meet with G7 host Macron.

Vance: White House in coming days hopes to release memo of understanding to be signed by US, Iran

“I think when people see this deal—we hope to release the text this week—they’re going to realize that this is going to make the whole region safer,” U.S. Vice President JD Vance said in a Monday appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

Vance added that the White House’s expectation is that the Strait of Hormuz “is going to be opened in a toll free way for the long term” but acknowledged much needs to be sorted through in the 60-day technical talks period. Another important issue that will be decided during the technical talk period is the two sides coming to an understanding on how Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium will be disposed of.

Vance signaled that the White House is ready to loosen the economic stranglehold placed on Iran by years of sanctions, but it will “require a long-term commitment” by Iran “to the inspection and verification regime” of the country’s nuclear program.

Macron seeks Trump’s backing for Ukraine and more pressure on Russia

The French president says he’ll seek to persuade President Trump to continue supporting Ukraine and increase pressure on Russia to help reach a peace agreement.

Macron is to meet later Monday with Trump at a G7 summit in the French resort town of Evian-les-Bains, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to join Tuesday for talks.

Macron said he wants the United States to say: “We are with you, we will continue to support Ukraine, and we will increase the pressure on Russia to achieve a meaningful negotiation,” speaking in an interview with French broadcaster TF1.

“The right negotiation is one in which Ukraine and Russia are at the table, but with Europeans and Americans present as well,” Macron said.

Macron rejects Trump tariff threats

French president Emmanuel Macron says he will not back down in the face of threats from President Trump to impose 100% tariffs on French wines unless Paris removes its digital tax on U.S. tech companies.

In an interview with broadcaster TF1, Macron said Monday that the tax was decided by Europeans and that it is not “for the United States to decide what European or French law should be.” He added that this position is “normal” and will not change “as long as I am here.”

Wines and spirits exported from the European Union to the U.S. currently face a 15% tariff. Macron said he intends to address the issue in a “respectful but firm” manner during the G7.

“What is important to understand is why the G7 was created,” he said. “To resolve many of our international imbalances, it is better to coordinate and consult with one another, especially when we are among the world’s major democracies.”

Trump has a track record of insults and awkward moments with the G7 leaders

Sometimes it’s over foreign policy issues like Iran or Ukraine. Other times, it’s been over tariffs.

And two of the leaders have endured sitting through clumsy asides by Trump about dark moments in their countries’ histories.

It makes the G7 not unlike a family holiday gathering where “there’s an uncle you don’t quite like,” said Max Bergmann, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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Macron says France is ready to act quickly to help securing the Strait of Hormuz

Macron said France and other Western partners are “ready to take action very quickly” to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz peacefully.

France and Britain have championed a mission to restore maritime security in the strait as soon as conditions allow.

“We already have forces in the area,” including France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, Macron said in an interview Monday on French television TF1.

“We are ready to take action very quickly ... to send aircraft, deploy a frigate, send mine-clearing vessels. We also have our aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, along with its accompanying strike group, which remains in the region and could be deployed within two or three days following confirmation” of the tentative deal between the U.S. and Iran, he said.

G7 leaders call the Iran deal a ‘diplomatic breakthrough’

Trump has sparred with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom over the Iran war.

Ahead of their meeting at the G7, they issued a joint statement congratulating the United States, the Iranian government and the mediators on what they called a “diplomatic breakthrough.” Canada also signed the statement.

The leaders said it was vital for detailed negotiations to take place and for the deal to be quickly implemented so the Strait of Hormuz can be reopened to tanker traffic.

They say they are committed to playing their part. including the possibility of mine clearance operations.

Macron praises the security bubble placed over the G7 summit

With world leaders flying in, the G7 summit venue in Evian-les-Bains is being transformed from a placid lakeside French town to something of a security fortress, with police patrols on many streets and corners, checking passes and watching crowds.

Macron, the summit host, dropped by a temporary headquarters for the security operation in Evian on Monday morning, to thank officers for their work.

He called the 3-day summit on the Middle East, Ukraine, trade and other issues “a big source of pride for France, a big responsibility.”

“We’ll try to make maximum progress on all the issues that are important for our country, our continent and also for global peace and prosperity,” Macron told assembled police officers, gendarmes, firefighters, health workers and other personnel.

Macron said nearly 13,800 officers were deployed for the security operation.

“Only your collective mobilization makes this possible,” he said. “Good luck for the coming days. Keep up the work.”

Japanese PM says Japan will participate in joint statement with G7’s European nations

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japan will participate in a joint statement issued by the Group of Seven’s four European nations calling for cooperation in efforts to quickly reopen the Strait of Hormuz and to end Iran’s nuclear program.

Takaichi, asked about the joint statement, said Japan was requested to be part of it and that “We will join.”

In the statement issued Monday in response to the U.S.-Iran peace deal, France, Britain, Italy and Germany said the rapid and comprehensive implementation of the agreement is vital, and that they are ready to provide support such as ensuring safe commercial shipping and mine clearance in the key waterway, in accordance with respective constitutional requirements.

Takaichi did not give details about a possible Japanese contribution, but said that she planned to thoroughly discuss at the G7 summit ways to achieve peace and stability in the entire Middle East region.

Trump announces plans for July 4 rally in Washington

The president may be on his way to France for the G7 summit, but he continues to lay out details for celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence.

“On July 4th, at The Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, in beautiful and safe Washington D.C., we are going to host the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a “TRIBUTE TO AMERICA,” Trump posted on social media.

Trump said the event will include military flyovers, his personally curated music playlist, and “the LARGEST FIREWORKS SHOW IN HISTORY.”

Trump, in late May, also announced that he would headline “The Great American State Fair,” part of the America 250 celebration, after several musical guests backed out partly over the event’s ties to Trump. Organizers had said that the president’s appearance is slated for June 24 to kick off the state fair.

Macron drinks from spring that gave Evian its name

French President Emmanuel Macron drank a glass of water Monday from the spring that gave the town of Evian-les-Bains its international reputation.

Macron visited the Cachat Spring, named after the owner of the garden through which the water flowed in the late 18th century.

The water was first analyzed in 1807 and was recommended for treating kidney and bladder ailments. It gained popularity as a table water beginning in the 1860s and is now sold worldwide under the Evian brand.

Brazil’s president and head of UN health agency call on world leaders to help fight pandemics

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the head of the U.N. health agency are calling on world leaders to strengthen an accord passed last year to help fight pandemics like COVID-19.

“Humanity promised itself, in the rawness of that grief, that it would not face such a day again unprepared,” they wrote in a joint statement.

Negotiations on a crucial annex to the accord have been stuck over differences about sharing disease-causing pathogens, which often erupt in tropical developing countries, in exchange for access to technologies like vaccines, usually developed in rich nations.

They called on the leaders of the G7 and other international groupings to “instruct your negotiators to come to the July session ready to conclude” the annex.

Trump declares White House UFC fight night ‘incredible’

On his way to the G7 summit, Trump, in a Truth Social post from Air Force One, called the fighters “outstanding“ and the South Lawn setting “unsurpassed.”

“The White House has never looked more beautiful,” Trump added.

Brazil’s Lula first foreign leader to arrive for G7 summit

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was the first foreign leader to arrive Monday at the Hotel Royal in the French resort town of Evian-les-Bains ahead of the G7 summit.

Brazil, Egypt, Kenya, India and South Korea have been invited to participate in some discussions as partner countries alongside G7 members.

World leaders, including Trump, are scheduled to be formally welcomed later Monday by French President Emmanuel Macron at the start of the summit.

The Hotel Royal, a five-star property overlooking Lake Geneva and the foothills of the Alps, will host leaders through Wednesday. The hotel is set amid expansive gardens with flowerbeds, water features and English- and Japanese-inspired landscaping.

One lucky winner will win the four passes to the exclusive event, but also a parking pass for the evening. What a fabulous way to ring in the start of summer in downtown Detroit!

You should arrive at the event before 6 p.m. if you want to park near the event. Major expressways are scheduled to close at that time. After 6 p.m., only surface streets will be accessible.

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Before the war, the strait carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil. Now, it will take time for hundreds of ships trapped in the Persian Gulf to exit through the narrow strait. And Gulf oil producers that throttled back production will need time to get the oil moving again. Analysts also say ship captains may take their time to decide if passage is safe and that the threat of attack from Iran has truly receded.

All told, oil prices, inflation and energy flows simply won’t see an immediate return to what they were before the war — not for weeks or even months. And that's assuming the deal, set to be signed Friday, proves durable. Details hadn't been released.

When will oil start moving again?

Even if the Strait is completely open, it will take time for tankers to enter, load, and make the journey to Asian countries — the chief customers for Gulf oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman. A trip to Japan and back can take 45 to 50 days.

Captains, insurers and owners may take their time in attempting passage, given the volatile situation.

“Operationally, the sector is not rushing back,” wrote Richard Meade, editor-in-chief of shipping data and analysis company Lloyd's List, noting that many warn mine clearance and a return to use of the internationally recognized transit lanes “are prerequisites for safe navigation. ”

Ships have been trickling out through an Iranian-run vetting lane in the north of the strait, while others have slipped out with lights and location systems turned off under U.S. forces' guidance in a southern passage along the coast of Oman. Iran had threatened to attack ships using the internationally established mid-strait transit lanes that keep inbound and outbound ships out of each other's way.

Some 500 commercial vessels remain in the Persian Gulf, according to maritime and energy intelligence firm Kpler, and they can't all leave through the narrow strait at once.

Amena Bakr, head of Middle East energy and OPEC+ insights at Kpler, estimated that clearing mines would take six months, vessels leaving and returning to reload two to three months, and restarting production in some countries to prewar levels another three months.

What does an ‘open’ strait mean? It's not clear that the US and Iran have agreed

Iran has demanded the right to collect money from ships using the strait, and in some cases has already exacted payment to let ships leave. Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social that the deal involved a “toll free opening," but there's been no confirmation from Iran.

The period between the deal's announcement and signing "gives both sides scope for issuing conflicting statements on the agreement, especially on the extent to which Iran will manage traffic and demand fees,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, principal Middle East analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.

Paying tolls would present a quandary for ship owners, since the U.S. and EU have designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, and the U.S. Treasury has sanctioned the entity Iran has announced to run its collections. Unless those sanctions are modified, paying exposes shippers and banks to sanctions.

Legal experts say allowing Iran to control passage would violate international law on freedom of navigation as set down in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which requires countries to permit peaceful passage through territorial waters. The strait's waters are shared by Iran to the north and Oman to the south.

Oil producers need time to get operations underway again, too

Some producers in the Middle East paused extracting oil from the ground, known as a shut-in, when they ran out of storage space. Restarting those operations can be a slow process.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which were able to export some oil through alternate pipelines or routes besides the Strait of Hormuz, may be among the quickest to resume production, said Alan Gelder, senior vice president of refining, chemicals and oil markets at Wood Mackenzie, an analytics firm.

"Places like Iraq could be much more challenged because they’ve had a much bigger shut-in, their fields are more difficult ... it may well take about a year before they get back,” he said.

Claudio Galimberti, chief economist at Rystad Energy, noted in an emailed comment that “sentiment has clearly improved. But sentiment is not the same as supply.”

“It will take time for production to ramp back up, for logistics to normalize, and for the risk premium embedded in crude prices to dissipate,” he said.

Countries won’t restart until they know there is a durably open strait and that a ceasefire will last more than 30 or 60 days, said Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

Economists at Capital Economics estimate that energy flows would reach 80% of prewar levels by September.

Inflation will not drop immediately

Even if the deal reopens the strait immediately, that will not immediately send inflation lower, economists say.

Inflation is ”set to stay above target in most major economies throughout this year and the first half of next, even as growth remains relatively weak,” said Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics.

Inflation could even rise when government measures aimed at easing the energy shock expire, Joachim Nagel, the head of Germany's Bundesbank central bank said in a speech Monday.

That includes Germany's temporary lowering of fuel taxes by 17 euro cents per liter, which runs through June 30.

“It will take months for the oil supply to return to normal,” Nagel said.

The S&P 500 rose 1.7% on hopes that this time, the announcement of an Iran-U.S. agreement will mean a long-term fix to a conflict that has worsened inflation around the world. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 584 points, or 1.1%, with an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 3% higher.

Stocks got a lift after the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil fell 4.8% to $83.17, back to where it was in early March. While that’s still above its price of roughly $70 from before the war, it’s lower than the $100 plus it cost just a few weeks ago. The hope is that lower oil prices will take pressure off households and businesses, which have had to pay higher prices for everything from food to fuel to fertilizer because of the war with Iran.

Iran confirmed the deal, but it does not include a final agreement on issues like Iran’s nuclear program. Negotiations on that are expected to continue over the next 60 days, which leaves opportunity for hiccups that could derail the agreement. And even if the Strait of Hormuz does fully reopen on Friday as expected, it will take months for the energy industry to get back to full speed.

For now, though, relief swept through financial markets worldwide.

On Wall Street, stocks of companies with big fuel bills were instant winners. United Airlines flew 4.2% higher, and cruise operator Carnival rose 3.3%.

Stocks of companies enmeshed in the artificial-intelligence industry also jumped. These stocks have yo-yoed in recent weeks, going from roaring to records to suddenly turning lower. The concern is whether such stocks shot too high, too fast because of AI mania, and their careening moves have sometimes reversed direction by the hour.

Micron Technology rallied 10.8%, and Advanced Micro Devices rose 6.9%. Nvidia’s climb of 3.4% was the strongest force pushing the S&P 500 upward because the AI chip company is Wall Street’s most valuable company, giving it more weight on the index than any other.

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company that also owns the AI company xAI, rose 16.3% in its second day of trading on Wall Street. Its successful debut on the Nasdaq suggested plenty of demand still exists among investors for AI. The market has given SpaceX a total value of more than $2.1 trillion, making it bigger than Exxon Mobil, Bank of America and Coca-Cola combined.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased on hopes that lower oil prices will remove pressure on central banks to raise interest rates.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.46% from 4.48% late Friday.

Europe’s central bank last week became the first major one in the world to raise interest rates to combat high inflation. High interest rates can keep a lid on inflation, but they also slow economies and undercut prices for all kinds of investments, including stocks and cryptocurrencies. They hit investments seen as the most expensive in particular, and some critics are calling the AI industry a bubble where investment inflated too far.

The Fed will announce its latest decision on interest rates later this week, which will be the first under its new chair, Kevin Warsh. President Donald Trump nominated Warsh to the position, and Trump has loudly been calling for lower interest rates.

But traders see it as a near certainty that the Fed will leave its main interest rate steady after its two-day meeting ends Wednesday. Traders had been raising bets that the Fed may actually have to raise interest rates this year because of how much inflation accelerated and how solid the U.S. job market remains.

But the tentative deal between the United States and Iran means traders are now betting on only a 58% chance of a hike this year, down from 71% a week ago, according to data from CME Group.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Roku fell 1.2% after the company announced that Fox Corp. is buying the streaming pioneer in a cash-and-stock deal valued at approximately $22 billion.

Roku's stock had already soared 20% Friday, when media reports emerged about a deal, which will give Fox access to the Roku channel, first-party data and more than 100 million global streaming households. Fox's stock fell 16.7%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes climbed in Asia and Europe. Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 5% for one of the world’s biggest gains and finished at a record.

“This is great news,” said Takashi Hiroki, chief strategist at Monex. “Buying by foreign investors is leading the market with expectations of easing tensions around the situation in the Middle East.”

South Korea’s Kospi surged even more, 5.2%, thanks in part to continued rallies for AI winners like Samsung Electronics.

London's FTSE 100 was an outlier and slipped 0.4%.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach and Senior Producer Mayuko Ono contributed to this report.

The Israeli leader said at a news conference Monday that “with an agreement, without an agreement,” he would continue fighting to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, which Tehran has long maintained it isn't trying to do, saying its nuclear program is for civilian purposes.

"As long as I am the prime minister of Israel, it will not happen,” Netanyahu said, emphasizing that the deal was struck by the United States, not Israel, and that he didn't budge on Iran's request that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon be part of the pact.

“Iran wanted us to withdraw from there, but that did not happen. Do you know why it didn’t happen, among other reasons? Because I stood very, very firm,” he said.

But other Israeli government officials, rivals, politicians and commentators were quick to criticize the preliminary deal, marking a sort of informal referendum on the premier’s tenure ahead of elections this fall and underscoring his deepening isolation at home, in the region and, increasingly, from the United States.

Critics say Netanyahu led President Donald Trump into the war with Iran while overpromising what it could achieve, and Trump now might be dragging Israel out of the conflict before it feels ready. They say the prime minister misjudged Trump's appetite for a protracted conflict, was outflanked by Iran in negotiations and grew increasingly sidelined by the region's other major players.

“Israel is paying the price of Netanyahu’s hubris and blindness, and the price of the manipulations that he tried to pull on Trump," former Prime Minister and Netanyahu rival Ehud Barak said in an interview with Israel's public broadcaster Monday. “Iran emerged stronger; Israel emerged weaker. That is Netanyahu’s strategic responsibility. He failed.”

Yair Lapid, who will challenge Netanyahu in the upcoming elections, wrote Sunday that the deal, which would extend the tenuous ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran and lead to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, was shaping up to be “one of the most shocking failures in Israel’s foreign and security policy ... entirely registered in Netanyahu’s name.”

“It can be fixed, it must be fixed,” he wrote. “Netanyahu can no longer fix it, we will do it.”

Iran deal could hamper Israel's operation in Lebanon

Even though Israel isn't party to the deal, it finds itself in something of a quagmire, in part because it invaded southern Lebanon after Iran-backed Hezbollah fired missiles at northern Israeli towns during the first week of the war.

Since negotiations began, Iran has insisted that any deal to wind down the U.S.-Iran front include a cessation of Israeli hostilities in Lebanon. But on Monday, Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed to keep troops in Lebanon.

As negotiations progressed and Trump increasingly sought a way out of war, he grew furious over Israel’s strikes in Beirut, warning they could jeopardize an agreement. In the end, the president decided to end the Iran conflict, even if it curtailed Israel's options in Lebanon.

That has left Netanyahu in a precarious situation. His relationship with Trump may require downscaling a military campaign in Lebanon that is widely popular in Israel.

“All Hezbollah has to do is get one rocket across into an Israeli town in northern Israel, and then the pressure on Netanyahu — which he’s already hearing from his own base and from the opposition ... will ramp up," said Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council.

“It’s going to be very hard to resist that," Shapiro said. "And that gives a lot of power to control this dynamic to Hezbollah, and essentially to Iran.”

Indeed, some of the more hawkish members of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition have slammed the new deal and urged the prime minister to continue the Lebanon campaign, even if it upsets the U.S. and risks scuttling the agreement.

“We must not compromise on anything less than the dismantling of Hezbollah,” Israel’s ultranationalist national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, wrote on X.

Israelis say Netanyahu did not meet his war goals in Iran

In Lebanon, the deal left the future of Israel's campaign uncertain. But in Iran, the deal tied Netanyahu's hands before he met his war goals.

Netanyahu and the U.S. launched the war on Feb. 28 with the aim of destroying Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But nearly four months later, after Iran withstood a withering aerial campaign, Tehran is in a much stronger position, analysts and critics say. It's proxy network survives and is still able to fire missiles into Israel.

Tehran has been able to exert control over the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important waterways, choking global trade and driving up prices for basic needs worldwide. It is also unclear how much damage was done to Iran's nuclear infrastructure and ballistic missile program.

“Israel believes that the war delayed the Iranian nuclear program, but did not change its objectives,” political commentator Anna Barsky wrote for Ma'ariv, a major Hebrew daily newspaper. She said Israeli officials are also worried that under its deal with the U.S., Iran could receive a major influx of cash.

According to three regional officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations, the agreement is expected to include the phased lifting of sanctions and a release of frozen Iranian assets.

“Trump signs an agreement that funnels billions to the Ayatollahs’ regime, leaves the nuclear infrastructure intact, preserves the ballistic threat as is, and throws a lifeline to the murderous regime in Tehran,” Yair Golan, center-left party leader and former general, posted on X.

The Republican U.S. president sought to make clear that he arrived in Evian-les-Bains with the wind at his back for talks with G7 leaders, including some who have been sharply critical of his managing of the 15-week-old conflict, which has led to a surge in global energy prices — though he did not immediately seem willing to lay out the details of what was in the emerging deal.

Some of those details are still to be negotiated in talks over the next 60 days, though Trump said the memorandum of understanding would likely be released after it’s signed on Friday.

“I think a lot of great things are going to happen in the Middle East right now, and very importantly the oil (price) is plummeting down and the stock market is shooting up like a rocket today,” Trump said at a meeting with the summit’s host, French President Emmanuel Macron, before they joined a working dinner with other leaders.

“The Iran deal that we made is going to bring a lot of success to the world,” he said.

Deal could change G7 dynamic

Trump has had friction with Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni over failing to consult them before the decision to go to war. But sealing an agreement before jetting off to the summit might change the dynamic of the three-day gathering.

Macron at the start of Monday's meeting congratulated Trump for finding a way to an agreement.

"It’s a very important matter for peace of the whole world,” Macron said.

Trump has pushed back on the four European leaders — members of the NATO military alliance — for their lack of support for the U.S. in the conflict.

He's expected to discuss with leaders the demining of the Strait of Hormuz. Britain and France have expressed interest in assisting with the demining once the conflict is paused. Fear of potential mines is among the reasons tanker traffic has come to a halt during the war, and quickly clearing them will be crucial to regaining the confidence of commercial vessels.

Macron on Monday said France was ready to move within days to deploy assets, including mine-clearing vessels, to the region to help.

Senior U.S. officials told reporters that the while the agreement provides for the immediate opening of the strait and lifting of the U.S. naval blockade, it will take weeks for traffic to return to previous levels.

Macron invited the leaders of three nations that aren’t part of the G7 — Egypt, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — to take part in a session on the Middle East on Tuesday, when Iran is expected to be a central focus.

Trump faces questions about financial incentives for Tehran

Trump had fiercely criticized President Barack Obama for the 2015 nuclear agreement, which Trump argued failed to stop Tehran from advancing toward a weapon and funneled billions of dollars into the Islamic Republic’s coffers.

In 2018, Trump exited the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union were also signatories to the pact.

Trump in an interview on Sunday with The New York Times pushed back on comparisons to the Obama-era nuclear deal. “We negotiated from strength,” Trump said. “He was basically paying them off.”

But Trump hasn't explained how his agreement will address some key issues about Iran's nuclear program, including who will be in charge of verifying that Iran is complying with the agreement and who will destroy or remove 972 pounds (441 kilograms) of highly enriched uranium believed to be buried under nuclear sites that were badly damaged by U.S. strikes last summer.

The memorandum of understanding includes the possibility of releasing Iran's frozen funds, sanctions relief and a $300 billion fund to help rebuild Iran — all of which would be tied to Tehran meeting certain benchmarks aimed at assuaging White House concerns, senior U.S. officials told reporters on Monday.

Some Democrats and hawkish critics say Trump has failed to explain how the financial relief in his agreement will differ from what Obama did in the 2015 nuclear deal.

“For all his critique of JCPOA, we had international observers, we actually had an alliance there that included the Europeans, and Russia and China were all signatories,” Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CBS' “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Trump and an Iran hawk, expressed skepticism, saying that Congress will need to review and vote on any nuclear deal with Iran, and said he expects Vance — “the architect of the deal” — to present it.

“I am somewhat concerned that Iran’s view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming,” Graham said on social media.

Trade irritants and the war in Ukraine are also a focus

Leaders are expected to discuss a range of economic and trade issues. Trump told the New York Post he’s warned Macron the U.S. will “have no choice” but to slap 100% tariffs on French wines unless ​Paris eliminates its digital tax on American tech companies, renewing a long-running threat from him that dates to his first administration.

Wines and ​spirits exported to the U.S. from the European Union currently face ​a 15% ⁠tariff.

In an interview with broadcaster TF1, Macron said Monday that it’s not “for the United States to decide what European or French law should be.”

Macron also invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a working session with G7 leaders on Tuesday to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war.

At the moment, Zelenskyy is not scheduled to hold one-on-one talks with Trump while they're both in France, but Trump on Sunday held separate phone calls with Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Trump emphasized the need to end hostilities with Ukraine and stated his readiness to influence European allies and Kyiv toward that goal, including at the G7.

Zelenskyy had offered to meet Putin with Trump and European leaders at the G7 gathering, but the Kremlin didn’t reply, a Ukrainian official familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, and France would be obliged as an ICC member to arrest him. The United States and Russia both oppose the court.

Trump suggested that, after an Iran deal, he'll now have greater bandwidth to focus on the Russia-Ukraine war.

"Now that this is finished, we’re going to be focusing on that,” he said, referring to diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting that followed Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

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Madhani reported from Geneva, AP writers Samuel Petrequin and John Leicester in Paris; Volodymyr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine; Michelle L. Price and Collin Binkley in Washington; and Tom Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa contributed reporting.

Christie’s auction house said Monday that it's the first copy of the novel in the publisher’s original cloth binding to be auctioned since 1908. Only about 250 copies of the first edition were printed, and this one has been in a private library since shortly after its publication in 1847.

“The vast majority of surviving copies were rebound for collectors or libraries, meaning original cloth examples are now extremely scarce,” said Christie’s books and manuscripts specialist Mark Wiltshire.

Being sold along with a copy of sister Anne Brontë’s “Agnes Grey,” it’s expected to sell for between 400,000 pounds and 600,000 pounds ($540,000 and $800,000) at a June 30 auction in London. Both books carry the male pen names the sisters adopted to get published: Ellis Bell for Emily and Acton Bell for Anne.

“Wuthering Heights” was rushed to publication after the success of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre,” and the first edition is notorious for its typographical errors including, Wiltshire noted, the occasional misspelling of the word “heights.”

Emerald Fennell ’s recent movie with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as mismatched pair Cathy and Heathcliff is the latest work to be inspired by — and take liberties with — Brontë’s brooding, Gothic tale.

The novel shocked some critics when it was published, with one in 1848 decrying its “vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors.”

Since then, Wiltshire said, it has “moved beyond literature to become a cultural touchstone,” inspiring art, music — notably Kate Bush’s pop-operatic 1978 song — and multiple film adaptations.

“It remains a work that artists return to again and again because of its emotional force, its atmosphere, and its psychological intensity, ensuring its place not only in literary history but in wider cultural imagination,” Wiltshire said.

American singer Oliver Tree was among those listed on the passenger list filed with aviation authorities for one of the helicopters that crashed into the parking lot of a car dealership, although police did not yet confirm his body was found in the crash.

Police confirmed the death of Gaspar Prim Díaz — an Argentine content creator known as Gaspi with more than 2.8 million followers on YouTube — another Argentine Lucas Vignale and three Brazilians — Lucas Brito, Charles Marsillac and Alexandre Souza. The body of one foreigner was not yet identified.

Human error might have led to the collision between the two helicopters, Rio de Janeiro police investigator Alan Luxardo told reporters Monday at the crash site. He added that authorities were investigating whether air traffic controllers or one of the pilots was responsible for the crash.

Tree, 32, was visiting Rio as part of a world tour that included stops in Argentina, Brazil, Portugal and Spain. On Saturday, the singer and comedian had published a comical video where Tree was seen playing soccer in a Brazilian neighborhood.

Some celebrities began to publish tributes to Tree on Sunday, including Jake Paul, a promoter known for taking on professional boxers in highly publicized fights, who called the singer “one of the most kind and funny people in the world.”

Drew Binsky, a content creator known for visiting every country in the world, wrote on Instagram that Tree had come to him for travel advice because the singer also wanted to visit every country.

“We just spoke a few days ago and I was planning to show him around Prague in three weeks,” Binsky wrote. “He has become a great friend of mine and is genuinely one of the kindest and most positive people I've ever met.”

Argentine streaming channel Blender thanked Gaspi for his art in a post on X.

“Every one of us will miss you,” Blender said.

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

The sheriff's office in Grand County, Utah, confirmed one of the dead was Andy Lewis, an extreme athlete known for feats in BASE jumping, a dangerous sport that involves parachuting to the ground after jumping from a tall fixed object such as a building, a bridge or a desert cliff overlooking a deep canyon.

Lewis was also a prominent figure in the niche sports of slacklining and tricklining, which combine elements of high-wire walking with aerial acrobatics — sometimes at perilous heights.

Lewis went from obscure athlete to overnight celebrity when he appeared onstage in Madonna’s 2012 Super Bowl halftime show. Dressed in a Roman toga, Lewis bounced and executed tricks on his inch-wide line like it was a trampoline while Madonna sang behind him.

“My phone actually rang itself to death three days in a row,” Lewis said soon afterward in an appearance on Conan O’Brien’s late night show.

Emergency responders were dispatched Sunday to a report of people injured in a BASE jumping attempt at Mineral Bottom, a remote desert area near the Utah-Colorado line, according to the sheriff's office. Lewis and an unidentified 50-year-old man died at the scene, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.

Sheriff's Lt. Al Cymbaluk confirmed to The Associated Press that it was Lewis the extreme athlete who died. He said he had no further details on the fatal accident.

Though there's no official tally of BASE jumping deaths, a list compiled by the website BASEaddict.com shows 540 total fatalities worldwide since 1981 — including 30 people killed last year. Prominent deaths include BASE jumper Dean Potter and his climbing partner, Graham Hunt, who were killed in 2015 while attempting a wingsuit flight in California's Yosemite National Park.

A study focused on BASE jumping in Norway, published in a medical journal in 2007, estimated that BASE jumping carried risks of injury or death five to eight times greater than skydiving.

Lewis owned BASE Jump Moab, a business that offered excursions to inexperienced customers using tandem jumps, in which the customer was harnessed to a guide wearing the parachute.

At the same time, Lewis openly acknowledged the sport's inherent danger.

“It's weird to think about how many people are dead, because it's like a normal thing,” Lewis told documentary filmmaker Ella Warnick in an interview published last year.

No one immediately returned phone, text and Facebook messages left Monday for BASE Jump Moab.

Lewis won four straight world championships in competitive slacklining from 2008 through 2011. Lewis set a Guinness World Record for slackline surfing, swaying his feet side to side in a rocking motion that mimics surfing, while keeping his balance above China's Diaoshuilou waterfall in 2011.

In 2014, he walked a slackline suspended between two hot air balloons more than 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) above the Nevada desert.

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Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.

Sara Carter, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, sent an open letter Monday to WADA and its stakeholders. It comes a day before an “extraordinary meeting” of the WADA executive committee at which it will discuss recommendations from a “working group” put together in the wake of a doping case involving Chinese swimmers.

Carter derided what she said was the “unjustifiable exclusion” of U.S. authorities from the meeting. WADA spokesman James Fitzgerald said the U.S. wasn't invited due to its government's refusal to pay its WADA dues, which is part of a bigger feud between the U.S. and the global anti-doping regulator stemming from the China doping saga and a long-running scandal involving Russia.

“The working group’s objective and recommendations are designed to strengthen the independence and credibility of the anti-doping process, including at major events,” Fitzgerald said.

Among the group's recommendations would be to transfer some testing responsibilities to an independent agency and away from the hands of a host-country anti-doping agency. For the LA Olympics in two years, that could weaken the role of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which has fought WADA hard over its handling of the Russian and Chinese affairs.

"The robust and vigorous participation of NADOs in the anti-doping ecosystem is of particular importance to the United States as we strive to ensure the cleanest Olympic and Paralympic Games ever,” Carter wrote.

Fitzgerald said Tuesday's meeting is only to discuss the recommendations and no action is planned.

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

The event at GLC Live at 20 Monroe in Grand Rapids was promoted by Salita Promotions, with the main card airing live on DAZN while the undercard streamed live on the Wynn Records Network.

In the co-feature, Pagan opened the fight aggressively, walking Bustamante down with fast combinations and precision. Pagan consistently had his opponent in trouble against the ropes, pressing forward with a mix of combos to the head and body.

Just when it looked like Bustamante (23-2-1, 13 KOs) was bouncing back after a disappointing third, Pagan landed a huge right in the final minute of the fourth that stunned Bustamante.

It was more of the same dominance in the fifth and sixth, with Pagan pocketing rounds and forcing Bustamante to eat constant unanswered shots against the ropes.

Pagan kept his foot on the gas over the final three rounds and was never in trouble, cruising to a clear decision that thrilled his hometown crowd and was scored 99-91, 98-92,100-90.

“I’d rate my performance tonight a solid B – I know I could have done better and probably could have gotten him out of there, but a little cage rust played a factor,” said Pagan after the fight. “I’ll watch the tape and improve. My opponent was incredibly tough – he’s a classic Mexican fighter from Culiacán with great counterpunching skills and a ton of heart. I’m ready for bigger opportunities, and I absolutely see myself fighting for a major title within my next fight or two."

In the main event, Abraham Perez won the WBA Interim World Flyweight Title with a split decision victory of defending champion Jonathan Gonzalez.

Albuquerque native Perez (15-0, 7 KOs) seemingly dictated the pace and distance of the evenly matched bout from the outset.

The undefeated contender, who swept the championship rounds on all but one scorecard, was able to keep Gonzalez largely at bay and landed the stronger shots when it mattered most.

The close and competitive fight was scored 115-113 twice for Perez and 115-113 for Gonzalez.

“I stayed busy and had the better angles on my shots,” Perez said. “I took opportunities when I had them and stayed mobile, tried to stay unpredictable. I still don’t feel like that was my best. I need to stay sharp with my punches. It’s been a rough journey, but it didn’t end.”

Gonzalez (29-5-1, 14 KOs) was making the first defense of the interim belt and admitted he disagreed with the decision.

“I won the fight, I landed the better shots,” Gonzalez said. “He throws a lot of punches, but I thought I landed the better shots. I’m disappointed and surprised, but it’s part of the sport.”

Undefeated middleweight prospect Jaquan McElroy won a shutout unanimous decision victory over Damian Munoz in the second DAZN bout of the evening.

McElroy (7-0, 2 KOs) displayed superior movement and accuracy from the outset, hitting Munoz with thunderous punches to the head and body.

Despite McElroy’s high connect rate, Munoz remained on the front foot and returned fire.

Munoz (4-3, 2 KOs) landed perhaps the biggest shot of the fight in the final round, but it did little to faze McElroy, who won 62-54 on all three scorecards in front of his promoter and fellow Flint native Claressa Shields.

“I tried to showcase my skills for everyone here tonight,” said McElroy. “It means a lot to have her here supporting me. Big things are coming.”

After commentating on the DAZN broadcast, Shields joined her fighter in the ring following the win to tease an upcoming announcement.

“More and more big fights are coming,” Shields said. “I can’t say who, where or what weight class, but it’s coming. All my fans are going to show up and Jaquan will be on the undercard. We’re building a strong brand and we have some great fights in the works.”

In the all-action opening bout on DAZN, new Salita Promotions signee Caleb Tirado won a hard-fought unanimous decision over Osmar Rodriguez, scored 59-55, 58-56 twice.

The Puerto Rico vs. Mexico matchup did not disappoint, as both Arecibo’s Tirado (2-0, 1 KO) and Rodriguez exchanged explosive shots from the opening bell with little regard for defense.

After an intense exchange in the closing moments of the second round, the steady pace continued in the third and fourth rounds.

While Tirado won handily, Rodriguez (6-7, 2 KOs), of San Luis Potosi, did his best work in the last two rounds, culminating into a slugfest for the final 30 seconds that had the crowd on their feet.

In the Wynn Records Network main event, undefeated middleweight contender Troy Isley (16-0, 6 KOs) scored two knockdowns in a fifth round TKO of Leonardo Di Stefano (17-8, 14 KOs).

Isley scored his first knockdown in the fourth and kept his foot on the gas, flooring Di Stefano again in the fifth. Di Stefano was able to beat the count but continued to take a beating without returning fire, forcing referee Ben Rodriguez to stop the bout at 55 seconds of the fifth round.

“I made a statement that puts the middleweight division on notice,” said Isley, who won the WBA Continental USA Middleweight Title. “I was sharp right from the opening bell, did everything we worked on in camp, and got the stoppage right when I predicted I would. My opponent definitely came to fight, but I don’t want easy victories anyway. We want the big fights – I want Erislandy Lara and Carlos Adames. I’m ready for the world title shot.”

Added Wynn Records Network CEO Ruben Branson: “I think Troy made a huge statement. Troy told me he wouldn’t let me down and everything he said, he did. We can expect bigger and better things from Troy Isley.”

Also on the undercard, undefeated super lightweight Lance Smith (7-0, 5 KOs) edged Jovanis Rodriguez (2-1-2, 1 KOs) via unanimous decision (39-37 twice, 40-36) in an all-action four-round bout.

At the opening bell, both fighters found success exchanging punches at a frenetic pace. Rodriguez threw majority of his punches to the head while Smith invested in the body attack.

The body punches paid dividends for Smith has Rodriguez’s pace progressively slowed, round-by-round. By the fourth and final round, Smith had grown stronger while Rodriguez was visibly exhausted.

Undefeated heavyweight prospect and Flint native Sardius Simmons (9-0, 5 KOs) scored a highlight-reel second round knockout of Walter Burns (8-5, 6 KOs).

Burns utilized an unorthodox cross guard defense that was stubborn and kept Simmons at bay in the first round.

By the second round, Simmons found an opening in the defense and capitalized, landing a massive left hook to the body followed by a left hook to the chin that sent Burns crumbling to the canvas.

The win marks Simmons’ second-straight TKO victory.

In a women’s streaming bout, undefeated featherweight Shannel Butler (8-0, 3 KOs) won an eight-round unanimous decision (80-72, 79-73 twice) over Mayerlin Rivas (17-7-3, 11 KOs).

Butler cruised to victory showing exactly why she’s nicknamed “The Sniper.” Her lightning-fast hands, evasiveness and high ring IQ allowed Butler to snipe jabs and counter right hands from long range over the course of the fight.

Rivas tried to utilize her own long-range jab and footwork to counter Butler but was unable to out-snipe “The Sniper.”

In the opening fight of the afternoon on Wynn Records Network, former heavyweight world title challenger Bryant Jennings (27-4, 15 KOs) scored a third-round knockdown en route to a unanimous decision win over Robert Simms (12-7-1, 3 KOs).

The eight-round bout was scored 80-71 twice, 79-72.

Ann Arbor native Jasmine Hampton was scheduled to fight in the flyweight division but the fight was cancelled due to her opponent missing their flight.

Details of the deal have not been made public. The U.S. said it was signed electronically on Sunday but that it will not be implemented until a formal signing. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key mediator, said that will happen Friday in Geneva. Even if the strait — a crucial waterway for the world's oil and natural gas — fully opens then, it will likely take months for the global energy crisis sparked by its closure to ease.

Israel joined the U.S. in launching the war on Feb. 28, but it is not party to the deal. The Israeli defense minister said Monday that the country would not withdraw from land seized in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group.

A spokesman in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel will continue to defend itself against any threat to its security. That alone could scuttle the deal, since Iran has insisted any agreement to end the war include an end to the fighting in Lebanon.

The agreement also faces other major challenges. It gives just 60 days to decide what to do about Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and its nuclear program — which the U.S. and Israel worry could be used to build an atomic weapon, despite Tehran’s insistence that the program is peaceful. It took years for Iran and world powers to negotiate a 2015 agreement to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program.

President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from that accord in his first term, setting the stage for the tensions that culminated in the current war, which has killed thousands across the Middle East, including the top leaders of Iran’s theocracy, and raised the prices of fuel, food and other basic goods far beyond the region.

The Strait of Hormuz won't open until the deal is signed

Early in the war, Iranian attacks on ships brought traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas passed before the conflict — to a near standstill. Trump implemented a blockade in response.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said Iran would not start implementing the agreement until after the signing ceremony. The U.S. military said the blockade will remain in place “pending execution” of the deal.

“Do not attempt to cross until explicit direction is given,” it said Monday in an advisory to merchant ships.

Trump, who faced pressure to end the war ahead of congressional midterm elections in November, said that “a lot of great things are going to happen in the Middle East right now.”

“Very importantly, the oil is plummeting down, and the stock market is shooting up like a rocket today,” he said Monday at the G7 summit in France.

While the agreement provides for the “immediate” opening of the strait and lifting of the blockade, the process will take time because there are mines in the strait, and ships are unwilling to risk traversing it, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss outlines of the agreement.

Details remain scant but expected soon

A second senior U.S. official told reporters that details of the agreement would be released within the next two days.

The memorandum of understanding includes the possibility of releasing Iran’s frozen funds, easing sanctions and creating a $300 billion fund to rebuild Iran — all of which would be tied to Iran meeting benchmarks, the official said.

The officials said technical talks would begin on Friday after the signing ceremony and that Vice President JD Vance would lead negotiations for the U.S.

Israel says it won't withdraw from Lebanon

The success of the deal rests at least partially on what happens between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel’s bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday nearly derailed the negotiations, and a previous attack led Iran to fire on Israel and Israel to fire back.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel plans to stay “indefinitely” in land it holds in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip. He also threatened that if Iran attacks Israel over its strikes in Lebanon, Israel will strike Iran with “great force.”

Asked where Israel stands on the deal, David Mencer, a spokesman in Netanyahu’s office, told The Associated Press that Israel and the U.S. remain fully aligned on preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. But he added that Israel will not tolerate attacks from Hezbollah on its territory.

Israel and the U.S. began the war apparently in lockstep, but the war has created deep fractures in that close relationship, with Trump eager to end a conflict that is deeply unpopular with the American public and Netanyahu intent on destroying Hezbollah. Trump appears to have grown increasingly frustrated with the Israeli leader, even occasionally publicly insulting him, including telling The New York Times on Sunday that he was a “very difficult guy.”

Many Lebanese travel to check on homes

In a sign of the deal's fragility, the Lebanese army called on residents not to rush to return to border villages, saying they should follow military instructions because of the danger of “Israeli violations and aggression.”

Many Lebanese who had fled following Israeli evacuation orders and intense fighting were heading south, however, to check on their homes. Celine Fayad, driving south, said she will test how far she could go. Her village, Aitaroun, is along the border with Israel. It was among the first to be occupied and lies in ruins.

“We were expecting to return,” she said. “Thanks to Iran.”

Ali Haidar was among the first to return to Nabatiyeh, the southern city at the heart of the latest Israeli military operations, where many central buildings have been reduced to dust.

“This used to be our home, our childhood home where we have all of our memories. This is where we grew up. Now it’s gone,” Haidar said. “We will return to rubble and sand. It’s better than being displaced.”

Hezbollah, meanwhile, credited Iran with a “major achievement” in reaching the agreement, which it said could lead to “the full liberation of our land, the return of our prisoners to their homeland and families," and reconstruction of war-devastated areas.

Along with praising the deal, the militant group said it was committed to resisting Israel “until full withdrawal is achieved.”

World leaders welcome the deal

Despite the uncertainties, world leaders from Europe to China welcomed the agreement. French President Emmanuel Macron, who is hosting Trump and other world leaders at a Group of Seven summit this week, said France and other Western partners are “ready to take action very quickly” to help restore normal shipping traffic in the strait once the U.S. and Iran agree to such a mission.

Others have expressed caution that the deal remains tentative. Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Xavier Bettel, noted: “It’s a long time till Friday.”

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Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. Price reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Will Weissert and Aamer Madhani in Washington; Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Abby Sewell and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut; Najib Jobain in Doha, Qatar; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; and Sylvie Corbet in Evian-les-Bains, France, contributed to this report.

The Peacock series that stars Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson as widows of CIA operatives who become intelligence assets in the 1970s Soviet Union has real stakes, and real blood. But its tone is comic first and foremost. And it has been submitted for the forthcoming Emmy nominations as a comedy, despite its hourlong episodes that on television usually mean drama.

The tone-mashing comes naturally to its co-creators, Susanna Fogel and David Iserson, a couple of veterans of film and TV writing. “Ponies” — intelligence-speak for “persons of no interest” — is the first show they have worked on that they originated.

“We understand that we’re not a pure comedy and we’re not a pure drama, which is nothing that we wanted, and we were happy with that. But it was always also part of the calculus that when our characters are in peril, we should feel like they could die,” Iserson told The Associated Press in a joint interview with Fogel. “These characters are experiencing grief. These characters are experiencing peril and also they’re funny people, and that is just the way that we both see the world.”

Fogel puts it a little more succinctly: “Funny people in serious situation is our thing.”

Their two stars have youthful vibes but mature acting skills and they seamlessly handle the show's swerves. Clarke's character, Bea, begins as an innocent in a dangerous world the same way her Daenerys Targaryen began on “Game of Thrones.” Richardson's Twila starts as the same sort of worldly, savvy character she has played on “The White Lotus” and elsewhere.

Then both go on major arcs.

“We wanted to give these actresses something new that they hadn’t done, but that didn’t feel like they were fighting some essential part of who they were,” Fogel said.

She and Iserson have what she calls “an open creative marriage.”

Separately, Fogel was a writer on the 2019 film “Booksmart” and the HBO series “The Flight Attendant.” Iserson has written for series including “Mad Men” and “Mr. Robot.”

Together, their work includes the 2018 film “The Spy Who Dumped Me,” which stars Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon as women thrust into espionage. In retrospect, it feels like a dress rehearsal for “Ponies.”

“That was more on the comedic side of the spectrum for both of us and we were more excited to do something that was more grounded but had the same friendship story to it,” Iserson said. “So we took the things we loved about that experience and then used some of our other skills to make something that felt a little bit more in the dramedy sphere.”

The show felt grounded enough to some viewers that if you Google it, a question that pops up on search: “Is the TV series Ponies a true story?”

“I think good comedy is like a high-wire act. In a way it feels like a high-risk, high-reward thing to be able to do anything that’s doing that,” Fogel said. “I’m not sure how you can stand out with things that are just 100% serious.”

The half-hour comedy vs. hourlong drama split, which the overwhelming majority of historic TV series follow, really seems to matter where Emmys are concerned.

It is probably the reason the half-hour “The Bear” has been able to pass as a comedy and dominate those categories at the Emmys, to the chagrin of some makers of more purely funny stuff.

Though the hourlong comedy isn't unheard of and the Emmys have recognized that before. “Ally McBeal” would get an annual raft of nominations in the late 1990s and once won best comedy series. “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” did the same in the 2010s.

Many of the Emmys' technical and craft awards, including cinematography and sound, are broken into half-hour and hour categories instead of comedy and drama.

Another Emmy contender, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” HBO's latest “Game of Thrones” spinoff, is the flip side of “Ponies,” since it's a drama with episodes that land at just over 30 minutes.

Showrunner Ira Parker says the old distinctions maybe ought to be scrapped.

“Look at all your favorite dramas of all time, like ‘The Sopranos’ and even like, ‘The Wire,’ how funny those were,” Parker said. “I actually think the difference should be 30 minutes and an hour versus comedy and drama.”

“Ponies” has not yet been renewed for a second season, but a few Emmy nominations could change that.

___ This story has been corrected to reflect that Fogel and Iserson are co-creators but only Iserson is showrunner of “Ponies.”

Federal investigators were at the crash site Monday, a day after the plane carrying a pilot and 11 passengers slammed into in a field and burst into flames Sunday, killing all on board, authorities said.

Some family members of those who died were at the airport to watch the jump and witnessed the crash, said Bates County Sheriff Chad Anderson.

Authorities have not released the victims' names.

Kevin Payne, who had jumped with seven of the skydivers on the plane, said they were all different in almost every way, except that they were all brought together as a “sky family.”

“There is a joy and peace and freedom to what we do. That’s what most people never understand,” Payne, of Parkville, Missouri, wrote in an email. “It’s not about the adrenaline. It’s about really flying together with your family in that brief, exquisite instant that people who live their lives on the ground will never understand.”

While the exact cause of the crash won’t be clear for a year or more until the National Transportation Safety Board publishes its final report, weather did not appear to be a factor.

Skydiving plane went down soon after taking off

Witnesses say the plane was roughly 100 feet (30 meters) from the ground when it made an abrupt left turn before crashing.

It appeared to be losing power, and the pilot may have been trying to reach a highway to land when the plane stalled and went down nose first, said Dennis Jacobs, acting airport manager of Butler Memorial Airport.

The private plane was operated by Skydive Kansas City, he said. The crash site in the small town of Butler is roughly 65 miles (105 kilometers) south of Kansas City.

Skydive Kansas City said in a statement that its team and the close-knit skydiving community was in shock.

“This is a devastating loss for everyone connected to Skydive Kansas City and for the wider skydiving community,” the company said. “Our deepest sympathies are with the families, friends, and loved ones of all who were lost.”

Plane made multiple flights over the weekend

The Pacific Aerospace 750XL — a single engine turboprop plane — is a popular model in skydiving because it’s designed for the sport and can quickly take parachutists to jumping altitudes while using short runways.

This particular plane, which was built in 2010, had made nine successful flights in the days before the crash, including two on Sunday morning, according to FlightAware, a digital flight tracking company.

Red flags raised about skydiving oversight

Federal investigators have voiced concerns about weak oversight for skydiving operators in past crash investigations, citing the need for stronger aircraft inspections. The NTSB said after a crash killed 11 people in Hawaii that the Federal Aviation Administration’s regulatory system isn’t strong enough to ensure the safety of skydiving flights.

Skydiving businesses operate under the same FAA rules that apply to any small plane owner as long as their flights don’t venture more than 25 miles (40 kilometers) away. Those rules also cover tourist helicopters and other local flights because the FAA considers those operations less complicated than a charter company or airline.

As a result, FAA oversight of skydiving operators isn’t as stringent as the NTSB has recommended in the past. But aircraft owners are expected to follow the manufacturer's maintenance schedule and recommendations.

The United States Parachute Association, the sport's governing body, said in a statement after Sunday's crash that “a loss of this magnitude is felt profoundly across the entire sport.”

The group said Skydive Kansas City adheres to the safety standards set by the largest skydiving organization in the world, including all maintenance requirements established by the FAA.

The skydiving industry says it has a strong safety record. The association said that last year nearly 3.5 million jumps were completed and that 16 civilians died, the majority from human error.

___

Associated Press reporters Kristen M. Hall in Kansas City, Missouri; Cathy Bussewitz in New York, Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho; and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed.

Samaria Garrett, RDN, appeared on Live in the D in partnership with Natural Delights Medjool Dates to showcase recipes timed to Juneteenth celebrations - and the through line was a small, wrinkled fruit that she says most people overlook.

“Red foods. They have historically symbolized resilience and strength in Juneteenth,” Garrett said, explaining how she wove Medjool dates into vibrant, red-hued dishes to honor the holiday’s traditions.

Her lineup included two drinks - a Hibiscus Date Cooler inspired by the traditional African drink sorrel, and a Watermelon Ginger Date Refresher. “The Medjool dates are paired here, and they provide natural sweetness with no added sugar,” she said. “Both of these drinks are refreshing, festive, and perfect for summer gatherings with family and friends during this Juneteenth holiday.”

The dates didn’t stop at drinks. Garrett demonstrated a date-based barbecue glaze - built with apple cider vinegar and smoked paprika - that she served over salmon and asparagus. “This honestly might be one of my favorite recipes because it really surprises people. So, when blended, these Natural Delights Medjool dates create a naturally sweet base that is perfect for barbecue sauce,” she said.

She also presented a charred collard and cabbage slaw featuring chopped dates. “I love this dish here because it really pays homage to those traditional greens like collard greens while providing a little bit of a different flavor,” Garrett said.

“I hope that these recipes really inspired viewers to try something different during this Juneteenth holiday,” she added.

Natural Delights Medjool Dates are available at Amazon and Meijer. Recipes can be found at naturaldelights.com.

Temperatures will be below the average of 80°, remaining in the lower 70s. It’ll be comfortable with low humidity levels, as will be the case throughout the Midwest and Northeast.

This evening will be pleasant with temperatures falling through the 60s as winds turn lighter.

Tonight will be a tad cool with temperatures dropping into the 50s.

Skies will be partly cloudy overnight, giving way to some sunshine to begin Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon showers and thunderstorms develop, some of which may have gusty winds.

The Storm Prediction Center has placed all of Southeast Michigan under a Marginal Risk for severe weather Tuesday - a level 1 out of 5.

Rain will move out Tuesday night, leading to a drier start to Wednesday. We’ll once again have showers and storms move in during the afternoon.

The Storm Prediction Center has issued Marginal (level 1/5) and Slight (level 2/5) Risks for severe weather for the southern-most side of the state Wednesday.

Rain is expected to become widespread Wednesday into Thursday morning and localized flooding will be possible.

We’ll dry out Thursday afternoon and stay dry, with more sun, Friday. Afternoon highs will be in the mid to upper 70s for the rest of the week.

The filings in separate courts raised the stakes in the fight over whether Sorsby can play and who makes that decision.

In documents filed with the Court of Appeals for the Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo, the NCAA asked for an emergency motion to stay the June 8 injunction granted by a Lubbock County court in favor of Sorsby, who has admitted he has a gambling addiction and has made thousands of bets, included some on his own team when he was a freshman at Indiana.

The NCAA also asked for a resolution of the case by Aug. 28, which it said would spare the potential disruption of a ruling after Texas Tech begins its season on Sept. 5. The NCAA has long banned players for gambling but Texas Tech says Sorsby, who transferred there in January after the past two seasons at Cincinnati, would be better off on the team for his mental health and well being.

“The trial court’s temporary injunction sweeps beyond anything Texas law permits,” attorneys for the NCAA wrote. “It undermines the integrity of college sports, rewrites member-adopted rules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, immunizes Brendan Sorsby from discipline for admitted and serial violations of NCAA anti-gambling rules, incentivizes a run on courthouses across the country to challenge even the most obvious and straightforward student-athlete eligibility decisions and demolishes the status quo.”

The injunction last week from Judge Ken Curry prevents the NCAA from being able to block the Sorsby's eligibility for what will be his final college season with a team among the favorites to win the Big 12 and return to the College Football Playoff for a second consecutive season.

The Big 12, meanwhile, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Dallas seeking a court order backing its ability to use its bylaws for potential punishment against Sorsby. So far, the Big 12 has not weighed in on the Sorsby case but last week the Texas attorney general’s office warned the league of potential legal action from Texas Tech for any sanctions against the school or Sorsby.

The Big 12 filing names Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee in the U.S. Senate race this fall, as well as Texas Tech leadership, including its president, chancellor and athletic director. It accused them of trying to prevent the Big 12 from exercising its own rules the school itself agreed to long ago.

“An athlete with an extensive, documented history of wagering on intercollegiate athletic contests — especially his own team’s games — presents a reputational and integrity risk to the conference and its championship competition that the conference has both the right and the responsibility to address,” attorneys for the Big 12 wrote. "The Conference is not required to accept that risk on behalf of its fifteen other member Institutions, their student-athletes, their fans and its commercial partners. And no government official has the power to compel it to do so.”

The Big 12 board of directors, made up of presidents and chancellors from the league's 16 schools, was expected to meet Monday.

Court records show that Sorsby has acknowledged making thousands of impermissible bets on pro and college sports totaling at least $90,000 during his time at Indiana, Cincinnati and Texas Tech. That included 40 bets on Indiana while he was a freshman there in 2022, though none on any of the games in which he played for the Hoosiers.

While some guidelines for penalties related to gambling have changed in recent years, NCAA rules still call for a permanent loss of eligibility for any player who wagered on his own team. At least two schools, Nebraska in the Big Ten and Georgia in the SEC, have indicated they will not schedule Texas Tech.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond last week called on the Big 12 to suspend Sorsby, and said claims by the Texas AG's office that sanctions against Texas Tech would violate antitrust laws are meritless. The Kansas attorney general, Kris Kobach, said Monday his office would provide support to the Big 12 in any legal dispute with Paxton's office.

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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

The justices will hear arguments in the fall in the case of Hamed Kian, who argues that a six-person jury violates his constitutional rights.

Florida uses six-person juries for all criminal cases that don’t involve the death penalty. Five other states, Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts and Utah, also conduct some criminal trials with six-member juries.

The 45-year-old Kian’s license was suspended after three women who were his patients complained he either kissed or touched them inappropriately, according to court records.

Prosecutors sought an indictment after amassing evidence that Kian, who had an office in Jupiter, continued to see patients even after the suspension. He was convicted by a six-person jury.

Kian's lawyers argue that the smaller jury violates the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees “a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state.”

The amendment does not explicitly set the size of the jury, but Kian's lawyers contend that the word jury could only have meant a body of 12 people at the time the amendment was adopted in 1791. Just over 100 years later, the Supreme Court ruled that juries had to have 12 people.

But in 1970, the justices changed course and ruled by a 7-1 vote that the number 12 was not sacrosanct, also in a case from Florida. Justice Thurgood Marshall was the only dissenter.

More recently, the court has placed renewed emphasis on the original understanding of the Constitution. In another Sixth Amendment case, the court ruled in 2020 that juries must be unanimous in criminal cases, effectively overturning a 1972 decision that had allowed for non-unanimous convictions in criminal cases in Louisiana and Oregon.

“The same reasoning applies to the historical right to a jury of twelve,” Kian's lawyers wrote in their appeal to the court to step in. “When the People enshrined the jury trial right in the Constitution, they did not attach a rider that future judges could adapt it based on latter-day social science views.”

In trying to persuade the Supreme Court to leave Kian's conviction in place, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier wrote that the 1970 case was correctly decided and “overruling it also would imperil thousands of criminal convictions in Florida and five other states that for more than 50 years have relied on its rule.”

UAW members voted 80% in favor of the new contract, which provides employees of the Three Rivers plant a more than 36% wage increase over the life of the agreement, among other gains.

Nearly 1,000 workers at the Tier 1 parts supplier for General Motors went on strike for 10 days after failing to come to terms with their employer. UAW President Shawn Fain paid a visit to Three Rivers on June 1 to announce the strike alongside Local 2093 members, and joined members in announcing that a tentative deal was reached June 10.

“UAW Local 2093 showed one thing to be truer than ever: strikes work,” Fain said in a news release after the deal was ratified. “And American Axle proved something else to be as true as we’ve always known: the industry can afford our demands. From the time we walked off ten days ago to this tentative agreement, the company more than doubled the money on the table.”

Union members cited “major concessions” in the form of wage cuts as the reason for the strike, noting that employees were forced to accept pay cuts in 2008 to save the facility from closure. At the time, wages were cut nearly in half from $29 an hour to $14.50 an hour, with wages topping out at $22 an hour under the previous contract.

Beyond wage increases, the new contract secures more paid days off for workers without increasing their current healthcare costs — something UAW leaders say the company previously insisted couldn’t be done.

“Despite what the company pushed for, we would not accept any concessions from this agreement,” said UAW Local 2093 Bargaining Chair Josh Jager on Wednesday. “This contract ensures there will be no healthcare premium cost increases for the life of the deal. What you pay today is what you’ll pay for the next four years.”

Workers returned to work at 6 a.m. Monday morning.

Newcomer Curacao is expected to travel some 5,300 miles (8,600 kilometers) back-and-forth from its base in Florida to games in Houston, Kansas City and Philadelphia. Bosnia-Herzegovina will rack up nearly 5,200 miles (8,400 kilometers) across Canada and the U.S. while going from its base in Utah to games in Toronto, Los Angeles and Seattle.

The biggest World Cup ever has brought some logistics challenges to the 48 teams in the tournament being played across three countries and four time zones.

“We just have to live with it because that’s what others planned for us,” Czech Republic coach Miroslav Koubek said through a translator after a 2-1 loss to South Korea in Guadalajara last Thursday. “We're happy to be here and we want to have the best possible results. Our logistics behind the scenes is good, but of course it’s not ideal that we have to travel that much.”

Turkey coach Vincenzo Montella said “this is the reality, we have to adapt.”

His squad trains in Arizona, about 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) from Vancouver, where it opened with a 2-0 loss to Australia.

“Of course after the match we’ll be back at 5 o’clock in the morning, and it’s not easy to recover, especially for people my age,” the 51-year-old Montella said through a translator ahead of the match. “After a night out you know it takes a few days to recover. America is big, Canada is very big. Mexico is big. We have to adapt. I know these things you can’t change. You can’t choose. You just have to adapt so you don’t have any excuses.”

Host teams on the move

Canada's squad had to fly nearly five hours to cover the more than 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) between Toronto and Vancouver after its opener. The U.S. team will travel nearly that distance in total while going back-and-forth between its training camp in Irvine, California, and its games in the Los Angeles area and Seattle. Mexico is expected to travel less than 600 miles (965 kilometers) within the country.

The England team is set to travel the most among the main title contenders, having its camp in Kansas City and playing games in Dallas, Boston and New York. Spain will have to fly nearly four hours from its base in Atlanta to a match in Guadalajara.

Argentina and France, the finalists at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, face fewer travel challenges. Argentina is based in Kansas City, where it will open its title defense before playing two matches in Dallas. France has its camp in Boston. It will play one game there and the other two in Philadelphia and New York.

FIFA has long recognized the logistic challenges for the World Cup scattered across North America. It tried to separate teams in geographical clusters where they are based and where they will play most of their matches.

Lengthy traveling was a non-issue at the previous World Cup in Qatar, which is roughly the size of Connecticut and is smaller than Switzerland. But teams faced similar travel challenges in 2018 in Russia and 2014 in Brazil.

High altitude also a factor

South Korea's squad doesn’t have to leave Mexico for its group matches, but does have to deal with the high altitude both in Mexico City (about 2,200 meters, 7,200 feet) and Guadalajara (about 1,500 meters, 4,900 feet).

The South Koreans did specific training to adjust to the altitude, and coach Hong Myung-bo said it “helped a lot” but still wasn’t enough.

“In the second half, I think we could see that everyone was very tired,” Hong said after his team’s come-from-behind win over the Czech Republic.

Heat and humidity could also become an issue for many teams training and playing in U.S. cities such as Houston, Dallas, New York and Miami.

Brazil forward Vinícius Júnior complained of the conditions after the 1-1 draw with Morocco on Saturday in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

“Because of the weather, the heat, the field dries up too quickly and the game gets really stuck and we can’t have game rhythm. That makes it difficult for us because we want to play, we want to move the ball from side to side, and that gets in the way of our game,” he said. “But we’re going to have to adapt because I believe it’s going to be like that for the whole competition where everyone is going to have the same field of play.”

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AP Sports Writer Anne M. Peterson contributed from Vancouver.

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

There’s a conversation making the rounds online about how Father’s Day is sometimes marketed as a day for dads to get a break from their parenting responsibilities. Meanwhile, many dads want their Father’s Day to be filled with family time.

Father’s Day gifts and how to spend the day was the topic of discussion during the What’s the Buzz segment on “Live in the D.” Watch the video above to see the entire conversation and what friends of the show, who are real-life dads, had to say.

Judge Andrew Fishkin’s ruling likely ends a monthslong ordeal for the California woman, one of thousands adopted from abroad who were never granted citizenship because of bureaucratic loopholes between adoption and immigration law.

The woman has lived in the United States since she was adopted by American parents as a toddler and has no criminal record. The Associated Press is not naming her because she worries her legal situation remains tenuous as the administration has time to appeal. A federal judge has allowed her to use a pseudonym, “Ms. S,” in her challenge to the government’s determination of her immigration status.

The woman received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security in February that ordered her to appear for removal proceedings, saying she is eligible for deportation because she overstayed her visa in March 1974 at 4 years old.

The woman, 56, described what came next as a terrifying and humiliating few months.

She grew up in a Christian, military family on a farm in Wisconsin and was taught to be patriotic. But the documents she received from the government described her as an “alien;” some said she did not understand English, which is the only language she speaks.

Immigration officials told her she was being arrested, but released and tracked with an ankle monitor. She bought new pants to try to hide it and taught herself not to cross her legs in work meetings, terrified it would threaten the corporate job in healthcare she’s held for almost two decades.

They fingerprinted her and took her DNA. She said she was obviously weeping in the mug shot they snapped of her.

She prepared herself to be detained: she put her bills on autopay and gave her friends a key to her home.

Her lawyer, Emily Howe, said the government had the power to agree she is an American citizen.

“Instead they treated her like a terrorist, like she was the worst of the worst criminals," Howe said. "It felt very Big Brother, very Orwellian."

The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the record on an individual case.

The Associated Press profiled the woman in 2024 as part of a story about how many international adoptees were left without citizenship because their American adoptive parents failed to naturalize them.

The woman's parents were living in Iran, where her father was working for a U.S. government contractor, in the 1970s. He was retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel. He'd been held for years a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II.

The couple found the toddler at an orphanage and returned to the U.S. with her in 1973 and soon completed the adoption. At that time, parents had to separately naturalize adopted children. The woman’s parents have since died.

She didn’t learn she hadn’t been naturalized until she applied for a passport at 38 years old. She still doesn’t know how the oversight happened. She searched her father’s papers and found a letter from a lawyer, dated 1975, that said he was working with immigration officials, “it appears this matter is concluded,” and billed her father for his services.

She filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month, trying to prohibit the government from removing her, and forcing it to grant her citizenship.

She has long believed she should be considered a U.S. citizen: she has a social security card, a driver’s license and has been legally allowed to work and pay taxes for decades. It’s only the immigration agency that denies she is a citizen. She suspects her paperwork was lost, likely when militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Fishkin seemed to agree: he wrote in his ruling that documents from that embassy are not available to her or to the U.S. government. He declared her a refugee, entitled to work in the U.S. His ruling puts the woman on a pathway to being recognized as a citizen.

She’d felt hopeful, she said, when she learned her court date before Fishkin was scheduled for her late father’s birthday. She always felt like she needed to protect not only herself, but also her father's legacy. He was a conscientious military official, she said, who would not have knowingly allowed such a glaring oversight that left his daughter in legal limbo.

“I love you and I look up to you,” the note reads, addressed to Pedri and Lamine Yamal. “Thanks for coming to my city. I hope you win the World Cup.”

As the players run onto the field, his eyes grow wide.

“Dad,” he whispers, “they’re real.”

The scene was equally incredible to his father, Jaxon McClure, a Marine Corps veteran who grew up in Chattanooga playing soccer with trash cans for goalposts, now coaches hundreds of local children and named his first child after one of the sport’s greatest stars.

This summer — 32 years since the United States first hosted the world’s biggest sporting competition — Chattanooga is among several cities established as World Cup base camps, where visiting teams live and train between matches.

Spain — among the favorites to win the tournament — has set up camp at a boarding school on the Tennessee River in Chattanooga; Iraq is in a mountain resort town in West Virginia with fewer than 3,000 residents; and Germany is in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where cobblestone streets and tobacco warehouses share space with German flags and television crews.

Southern hospitality on display

A 144-foot (44-meter) underground waterfall beneath Lookout Mountain is lit up red and the Embassy Suites in downtown Chattanooga, where the Spanish team is staying, is adorned with la Rojigualda — Spain’s red and yellow flag. Giant banners featuring Spanish players and declaring, “Bienvenidos a Chattanooga” greeted La Roja as the team arrived at Chattanooga Airport.

Native Chattanoogan Skip Schwartz said so many people are wearing Spanish jerseys that “you don’t know if they’re from Spain, hoping to get a glimpse, or they are locals who have bought into the La Roja bandwagon.”

Around 25,000 people entered a lottery for 1,000 tickets to watch Spain practice at Baylor School, a 600-acre (240-hectare) private academy for students grade 6 through 12.

Meanwhile, tickets to watch Germany practice at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem sold out in four minutes.

“It’s just fun to see everyone start to care about something they didn’t care about before,” said Savannah Lahey, who manages soccer bar Small Batch Beer Co. in downtown Winston-Salem. The bar has extended its hours for watch parties and created a German-inspired menu featuring schnitzel sandwiches and sauerbraten for Germany’s opening match.

“It’s getting to make people feel at home, even when they’re not at home,” Lahey said.

At the Greenbrier in West Virginia, a historic resort that has hosted presidents and foreign leaders, Iraqi flags flew alongside the Stars and Stripes as the national team arrived for its World Cup training camp.

Baylor provides outstanding soccer facilities

Teams chose from FIFA-approved base camps across North America, with higher-ranked nations getting the earliest picks. Spain selected Chattanooga over larger cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles, then worked with Baylor to create an expansive headquarters around its training fields and media facilities.

FIFA inspectors graded Baylor’s facilities, including the condition of the grass and its drainage and irrigation systems, the school’s operations and systems director Sam Green said. To preserve the pitches for Spain, Baylor’s players trained this spring on artificial turf, a sacrifice Green said seniors accepted without complaint.

Hidden behind a tree line, two grass pitches form the center of Spain’s daily training. The airport and their downtown hotel are minutes away and Atlanta — where Spain will play two group-stage matches — is within easy reach. After Spain’s first official practice, players headed straight to the campus pool, where they “swam and laid out and had a good time” before returning to training.

For Schwartz, who now serves on Baylor’s board of trustees, Spain’s choice is meaningful because he and his teammates helped to lay Bermuda sod for their new soccer field when he played soccer at Baylor in the late 1980s and early 1990s. That field has since been replaced by an indoor tennis facility — which serves as Spain’s media center — but the school now has three soccer pitches and one of the region’s premier soccer programs.

“If somebody had told me then that 40 years later Spain would be using this campus as the foundation for a World Cup, I wouldn’t even have tried to fathom it,” he said.

‘Without a doubt, I’m cheering for Spain’

Tina Ankar, a first generation Palestinian American, said she became a soccer fan because of the World Cup and her boyfriend, who grew up watching games with his Mexican family. At Spain’s open practice, hundreds of fans shouted “¡Vamos, España!” after nearly every touch. Ankar found herself swept up in the energy.

“I’ve got to watch these guys all the way to the end,” she said. “Now we really have someone to cheer on besides America.”

Before Spain’s first public practice, Baylor students slipped into the locker room and snapped photos of stalls freshly labeled with the names of Spain’s stars, debating which player had inherited “their” locker.

“I sat in that locker room almost every single day this spring,” said 17-year-old midfielder and graduating senior Heath Techasiriwan.

Techasiriwan, a Filipino American and lifelong Lionel Messi fan who rooted for Argentina in 2022, said there was no question who he will support this summer.

“Without a doubt, I’m cheering for Spain,” he said. “I can’t see players like Pedri, Gavi and Lamine Yamal literally right in front of me and not cheer for them.”

Goalkeeper Mathew Ramirez commutes an hour each way to Baylor from Calhoun, Georgia. He grew up watching Barcelona with his father, who immigrated from Guatemala, and plans to watch Spain’s World Cup matches over carne asada with family and friends.

After practice, Yamal, who is 18, signed the 16-year-old goalie’s custom Barcelona jersey. Ramirez told the star in Spanish: “Watching you play gives me happiness.”

A young fan takes selfies and dreams of superheroes

Back in Chattanooga, Beckham collects signatures and takes selfies with players before heading home in the Spain jersey his father says he slept in the night before.

His father says Beckham kept repeating: “Wait, Dad. They’re real. Lamine Yamal is a real person. I just thought they were like superheroes. They’re on TV.”

Chattanooga has come a long way since the neighborhood games McClure remembers. He is now a soccer coach to about 850 children, and the city has professional men’s and women’s teams.

“They could have gone anywhere in this country,” McClure says of Spain, “and they chose us.”

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

Antonio and Maribel Espaillat, the owners of Jet Set nightclub, could face up to 2 years in prison if found guilty.

The April 8, 2025 collapse reverberated across the Dominican Republic, with authorities working frantically for days to reach people under the rubble.

The ruling Monday by Magistrate Reymundo Mejía Zorrilla of the First Court of Instruction of the National District in Santo Domingo drew frustration from victims' relatives who were hoping for homicide charges that carry stiffer penalties of up to 20 years in prison.

About 30 relatives had gathered at the courthouse ahead of the hearing, holding hands and praying.

Prosecutors have previously accused the Espaillats of trying to intimidate or manipulate employees. Antonio Espaillat is considered a powerful business person, owning upscale entertainment centers and dozens of local radio stations. The Public Prosecutor’s Office has asserted that it has hundreds of pieces of evidence tying the siblings to the collapse.

Hundreds of people including athletes and politicians were at Jet Set when the roof collapsed, attending a concert by singer Rubby Pérez, who was among the victims. Others included former MLB pitcher Octavio Dotel, who was pulled from the debris but died in a hospital.

The Espaillats will be tried together. No date has been set for the trial.

New York has reached the WNBA Finals in each of those seasons, winning once and losing once. The Liberty players didn't want to think that far ahead after clinching their spot Sunday in the mid-season tournament title game. Still it's hard to ignore the success considering New York has won seven straight games and finally had their entire roster healthy for the victory over Washington.

The Commissioner's Cup first started being played in 2021 and one or both teams have gone to play for the WNBA championship three times — in 2022-24. New York beat Las Vegas in 2023 before losing to Minnesota the next season in the Commissioner's Cup finale. The Liberty avenged that loss by beating the Lynx for their first WNBA championship later that season.

“It’s a pretty high number of teams that go to the Commissioner’s Cup championship that play in the (WNBA) finals,” Liberty center Jonquel Jones said.

New York is still waiting to see who and where it will play. Las Vegas has a one-game lead over Minnesota and can clinch the spot in the championship game with a win over Dallas on Monday night.

The Aces have a half-game lead over New York in the overall standings. The team with the better regular-season winning percentage through games Wednesday night will host the title game. New York won at Las Vegas in 2023.

Behind the scenes

ESPN will show a four-part series on the Toronto Tempo and how the first WNBA team outside of the United States was built from the ground up.

“With the incredible growth of the WNBA and women’s basketball, this is the perfect time to showcase the launch of Canada’s first WNBA franchise,” said Lindsay Rovegno, Vice President & Executive Producer, ESPN Originals. “Setting the Tempo presents a rare opportunity for fans to see what it truly takes to build a successful organization, shining a spotlight on the female executives whose decisions and vision are laying the foundation for the future.”

Power poll rankings

Las Vegas takes over the top spot after edging Minnesota 100-97 on Saturday night. The Aces were followed by the Lynx, New York, Atlanta and Dallas. Golden State, Indiana and Los Angeles were next. Expansion teams Portland and Toronto were ninth and 10th. Washington, Chicago and Phoenix followed the Tempo. Seattle and Connecticut rounded out the poll.

Player of the week

A'ja Wilson of Las Vegas was the AP player of the week. She averaged 30 points, 9.0 rebounds and 2.7 blocks to help the Aces win all three of their games last week. Other players receiving votes included Kelsey Plum of Los Angeles, Breanna Stewart of New York and Caitlin Clark of Indiana.

30-year anniversary

The Los Angeles Sparks and New York Liberty will play each other on Sunday for the official 30th anniversary rematch of the WNBA's first-ever game in 1997. Penny Toler scored the first points in league history, making a baseline jumper 59 seconds into the game.

Game of the week

Atlanta vs Indiana, Thursday and Saturday. The Dream and Fever play a home-and-home matchup this week with third-year stars Angel Reese and Clark facing off for the second and third time in a two week stretch. Indiana won the first matchup on June 4.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

“It was an amazing, experience, this was a one-of-one,” UFC CEO Dana White said.

“It will never happen again.”

Oh, not because the show dubbed Freedom 250 and ostensibly held to celebrate Trump's 80th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence’s signing wasn't by White's accounts a smashing success. He crowed about merchandise sales and streaming service subscriptions and how UFC surpassed its goals in every metric he could list at a news conference that stretched well into the dawn's early light Monday.

And the setting?

Forget it, almost impossible to top on a night when fighters essentially treated their walkouts like they were kids on a class trip. The all-male lineup toured the West Wing, the Oval Office, walked past presidential portraits, through the Roosevelt Room, the Cabinet Room — and the winners even got a meet-and-greet with Trump.

Gaethje skimmed the copy of the Declaration of Independence that hangs in the Oval Office and said a prayer before he made the unusually long walk to the cage. Gaethje battered Spanish-Georgian fighter Ilia Topuria in the main event and won the UFC lightweight title.

“Usually, I kind of blank out when it comes to getting ready to walk to the cage,” Gaethje said. “It was pretty crazy, looking at the Declaration of Independence. The original one. Their language was different. I'm not smart enough to read that.”

Gaethje also banked a whopping $825,000 in bonus money for winning “Performance of the Night” and “Fight of the Night” honors.

Trump stayed until the end of the seven-card show and generally seemed engaged with the fights — at one point he put on a white “USA” baseball cap — and certainly was all smiles each time a fighter who had a hand raised in victory then used it on a handshake with the president.

Trump boasted on Truth Social the night was “PERFECT!”

There were few blips on the big night and the blemishes that did happen were at the expense of UFC's two more problematic fighters.

UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland was escorted out of the Ellipse watch party attended by thousands more fans by a group of police officers. Heavyweight Josh Hokit took it further with an extraordinary and unfounded attack based on a right-wing conspiracy theory about former first lady Michelle Obama.

For all the hand-wringing ahead of the card, the show delivered on the star-spangled smackdown that featured pulsating patriotism from the Marine Band, tributes to first responders, active military and other White House-designated heroes. Gaethje and Ciryl Gane were crowned champions inside a blood-splattered eight-sided cage plopped in the open air right in the people's house backyard on the South Lawn.

Blood and guts were a mandate before an American fighter wrapped himself in the flag.

“Hopefully tonight created some unity,” White said as he put on his hyperbolic promoter's hat. “Even for the people that thought this was going to be some big political statement or something, this wasn't. This was Americans, all Americans celebrating the birthday. For people who tuned in for the first time, because it was at the White House, hopefully they liked the sport. They liked some of the guys' stories.”

So maybe some new fans stick around.

After all, International Fight Week is right around the corner, with UFC 329 set to mark the return after a five-year break of the company's biggest box office draw, Conor McGregor.

That fight will be held in a more traditional arena back on UFC's home turf in Las Vegas, just as they will for years to come.

But despite all the pomp and pageantry, the eyerolls and angst, White stands by his claim that UFC is one-and-done in D.C.

The constant headaches over weather concerns in the rare outdoors show, the logistics of construction of the cage and staging events at federal landmarks and the soaring cost — UFC said it was footing the $60 million tab — made Freedom 250 a one-off for a company once dubbed “human cockfighting."

“I can’t afford it," White said. "I’ll never do the Sphere again and we’ll never do this again.”

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AP MMA: https://apnews.com/hub/mixed-martial-arts

Russia fired the barrage of hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at the capital of Kyiv, and the second-largest city of Kharkiv, after Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke separately by phone with U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday.

Arriving in France, Trump said he had a good conversation with Zelenskyy and Putin. “Now that this (Iran) is finished, we’re going to be focusing on that,” he said, referring to diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting that followed Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

The war in Ukraine is also set to feature in talks Tuesday by G7 leaders at a summit in France. Zelenskyy also is due to attend to pushing his country's plight.

“This is how Russia shows the world its intention to continue the war,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X, referring to the overnight attack on civilian sites that included the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, an 11th-century monastery complex.

“It is very important that there be a response from the G7 countries ... and that this response be decisive and substantive; more pressure on the aggressor and more support for Ukraine’s air defense, especially anti-ballistic capabilities,” he said.

Zelenskyy offered to meet Putin with Trump and European leaders at the G7 gathering in France but the Kremlin didn’t reply, a Ukrainian official familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about it. The Kremlin has said repeatedly that if Zelenskyy wants to meet Putin, he can come to Moscow.

Putin is wanted by the court on a warrant dating to March 2023 for alleged involvement in the abduction of children from Ukraine during the conflict. France would be obliged as an ICC member to arrest him. The United States and Russia both oppose the court.

Children among the wounded in Kyiv

Zelenskyy said the Russian strikes killed 11 civilians and emergency workers and wounded 53 across Ukraine.

Five were killed in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, where at least 30 others were also wounded, including two children aged 5 and 6, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city's Military Administration.

A series of powerful explosions were heard across Kyiv, with a wave of ballistic missiles followed by Shahed drones as many people sought shelter underground. Clouds of black smoke drifted over the city.

Five strikes hit civilian sites in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district in under 30 minutes, Tkachenko said, including a 25-story apartment building, while a market and a grocery store caught fire. In the Obolonskyi district, a nine-story residential building took a direct hit.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted defense and industrial facilities in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro, including enterprises and workshops producing components for long-range drones and cruise missiles. It said that a workshop producing medium- and long-range drones located on the premises of the Dovzhenko film studios in Kyiv was among the targets hit.

Russia also claimed to have hit Kyiv’s Radar plant, which it said makes drone components, and the Mayak plant that it said makes Ukraine's Flamingo long-range cruise missiles. Military conscription offices in Kyiv were also struck, it said.

There was no immediate information about the 11th person killed in the attacks.

Religious site damaged in attack

In Kyiv, smoke billowed around the golden domes of the Dormition Cathedral inside the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a revered religious landmark.

Its roof caught fire during the attack, said Metropolitan Epiphanius, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. He condemned the strike as another Russian crime “against humanity, against history, against Christianity,” and appealed for prayers to save the site.

The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, also known as the Monastery of the Caves, is a sprawling complex of monasteries and churches, including some underground, built between the 11th and 19th centuries. Some of the churches at the UNESCO-listed World Heritage site are connected by a labyrinthine complex of caves spanning more than 600 meters (2,000 feet).

In a statement, UNESCO condemned the attack, which it said reportedly caused significant damage to the exterior and interior of the Dormition Cathedral.

Zelenskyy said the damage was caused by two Russian drones and called the attack Moscow’s “biggest crime yet against Christian culture.” He visited the scene with Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko and other government officials.

The cathedral, churches and other buildings overlook the Dnieper River and have been a pilgrimage site for centuries.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the attack was the “equivalent, for us French, of a bombing of Notre Dame” in Paris.

Ukraine’s National Commission for UNESCO, which coordinates the country's cooperation with the U.N. educational, scientific and cultural body, urged the international community to step up pressure on Moscow to stop its invasion and to throw it out of the organization.

“By destroying Ukraine’s cultural heritage, (Russia) seeks to erase historical memory and inflicts damage upon the heritage of all humankind,” the commission said in a statement.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed, without offering evidence, that the complex was hit by one of Ukraine’s U.S.-made Patriot air defense missiles, saying that it might have veered off course due to its age.

Russia fires more than 600 drones at Ukraine

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 70 missiles and 611 drones overnight, primarily targeting Kyiv, while also striking the cities of Dnipro and Kharkiv.

The military said air defenses intercepted or electronically suppressed 632 aerial targets, including 50 missiles and 582 drones.

Preliminary data showed 20 ballistic missiles and 27 attack drones hit 42 locations across the country, while debris from intercepted drones fell at 12 sites.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses downed 123 Ukrainian drones overnight.

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Associated Press writers Samuel Petrequin in London and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

The ban, which is expected to take effect early next year, makes the U.K. part of a growing global movement to tighten online safety for children. Australia, Canada, Brazil and Indonesia have introduced legislation or announced age-based restrictions or requirements for children’s access to social media. France, Spain, Denmark, Thailand and South Korea are among others studying or developing similar approaches.

“Every parent can see it with their own eyes. Social media is making children unhappy,” said Starmer, who has two teenage children. “I’ve heard first hand from families crying out for change and we will do right by them.”

The plan was met with mixed reaction, with some praising Starmer for taking action and others questioning the effectiveness of a blanket ban.

YouTube and Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — warned Monday that a blanket social media restriction could push kids into unregulated spaces.

“Blanket bans push kids out of such curated, supervised, beneficial experiences and towards anonymous, less-safe services,” a YouTube spokesperson said. Meta said a ban could drive teens to online alternatives without any parental controls.

Starmer acknowledged the challenges and said some teens would try to find their way around a ban, but said: “I do believe we can enforce it.”

He added: “Teenagers drink before they should, but we do not then say, ‘in which case let us abandon any attempt to stop them buying alcohol.’”

The prime minister — who is under pressure to step down from members of his own party over what they see as poor leadership and could face a challenge from within his Labour Party in the coming days or weeks — said he is “not prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children.”

Starmer says the UK will go further than Australia

The U.K. plans to follow the same model for a social media ban as Australia, which last year became the first country to bar under-16s from holding social media accounts. Platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to exclude children younger than 16 could be punished with multimillion-dollar fines.

The U.K. said its ban will apply to platforms including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, but not YouTube Kids or messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal. Starmer stressed that enforcement action will target tech companies, not children.

He said the move was a “big moment for our country,” adding that he will go further than Australia's measures.

The government will also act to prevent strangers from contacting children on gaming and livestreaming platforms, Starmer said. AI chatbots designed to simulate romantic or sexual relationships with users will be restricted to over-18s only, and authorities are also considering additional measures including overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for those under 18.

More details are expected next month.

Some skepticism over whether a ban will work

The decision follows a public comment period in which the government received 116,000 responses from parents, the tech industry and children. More than 90% of respondents wanted an under-16 ban, the government said.

Ellen Roome, a children's online safety campaigner whose son took his own life at 14 years old, welcomed the move. She believes her son died after an online challenge went wrong and has campaigned for legal reforms to give parents access to children’s social media accounts after their death.

“The tech companies, if they wanted to make changes, they could have done that by now. They’ve chosen not to do it,” she said. “We need to come down hard on them. If they’re not going to do it, we need to be very strict.”

But others say research in Australia has shown that age verification is difficult to enforce, and that a blanket ban fails to address a deeper problem — the way social media algorithms push harmful content to young people.

“This is far too easy to work around. It is based on age verification tools that have been shown to be ineffective to date,” said Kate Edwards, head of education at the Molly Rose Foundation, which was set up in memory of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life after being exposed to self-harm content online.

“It does nothing to address the actual problem itself, the harmful algorithms, the harmful content that is existing on those platforms,” Edwards added.

A Meta statement said it shares “the goal of keeping teens safe online," and that it now features teen accounts to automatically limit who can contact them and the content they see.

“Like others, we don’t think bans will achieve this goal,” Meta said, adding that Australia had shown how “bans risk isolating teens from online communities and information.”

Jon Crowcroft, a communications systems professor at the University of Cambridge, said people supporting social bans are well-meaning but probably misguided, and changes could prevent children from accessing sites they need.

“There is a real risk this will drive some users to worse sites, and policing devices is close to impossible technically,” Crowcroft said.

Other critics including the Open Rights Group have expressed concerns about age verification companies and how users’ private data is protected.

U.S. opposes the move

The ban could further inflame tensions with the U.S., which has warned that regulations should be narrow and not violate free speech protections, according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in London. It said it was also concerned that regulations would place greater burdens on American technology companies.

Starmer said he expected to discuss the issue with U.S. President Donald Trump and other world leaders at a Group of Seven summit in France that starts Monday.

“I honestly think that across world leaders, there has always been a recognition that leaders have to take steps to protect children,” he said. “I don’t think that’s controversial.”

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Associated Press writer Jill Lawless contributed to this story.

The vehicle was selected for a physical inspection in Port Huron after attempting the border crossing, and a search by officers and K9 units revealed 55 shrink-wrapped bricks of a white powdery substance concealed within two cardboard boxes. After determining that the powder was in fact cocaine, the drugs, truck and trailer were seized and the driver is facing federal charges.

“With this drug seizure, our frontline officers have dealt another significant financial blow to the transnational criminal networks attempting to exploit our shared border for profit,” said CPB Port Huron Port Director Jeffrey Wilson, in a statement.

The case remains under investigation by Homeland Security Investigations.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the team did not announce the deal, which was first reported by ESPN.

Splitter, 41, joined Chauncey Billups’ staff in Portland last June. He was elevated from assistant to interim coach when Billups was arrested in October in a federal takedown of a sprawling gambling operation. Billups has pleaded not guilty to charges of wire fraud and money laundering.

Splitter coached Portland to a 42-40 record and a five-game loss to San Antonio in the first round of the playoffs. It was the first playoff appearance and first time the Trail Blazers finished with a winning record since the 2020-21 season.

Splitter played for San Antonio, Atlanta and Philadelphia during his seven seasons as an NBA player. The 6-foot-11 center from Brazil was selected by the Spurs in the first round of the 2007 draft, and he helped the team win an NBA title in 2014.

He worked for Brooklyn for five seasons from 2018-23, first as a pro scout and then as an assistant coach. He was an assistant for Houston for one year before coaching Paris Basketball Club to a French Cup championship during the 2024-25 season.

Splitter would replace Billy Donovan, who resigned after six seasons. The Bulls had conversations with Donovan about returning, but he decided to step aside rather than work with a new front office.

Chicago allowed 121.5 points per game this season, ranking 28th overall in the NBA. The Bulls finished with a 31-51 record while missing the playoffs for the fourth straight year.

Bryson Graham was hired as Chicago’s executive vice president of basketball operations on May 4. Stephen Mervis and Acie Law IV joined the team’s revamped front office on May 19.

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

As kids get older, however, those appointments can begin to feel less urgent. If a child rarely gets sick and isn’t due for vaccines, some parents might wonder whether yearly checkups are really necessary.

According to Dr. Laith Al Ejeilat, a pediatrician with Henry Ford Health, those annual visits continue to play an important role throughout childhood and adolescence.

“Annual check-ups for your child are really important,” he said. “Pediatricians are trained to look for problems with health and development that parents may not be looking for.”

How often should children see a pediatrician?

Many adults grew up going to the doctor mainly when they were sick, but preventive care has become a much larger focus in modern medicine.

Today, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends more frequent well-child visits throughout infancy and toddlerhood:

• 3-5 days
• 1 month
• 2 months
• 4 months
• 6 months
• 9 months
• 12 months
• 15 months
• 18 months
• 2 years
• 2 1/2 years
• Once a year from age 3 to adulthood

Those appointments help physicians monitor physical growth, emotional development and overall well-being over time -- not just treat illness when it appears.

What happens during a well-child visit?

Annual physicals cover much more than vaccines and basic measurements. Pediatricians use these visits to evaluate a child’s overall health, identify concerns early and help families support healthy development.

• Monitor growth and physical health

During a checkup, pediatricians typically review vital signs like heart rate and blood pressure while also tracking height and weight patterns. These measurements help physicians identify whether a child is developing appropriately and maintaining a healthy growth trajectory.

Doctors may also perform hearing and vision screenings and discuss recommended immunizations, including seasonal flu shots and vaccines when appropriate.

• Evaluate development

Well visits also give pediatricians an opportunity to assess developmental milestones through observation, conversation and questionnaires.

For younger children, that may include speech development, motor skills and social behaviors. As children grow, doctors look more closely at academic progress, emotional regulation and behavioral patterns.

• Support mental and emotional health

Pediatricians increasingly help families address mental and behavioral health concerns as well. Conversations about anxiety, bullying, attention difficulties, learning challenges and emotional stress often begin during routine wellness visits.

These appointments can also provide families with guidance on topics like sleep habits, nutrition, physical activity and screen time.

• Discuss safety at home

Safety counseling is another important part of preventive pediatric care. Pediatricians may talk with families about reducing risks related to firearms, household chemicals, internet safety, pets or other potential hazards in the home.

In some cases, they can also help connect families with community resources related to food access, housing or other support services.

Catching problems early

Parents know their children best, but some medical concerns develop gradually or produce symptoms that are easy to overlook.

Routine checkups can help physicians identify issues before they become more serious.

Dr. Al Ejeilat said pediatricians commonly uncover concerns like enlarged tonsils, scoliosis, nutrition deficiencies, sleep disorders, heart rhythm abnormalities and undescended testicles during routine exams.

Tracking trends over time is especially valuable. For example, gradual weight gain might not always be obvious day to day, but yearly measurements can reveal patterns that allow families to intervene earlier with healthy lifestyle changes.

“Regular checkups can help reduce the chance of developing serious illnesses -- and it’s always easier to prevent a problem than to fix it later,” Dr. Al Ejeilat said.

Why these visits are important during teen years

As children enter adolescence, annual visits often become more valuable -- not less.

Teenagers face increasing physical, emotional and social pressures, and pediatricians can help families navigate that transition. Establishing a long-term relationship with a trusted doctor may also make teens more likely to seek guidance and speak honestly about concerns.

“Kids who establish a relationship with their pediatrician often look up to their doctor,” Dr. Al Ejeilat said. “That can mean they’re more likely to listen to the doctor, even when they start pushing back against their parents’ advice.”

Pediatricians frequently encourage parents to step out briefly during adolescent wellness visits so teens have an opportunity to speak privately with their physician. Those conversations may cover topics like emotional health, relationships, sexual health, substance use or stress.

Creating that safe space can help teenagers build confidence in advocating for their own health while also giving them access to reliable, science-based guidance.

Helping families navigate a complicated world

Today’s children and teens are growing up in a world heavily influenced by social media and constant online exposure. Pediatricians can help families address challenges that come with that environment, including misinformation, unhealthy behaviors, cyberbullying and harmful online trends.

“Pediatricians can be a resource for families to push back against those negative influences,” Dr. Al Ejeilat said. “We take time to help families navigate technology, understand the risks and develop strategies to protect kids.”

Ultimately, annual checkups are about much more than treating illness. They help build trust, encourage healthy development and provide families with ongoing support throughout every stage of childhood.

At Henry Ford Health, pediatric providers support children’s physical, emotional and developmental health from infancy through adolescence.

Learn more about pediatric primary care and specialty services at Henry Ford Pediatrics.

Heads lowered in quiet prayer. Boxes of pizza passed from people in jerseys to people in suits. And Matos — a retired correctional officer with a strictly enforced policy against premature celebration — waited until the final buzzer before leading the shrieking, weeping, chest-thumping crowd through the frenzied streets.

“The camaraderie and craziness is something I’ve never seen in my whole life,” Matos marveled. “These Knicks really got everyone outside.”

The team’s victory Saturday night over the San Antonio Spurs saw moments of mayhem, with dozens of arrests and property damage mostly clustered around Madison Square Garden.

But scenes like the one on Matos’ block were far more common: neighbors and strangers of every age and background, clustered around a TV or projector as their collective stress gave way to an unusual moment of citywide euphoria.

Impromptu dance parties raged until dawn — then continued Sunday, as delirious New Yorkers flocked to the Puerto Rican Day parade, also attended by multiple Knicks players, including Brooklyn native Jose Alvarado.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Knicks fan himself who has popped up at watch parties around the city, announced the team would be honored Thursday by a ticker-tape parade.

By Sunday night, many New Yorkers were struggling to find a historical comparison to what they were experiencing.

“I was there for the Giants’ Super Bowls, the Yankees dynasty, the Mets in ’86, which was really special. None of that comes even close to this,” said Marlon Rice, a 51-year-old community advocate. “The entire city is on tilt because of the Knicks. I just hope this stays and we can enjoy an entire summer off this vibe.”

That joy had been building for weeks, as the Knicks embarked on a historic playoff run marked by one stunning comeback after another. For fans long accustomed to last-minute heartbreak, processing this new reality seemed to grow into a communal endeavor — requiring a new sort of viewing experience.

To meet that need, unofficial watch parties cropped up across the city streets and parks, gas stations and delis, synagogues, mosques and at least one funeral home — giving residents the chance to watch shoulder to shoulder with fellow fans, without shelling out a month’s rent or more for a ticket.

Hours before tipoff on Saturday, lawn chairs and sound systems were already set up on a street corner facing the facade of a building where a Cuban restaurant’s projection of each game had reliably drawn thousands of people. By then, the phrase “Knicks in 5” had become both standard greeting and farewell among New Yorkers.

The ensuing delirium has upended schedules, added to milestones and bred a strange sense of civic pride. Newborns at Lenox Hill Hospital received Knicks-embroidered hats. The cast of Hamilton ended their performance Sunday with a rendition of Frank Sinatra's “New York, New York.” Bus drivers, firefighters and subway workers are greeted as celebrities, sometimes breaking from their duties to join the celebration.

In one of many viral videos, a pair of sanitation workers allow private citizens to toss bags of trash into their truck, prompting cheers from bystanders.

Rabbi Yakov Bankhalter, the leader of an Orthodox Jewish community space near Madison Square Garden, said his own hastily-scheduled watch party had ended with fans of every faith spinning joyously in the Manhattan streets.

“Wherever you are in New York, it feels like there is nothing but the Knicks,” Bankhalter said on Monday morning. “We’re still in the euphoria. It’s unbelievable. It’s still unbelievable.”

But the Qatar edition went poorly for Portugal’s all-time leading goal scorer. After scoring just once, from the penalty spot, in the group stage, he reacted angrily to being subbed off against South Korea and was promptly dropped to the bench for his team's first knockout-stage match against Switzerland.

Then, he didn’t score at all in the 2024 European Championship. It was the first time he had failed to find the net at a major international tournament.

Now, in the buildup to what may be Ronaldo’s World Cup swan song, concerns over what the 41-year-old can still bring to the national team are at the forefront of many fans’ minds. Portugal opens play Wednesday against Congo DR in Houston.

“I think in some instances they play better without him,” fan Zach Mallias said at the team’s first open World Cup practice at its Florida base camp. “There are other players that fit the system better.”

Other fans are worried about the superstar’s ego and whether he would accept relinquishing the spotlight for the good of the team.

“He’s a very big player, he’s very loved by a lot of his fans,” Beatrice Mitankin said. “It might get to his head.”

There is some recent evidence, however, of Ronaldo still being able to positively influence games. During Portugal’s 2025 UEFA Nations League run, its second title triumph in that competition, he scored eight goals, including an equalizer in the final against Spain.

Ronaldo also recently won his first Saudi Pro League title with Al-Nassr, leading his club with 28 goals on the season.

His abundant experience and leadership are qualities some supporters say cannot be replicated.

“He’s not going to shy away from those moments when it’s the World Cup on the line,” Rob Stickle said. “He’s one of those guys you want kicking the penalty kicks for you, being on the pitch at the end of the game.”

Ronaldo, playing in a record-extending sixth World Cup, is the oldest outfield player in the tournament but still projects as Portugal’s starting striker.

Although his age has repeatedly been called into question, fan Ernesto Vilar pointed to other examples of older players, like Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Croatia’s Luka Modrić, as veterans who still play significant roles for their team.

“Age is just a number,” Vilar said. “He’s still in very peak physical condition.”

His teammates and manager would concur.

Midfielder Vitinha is still in awe over Ronaldo’s physique.

“He’s 41. I’m 26, and I’m not like that,” the Paris Saint-Germain player said through a translator. “It’s something incredible.”

Team manager Roberto Martínez has suggested Ronaldo could even appear at the 2030 World Cup, when he would be 45.

Removed from the conversation about Ronaldo’s production and effectiveness, however, are a group of fans that will always idolize him: young children. Many showed up to watch Portugal practice.

Elizabeth Stiebel, 10, says she admires how Ronaldo has always been there when his team needs a big moment.

And 13-year-old Christian Loureiro, whose favorite Ronaldo moment is his overhead-kick goal against Juventus in 2018 while playing for Real Madrid, agrees the superstar forward is still a steadying voice.

“A lot of young players on this team need an older figure to help guide them,” Loureiro said.

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Zach Pascuzzi is a student in the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.

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

“Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith” comes out Tuesday from Harper, and The Associated Press obtained a copy ahead of its release. The HarperCollins imprint also put out “Hillbilly Elegy,” the best-selling memoir from 2016 that helped make Vance a national figure.

Vance has been working on and off on his new book since then, a tumultuous decade that included a Hollywood movie about his youth, a short stint as a U.S. senator from Ohio and now vice president to Donald Trump.

There's not a lot about Trump or other insider stories from Vance's political years, although he does express regret for criticizing the Democratic Party's “childless cat ladies,” a comment that came back to haunt him while Trump's running mate.

Instead, “Communion” serves as a sort of manifesto for the role of religion in public life. Vance writes about transitioning from Protestant Christianity to atheism to Catholicism, and he credits his faith with giving him a sense of purpose he didn’t get through his education at Yale University or working in the financial industry.

The book hits shelves less than five months before the midterm elections that will shape the final two years of Trump's second presidency. The midterms will also mark the unofficial start of the next presidential campaign, in which Vance is expected to be a contender.

Vance recalled ‘fusion’ between religion and politics

Vance wrote how he witnessed “the fusion between Republican politics and the Christianity of my youth.” At that time, Vance wrote, “I heard a fair amount about the evils of abortion and homosexuality,” as well as then-President Bill Clinton's “rumored moral failings.”

Alongside these religious observations, Vance said he felt he was “starting to witness the beginning of a fissure in the Republican Party: between its business elites and its religious rank and file.” That's something, Vance went on, that would “eventually lead to my election as vice president.”

Vance's grandmother — his mamaw, as he calls her — was a central figure in his life, and her death led to an atrophying of his Christianity.

“With her gone, no one really cared about my faith, and soon I stopped caring, too,” he wrote. Christianity became “completely irrelevant" to him, including when he served in Iraq in the Marine Corps.

At the end of his service in 2006, Vance wrote that he “was no longer, in any real sense, a Christian.”

A near-death experience helped shape Vance's faith

Returning to his military base after his grandmother’s funeral, Vance wrote that he lost control of his car on a rain-slicked road, but inexplicably stopped before hurtling into a guardrail and potentially over the side of a mountain.

He said it was “the closest I've ever come to a supernatural experience," and the feeling remained “even during my later years as a strident atheist.”

As his military service wrapped up, a colleague introduced Vance to the work of author Ayn Rand, whose notion of the virtuousness of selfishness stood "in as stark opposition to Christian morality as anything I'd ever read.” This notion appealed to Vance, he wrote, noting that Rand's philosophy “filled a void left by the faith I'd discarded” and that he became a “self-professed atheist and meritocrat.”

“I didn't care about God's will,” he wrote. “I cared about my own.”

‘I will marry this girl’

Immediately struck by his now-wife Usha Vance, the vice president wrote that he told a friend he thought he was “obsessed” with her while they were in law school together. He praised her intensity, intelligence and curiosity.

“I will marry this girl,” he wrote. “Or I will be a lifelong bachelor.”

He also wrote how their discussion about death, sparked by Joan Didion's “The Year of Magical Thinking,” highlighted their different views on the afterlife — she was worried by it and he wasn't, even in his atheist years.

“Usha, like Didion, dreaded neither the ‘loss of heaven' nor 'the pains of hell’ for the most logical of reasons: She simply didn’t think they exist. I came to believe in both, but I still didn’t find either particularly motivating,” he wrote.

Peter Thiel was a turning point

In the midst of this, Vance wrote that he attended a talk by Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley investor who would become one of Vance's early political backers. He was impressed by Thiel's discussion of hypercompetition among professionals, accompanied by “technological stagnation.”

“Possibly the smartest person I'd ever met, he identified very openly as a Christian," Vance wrote, adding that Thiel “defied the simple social template I had constructed — that dumb people were religious and smart people were atheists.”

‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ Trump and fame

Initially skeptical his first book would be successful, Vance described how an interview he gave in the summer of 2016 about “the sense that the hillbillies had been left behind by the leaders of a country” caught fire, dovetailing with Trump's campaign that year.

“I became a controversial figure in my own right, and I tasted my first bit of heated public criticism," he wrote.

Vance said he was “tempted by the flexibility” of “being a public intellectual," although he would choose a different path.

Vance converted to Catholicism

The future vice president recalled visiting a French cathedral in 2018 with his wife, Usha, and young son, Ewan.

Reflecting on how the Catholic Church had endured over the years, his ambivalence about religion began to fade. He writes that he felt “a distinct sense of belonging and presence.”

He was baptized a year later, writing that he enjoyed the “work” required to become Catholic — readings and discussion.

The vetting process for vice president was intense

Vance wrote that he figured it was a “long shot” for Trump to choose him as vice president.

“When his staff told me I was on the short list, I almost thought it was a prank call," Vance wrote.

He recalled the in-person interview the most fascinating part of the vetting process, which included being asked if he had ever cheated on his wife.

“I haven't, but I assume people who have don't just admit it to a stranger?” he responded.

The transition to the ticket was difficult for his family, he wrote, particularly his eldest child.

He told Charlie Kirk, the young conservative activist who founded Turning Point USA and was assassinated last year, about the struggle.

“Don't try to convince your son it's not a sacrifice,” Kirk said.

Regretting the ‘cat ladies’ comment

Vance's penchant for stirring controversy came up again during the campaign.

Critics resurfaced his 2021 remarks that the Democratic Party was run by “childless cat ladies.”

Vance now concedes that his comment was “boneheaded” and “one of the dumbest things I ever said.”

“Aside from enraging a great number of people,” Vance added, “it had the added benefit of distracting from the actual point I wanted to make, which was that our society is becoming pathologically hostile to having kids.”

Is this Vance's pre-2028 presidential campaign memoir?

The book's release likely serves to ramp up speculation that Vance will seek the presidency in 2028. That's a possibility the Republican vice president has said he’s not focused on right now, indicating he’d wait until after the 2026 midterm elections to decide on a campaign.

Presidential hopefuls often release books before launching a campaign, giving them a moment in the spotlight before new audiences and a chance to crystallize their message before embarking on a campaign.

Already, potential 2028 candidates on the Democratic side have recently published books or will do so soon, including Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris.

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

Trump had been touting the emerging deal for weeks and the continuing conflict threatened to overshadow the UFC mixed martial arts extravaganza, where combatants inside a wire-mesh Octagon tried to punch, kick, chop and pummel each other into submission.

Ahead of the event, however, the president said an agreement to end the conflict “is now complete." He declared that the U.S. will end its blockade of Iran, and that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. Crucial details still need negotiating over the coming weeks, however.

Top administration officials and Republican leaders attended the fights, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson. Polish President Karol Nawrocki was also at the White House.

It started with Trump and UFC chief Dana White walking together from the Oval Office to the Blue Room Balcony to survey the Octagon, standing for the national anthem as fighter jets thundered overhead.

Thousands of spectators crowded into the temporary arena under “ The Claw,” a spaceship-like metal arch fitted with lights, sound equipment and large screens. Thousands more watched on big screens from the nearby Ellipse.

“This event is a one of one event, incredible event,” said White, a close friend of the president's, during a Friday night hype session at the Lincoln Memorial, where pairs of fighters shoved and scuffled for the cameras under the stoic gaze of Honest Abe’s marble likeness.

Before Sunday's final fight, lightweight fighters Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje, who wrapped himself in an American flag, each stepped out of the Oval Office and walked to the Octagon — meaning Trump even ceded his workspace as part of the show.

The American Gaethje then stunned Spanish-Georgian Topuria to win after four rounds that left copious blood on the cage floor. Trump later headed inside the cage to shake hands and watch a fireworks display that launched well after 1 a.m.

That capped a night where many of the winning fighters thanked Trump and God. Heavyweight Josh Hokit took it further with an extraordinary and unfounded attack based on a right-wing conspiracy theory about a former first lady: “Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?”

Hokit also headed over to Trump and placed a chain around the president's neck.

Rain didn't mar fights

Wearing a suit and tie despite the summer heat, Trump a lot of time was sitting stoned-faced, watching the action through wire-mesh cage. At one point he spoke briefly with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

When American Sean O’Malley fought Canadian Aiemann Zahabi, Trump donned a white USA hat. After O'Malley won, he shook Trump’s hand and saluted the president.

Earlier, as Diego Lopes was defeating American Steve Garcia in the opening fight, the president could be seen speaking to first lady Melania Trump. After Bo Nickal knocked out Kyle Daukaus in the second fight, Nickal went over to Trump and kneeled down, chatting briefly.

“I gotta thank President Trump for making this happen,” Nickal said in a subsequent interview, as Trump grinned. Nickal added that the president is a “special person,” before Trump-favorite “YMCA" played.

The president sought to tie the fights to larger celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But it was so geared toward himself that the G7 summit for leaders of industrialized nations pushed back their get-together so Trump was able to attend his party, then fly to Europe for the meetings.

The weekend wasn't all smiles for Trump, though. Crews pried Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center near the White House after a judge ruled naming it after the president had gone too far. And, before the fight began, UFC Middleweight champion Sean Strickland — an outspoken critic of Israel — was escorted out of the Ellipse by a crowd of law enforcement officers.

Still, predicted thunderstorms that delayed the UFC event briefly, never produced rain. Trump posted online later, that the weather was “perfect” and, “The White House has never looked more beautiful. The setting was unsurpassed!”

A dramatic departure from how the last president marked his 80th

The crowd repeatedly chanted, “USA! USA!” when an American fighter faced a foreign opponent. Until the finale, that didn’t always help the American fighter prevail. After winning his fight, Brazil's Mauricio Ruffy proposed to his girlfriend who — in Trumpian fashion — flashed a thumb's up from the crowd.

It was all a very long way from when Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, turned 80 in November 2022. Biden celebrated with a private family brunch at the White House, laying bare just how much and how quickly things have changed.

Asked about the contrast, White House spokesperson Allison Schuster in a statement called the UFC event “one of the most entertaining nights in American history.”

When he turned 80, Biden was the oldest president in U.S. history, and was months away from launching a reelection bid that he would ultimately abandon after a disastrous debate against Trump and mutiny among Democrats.

Trump has now supplanted Biden as the oldest person to be elected U.S. president. He’s constitutionally barred from running again, yet constantly toys with the notion. That’s despite polls showing rising public skepticism about Trump’s mental and physical health.

A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in April found that less than half of U.S. adults think Trump has the mental sharpness or physical health to serve effectively as president.

The White House countered with a statement from Trump's former White House physician, Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, saying Trump's “stamina, focus, and strength are exceptional and on display every day." Jackson added that polling concerns were “being propagated by the same biased, liberal, Trump-hating press that completely ignored the absolute cognitive and physical disaster that was President Biden.”

‘Bread and circuses’ — Trump-style

The UFC was an apt metaphor for Trump's pugilistic political style. He is as big a fan of cage-match-style politics as he is of cage-fighting itself.

But Trump has also long been a master of political misdirection, purposely presenting people with something other than his presidency to focus on when things aren’t going well.

With the war in Iran having kept gas prices high and renewing concerns about inflation while Trump's job approval ratings fall, a White House birthday party unlike anything America has ever seen can certainly qualify as a diversion.

“This is all distraction,” said Mike Fontaine, a classics professor at Cornell University, who likened it to the gladiatorial games of Imperial Rome, when combatants brutalized each other for public entertainment meant to bolster rulers’ popularity and quell potential unrest.

“This is a classic strategy," Fontaine said. “In ancient Rome, the phrase would be, ‘bread and circuses.’”

Trump says the UFC is paying for the event and while its full costs haven't been divulged, the National Park Service said in a court filing that $60-plus million and tens of thousands of hours of labor went into it, while seven government agencies have “allocated significant resources and manpower.”

UFC also announced that it was adding as an official partner for the event World Liberty Financial to create a special $250,000 athlete bonus pool for Sunday night’s winners. The cryptocurrency company is co-owned by the Trump family, founded with the president’s special diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff and run by his son, Zach.

The arrangement further blurs lines between the Trump family's financial interests and the events and construction projects the president has prioritized and used government resources to pull off.

Still, Fontaine said that when it comes to a personal flair for pageantry, the president’s second-term tendency to lean into “hardcore masculinity and brute fighting” is marrying the UFC's blood sport with Trump's trademark humor and enduring sense of showmanship.

“President Trump has a once-in-a-generation talent for this stuff,” he said.

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Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein contributed to this report.

Even more challenging, around ten million adults have high blood pressure that simply doesn’t respond well to treatment.

When you have your blood pressure taken or take it at home yourself, the numbers you’re hoping to see are 120/80.

That’s a normal blood pressure.

Jamie Pepperman, 44, had not seen those numbers in a long time.

Her blood pressure started to rise in her early 30s, and no matter what doctors tried, it kept climbing.

“It began about 10 years ago. I was having a lot of headaches, just wasn’t feeling myself,” said Pepperman. “Went to the doctors, couldn’t really tell me anything. Went for an eye appointment, regular eye appointment, and they immediately sent me to the emergency room.”

An MRI revealed Pepperman had severe swelling of her brain stem and had suffered a stroke.

“At 34 years old, it’s very disheartening to hear that I had a stroke,” remembered Pepperman. “About six months later, I had another stroke.”

Doctors couldn’t figure out what was causing her blood pressure to soar so high, and it wasn’t responding to treatment.

“It started to affect my kidneys, my kidney functions started to lower, my retinas, my vision started to get much worse than it normally would have,” said Pepperman.

Despite seeing numerous specialists, her blood pressure remained out of control.

During one video appointment with a physician:

“He had me take my blood pressure on the video appointment, and when I showed him the monitor, he immediately called 911,” said Pepperman. “They did another MRI and determined I had another stroke.”

Remember, a normal blood pressure is 120/80. Around this time, Pepperman’s was as high as 270/174.

“I lived with that high of a blood pressure as a daily normal functioning blood pressure for almost 10 years,” said Pepperman.

She was somehow surviving, but not thriving.

“My head always hurt. I didn’t have any energy. I noticed that I was getting short of breath,” said Pepperman. “I was exhausted. It completely decreased my quality of life.”

Pepperman was on 10 medications for her blood pressure, and it wasn’t getting better.

She decided to switch specialists and got a referral to Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital in Royal Oak.

Dr. Rob Safian is an interventional cardiologist there and the founder and director of the Center for Innovation and Research in Cardiovascular Disease.

“I was shocked,” said Safian. “I really couldn’t believe that she was walking around with a blood pressure of 230. I mean, we would normally hospitalize people for doing that.”

Safian immediately thought Pepperman would be a good candidate for a procedure called renal denervation.

At the time, it was approved by the FDA, but it was still going through steps to make it commercially available.

“We were really anxious to be able to offer this to her. And we had conversations with her insurance payer, and it was a matter of negotiation, cajoling, and educating,” said Safian.

It took two months of persistence, but they succeeded.

“The day he called me to tell me that the surgery was covered, I was sitting at my desk working, and I just started crying. I broke down and just started crying,” said Pepperman.

So how does renal denervation work?

“The way blood pressure in the body is regulated is through nerve connections between the kidney and the brain,” explained Safian. “If you can interrupt those nerve signals between the kidney in the brain, then you can lower the blood pressure.”

That’s true no matter what’s causing the elevated blood pressure.

Renal denervation is a minimally invasive technique that targets specific nerves near the kidneys that can become overactive, leading to high blood pressure.

The procedure works by delivering radio frequency energy to these overactive nerves to decrease their activity.

“You deliver the denervation catheter in such a way that it heats the wall of the artery, which then gets transmitted to nerves that surround the artery,” said Safian. “We try to treat all of the main portions of the kidney artery, all of the main branches and sub-branches in vessels that range from about three millimeters in diameter up to eight millimeters in diameter. And then we’re done with the right kidney, then we just repeat the entire process on the left kidney. The whole procedure takes about an hour or so,” explained Safian.

It can take up to four months to see full improvement, but Pepperman’s results surprised even her doctor.

“On the first day follow-up, her blood pressure was 135 over 75, and I thought it was a mistake,” said Safian. “I talked to my nurses, I went in with my blood pressure cuff, and I took the blood pressure myself, and that’s what her blood pressure was.”

“For three and a half months, it’s been consistently within normal range,” said Pepperman. “Now I’m on a total of four medications for my blood pressure, when three months ago I was on ten. I have more energy, and I’m happier. I just, I look forward to every day.”

“I can’t tell you how thrilled all of us are,” said Safian. “All of the doctors and the nurses who’ve been involved in her care are absolutely thrilled that she has had this kind of dramatic response in her blood pressure. And she really has her life back.”

“I truly feel like they saved my life,” said Pepperman. “To be kept telling ‘No, no, no,’ and just be put on more medications, that’s not comfortable. So this team of doctors that helped me get to this point, I owe my life to. I feel like they gave me a new life.”

Because the procedure is relatively new, doctors don’t know for sure how long the results will last, but follow-up studies have found sustained improvement for up to seven years in some patients.

The best candidates for renal denervation are people with high blood pressure that isn’t controlled with three or more medications.

Since Pepperman’s procedure, Corewell Health says Medicare and most private insurers now cover renal denervation if patients meet the criteria.

Click here to learn more about renal denervation.

Click here to read more about Pepperman’s journey.

Rajah Jamir Pritchard-Dixon, of Detroit, was taken into custody by the Macomb Auto Theft Squad (MATS) and Sheriff’s Enforcement Team (SET) on June 12 after executing a search warrant related to the thefts at a residence in the 21600 block Moross Road in Detroit.

During the execution of the warrant, investigators say they recovered four Ram infotainment screens, modules and additional property believed to have been stolen from vehicles in St. Clair Shores.

Pritchard-Dixon has been charged with one count of breaking and entering of a motor vehicle — a five-year felony — and one count of attempted larceny from a motor vehicle, a 2.5-year felony.

He was issued a $50,000 cash/surety bond at his arraignment and will require a tether upon release.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, MATS has been investigating 29 thefts of Ram infotainment systems reported in Warren, Eastpointe, Roseville, and St. Clair Shores, since April.

The investigation remains ongoing.

When the official broadcast of Germany's opening game against Curaçao on Sunday cut pre-game to show the team of video review analysts, Shaun Evans from Australia made an “OK” symbol with his right hand in front of his right leg. Though the game was played in Houston, video officials work in Dallas at the World Cup broadcast center.

In 2019, the gesture — with thumb and forefinger touched in a circle and other fingers outstretched — was designated a hate symbol by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League.

“Advice from our experts is that the gesture used clearly resembles an upside down ‘OK’ hand symbol used as a ‘white power’ symbol in global far-right circles,” said the Fare network, a long-time partner of FIFA and European soccer body UEFA to monitor racist and discriminatory chants, flags and symbols at international games.

“Clearly this official should have no further role to play in this World Cup,” Fare said in its statement, describing the gesture as “neo-nazi.”

FIFA was asked for comment.

In Australia, the Professional Football Referees Association and governing body Football Australia were contacted for comment.

It was unclear if Evans, working at his second straight World Cup and his first game at this edition, was making a political gesture or playing a children’s game prank.

The “gotcha” or “circle game” is where someone flashes an upside-down OK sign below their waist and punches in the shoulder anyone who looks at it.

It was appropriated a decade ago as a signal for white supremacy that started as a hoax on the far-right online message board 4chan.

The sign got global attention in March 2019 in New Zealand, after it was made during the first court appearance by the white supremacist shooter who killed 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch.

Later in 2019 when the sign was designated as a hate symbol, Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, said context is key to interpreting whether an “OK” symbol is hateful or harmless.

At the time, he said: “There is enough of a volume of use for hateful purposes that we felt it was important to add.”

Evans is among 30 video review analysts selected by FIFA to work at the World Cup being played in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

“Why is a VAR supervisor using this symbol at a global football event at the very moment he knows the cameras are on him?” Fare said. “We note that in the two subsequent games it appears TV directors have stopped introducing the VAR panel to the TV audience.”

___

AP Sports Writer John Pye in Brisbane, Australia, contributed to this report

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

Firefighters and emergency personnel were dispatched to the building on N Green and Calahan streets around 8:30 a.m. and spent several hours working to contain the blaze. According to the Detroit Fire Department, the building was recently vacated and the building was empty, however signage on the warehouse reads “Cummings-Moore Graphite Co.”

The building suffered a partial collapse due to the fire, which has since been extinguished. No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

“Fire crews did an excellent job extinguishing this fire,” said Senior Fire Chief Reginald Harper. “The fact that there were no injuries is a testament to their hard work and great training.”

A new poll released Monday from AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows about half of AAPI adults say they — or someone they know — have been detained or deported within the last year, started carrying proof of immigration status or U.S. citizenship, upended travel plans or significantly changed their routines because of immigration status.

The findings come after more than a year of immigration crackdowns. The poll indicates that the Trump administration’s aggressive approach, which has resulted in multiple clashes between protesters and enforcement officers and led to the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year, may be changing the way some people in immigrant-heavy communities see the U.S. itself.

AAPI adults are one of the country's fastest-growing demographic, and most AAPI adults in the U.S. were born outside the country. The survey found a majority of AAPI adults — about 6 in 10 — believe the U.S. used to be a great country for immigrants but is not anymore. Only about 3 in 10 AAPI adults say America is a great place for immigrants, while a few, 5%, say it was never a great place for immigrants.

At the same time, AAPI adults are more likely than Americans overall to see the mixing of culture and values from around the world as central to the country's identity.

“America’s success story has depended critically on the role of Asian Americans, but also immigrants in general,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder and executive director of AAPI Data. “When you have people who are already in this country, have been here for decades saying, ‘I’m not really sure that this is the best country anymore,' that’s a warning sign.”

'Better safe than sorry’ approach

Even some immigrants with legal status have been affected by the Trump administration’s policies. One policy that would have hiked fees for certain types of visas was shot down in federal court this month. Another judge struck down a policy that “categorically barred” immigrants from 39 Asian, African, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries from receiving final decisions on asylum, work permit, green card and citizenship applications.

Khoa Tran, 27, of San Antonio, Texas, came to the U.S. from Vietnam in 2015 at age 15. He gained citizenship four years later. In 2023, he sponsored his wife from Vietnam.

Last year, Tran became concerned when his social media feed kept bringing up posts about how essential it was that even legal immigrants carry documentation. It had not occurred to the couple that his wife should have her green card with her at all times.

“It seemed like we needed to do it. It's literally become like a second form of identification in addition to the driver's license,” Tran said.

He has also seen how international students in his community have put off trips to visit family in Asia due to concerns about student visas.

“They're just scared. They don't know the law around that,” Tran said. “Better safe than sorry.”

About half of South Asian adults — compared to about 4 in 10 AAPI adults overall — know someone who started carrying proof of legal status or citizenship over the last year. South Asian adults are much more likely than East Asian or Southeast Asian American adults to have been born outside the U.S., according to the survey. Many of those immigrants may have green cards or be naturalized citizens, Ramakrishnan said, yet feel “like their presence and their status in this country is under question.”

Cultural identity matters as much as American identity

AAPI adults are likelier to say their family's ancestry or country of origin is “extremely” or “very” important to their personal identity, compared to being an American.

Just over half of AAPI adults say their family's ancestry or country of origin is important to who they are, while 44% say this about their American identity. That extends to AAPI adults who were born in the U.S. About 6 in 10, 59%, U.S.-born AAPI adults say their family's heritage is important to their personal identity, while 47% say this about being an American.

A separate AP-NORC survey conducted in April found that 55% of U.S. adults say being an American is important to who they are, while only 37% said that about their family's ancestry.

Abigail Jeyaraj, 22, of South Hadley, Massachusetts, was born in Texas. Her Indian parents' decision to build a new life in the U.S. is something she never takes for granted. When she describes her nationality, she identifies herself as not just “American” but South Asian American.

“Especially as a South Asian woman, I'm very sensitive to the fact that I have opportunities that my mother and my grandmother, all the women before that didn't," Jeyaraj said. "I really try to honor that culture. I try to maintain really strong connections to my family in India.”

Soonho Kwon, 30, of La Mirada, California, was born in Korea. His family settled in New Jersey when he was 8 years old.

"I think I still feel more Korean. I came right around the age where I had very solid memories from growing up in Korea. My immediate family’s back there now,” Kwon said. “I’m a naturalized citizen. I’m committed to living here, but identity is a different question.”

Ambivalence around America's 250th anniversary

The vast majority, 73%, of AAPI adults say the mixing of cultures and values from around the world is “extremely” or “very” important to the U.S.'s identity as a nation, compared to only 55% of U.S. adults in the April AP-NORC poll.

Jeyaraj grew up around Dallas and Houston — cities where she was “able to interact with people of so many different races and different cultures that weren’t my own.” She credits that experience with making her more empathetic.

Restrictions on immigration and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives leave her feeling conflicted about celebrating the country's 250th anniversary this year.

“I'm proud we made it this far as a country,” Jeyaraj said. “You have recent actors who are trying to undo that progress. They maybe view it as restoring an ideal, but it’s removing so much work that powerful and influential people made to bring us toward an ideal of equality and justice.”

The anniversary feels arbitrary to Tran, a math teacher.

“I don't think this country is ‘founded’ at some point in time. It just changes from one form to another,” Tran said. “Even the Native Americans (were) a long time here. I'm pretty sure that was more than 250 years.”

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The poll of 1,075 U.S. adults who are Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders was conducted April 20-28, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based Amplify AAPI Panel, designed to be representative of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. This poll is part of an ongoing project exploring the views of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, which are usually not highlighted in other surveys because of small sample sizes and lack of linguistic representation.

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Prize(s) One prize (“Prize Package”) will be provided by VISIT FLORIDA. The Prize Package includes the following:

· Round-trip coach class airline tickets for one (1) winner and up to three (3) guests to Orlando International Airport

· A full-size rental vehicle for five (5) consecutive days

· Four (4) consecutive night stay for four (4) at Magic Village Vacation Homes

· Four (4) single-day tickets to SeaWorld Orlando, plus quick queue vouchers and a parking pass

· Four (4) passes to Wild Florida. Passes include a drive-through safari, entry to the Gator Park, and a 30-minute airboat ride.

· Four (4) admission tickets to Medieval Times Orlando Dinner & Tournament

· Four (4) rides at Lazy H Ranch, with winner’s choice of one of the following options: One-Hour Group Ride, 90-Minute Group Ride, or a Group Sunset Ride

Approximate Retail Value (“ARV”) of the Prize Package: $6,574.04. Unless otherwise stated, subject to winner verification and compliance with these Official Rules, the Prize Package will be picked up in person at the Sponsor address. Upon redeeming the Prize Package, the winner will find that it contains instructions on contacting a VISIT FLORIDA travel planner. Once the winner has selected dates and reserved their resort stay, a VISIT FLORIDA travel planner will book flights and rental car accommodations.

The earliest day of travel can be booked on June 1, 2025 (subject to Prize Provider availability). Travel may be taken from the time that no travel restrictions, stay at home orders, quarantine orders, shelter in place orders, “safer at home” orders, or similar orders or recommendations are in effect at either the winner’s place of origin or destination through June 30, 2026. Redemption instructions will accompany all certificates. The minimum age to book all elements of this Prize Package is 25.

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Marcel McKay left his residence on the 18000 block of Hull on May 15 and failed to return home.

He was last seen wearing all black clothing.

McKay is 16 years old, 5 feet 7 inches, 150 pounds, has brown eyes and brown hair.

Anyone with information should contact the Detroit Police Department’s 11th Precinct at 313-596-1140.

Jaylin Conley was last seen in the area of Albion and Sauer on Tuesday (June 9) and failed to return home.

He was last seen wearing a white t-shirt and gray jogging pants.

Conley is 16 years old, 5 feet 6 inches, 125 pounds, has brown eyes and black hair.

Anyone with information should contact the Detroit Police Department’s 9th Precinct at 313-596-5940.

Joseph Vanker was originally charged as a repeat offender and arraigned for assault with intent to murder for allegedly stabbing someone multiple times at his home on Nov. 25.

After hearing testimony at a preliminary hearing on Feb. 26, 2026, 41A District Judge Michael Sierawski decided to bind Vanker over to circuit court on a lesser charge of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder.

The assault with intent to commit great bodily harm charge was dismissed on June 10 by Macomb County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Toia, after Vanker pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of felony assault with a dangerous weapon, according to the prosecutor’s office. Habitual offender charges were also dismissed in the case.

Vanker was sentenced to 156 days in jail, with 156 days credit for time served.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Vanker’s initial charge of attempted murder was reduced due to a plea deal, however the charge was reduced by the court based on testimony heard during a preliminary hearing.

Federal funding is part of the rural health transformation program (RHTP).

Michigan will have $173 million of the funding.

RHTP aims to keep hospitals open and to change how care is delivered.

Communities without a hospital seek care elsewhere, adding strain on urban areas.

According to the CDC people living in rural areas are more likely to die prematurely from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic lower respiratory disease and unintentional injuries.

A national Institute of Health study found in rural communities adults are affected by obesity 11% more and heart disease is twice as common.

Don Hunt, corporate affairs general director, LLYC, joined Local 4 Live to tell us more about rural healthcare.

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

The two had an argument and the man was seen taking the women’s purse and forcibly escorting her back into their car before driving away.

The incident occurred at a gas station on June 15 at around 1 a.m.

The gas station they arrived at is located in the 6500 block of Van Dyke.

Their vehicle has been described as an older model silver Chrysler van with no license plate.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Detroit Police Department’s Major Crimes Section at 313-596-2260 or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-SpeakUp.

Congo’s Ministry of Health on Sunday said 72 new cases were reported in a 24-hour period, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 782. Those include 181 confirmed deaths, with 29 new ones.

“One month on, the Ebola disease outbreak is outpacing the response effort,” Kate White, emergency medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Congo, said Monday. “No one knows the true scale or exactly where the disease is spreading in Congo.”

The medical charity said treatment centers in the epicenter of the outbreak are overwhelmed, many patients arrive in advanced stages of illness and most were not identified as contacts of infected people before seeking care.

Congo's health ministry said that while the numbers show the outbreak is spreading rapidly, it also reflects more active surveillance. “Community members are reporting suspected cases, and response teams are investigating them,” it said on X.

The number of cases in what could become history’s worst Ebola outbreak is believed to be higher because the outbreak was confirmed on May 15, weeks after it is suspected to have begun.

The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, which was not tested for in the early days. The more common Zaire virus, which now has a vaccine, was responsible for most of Congo’s past 16 outbreaks of the disease.

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

Congo said the contact tracing coverage rate is 56%, a sharp decrease from last week, as authorities hurry to find people who may have been exposed.

There was no immediate explanation for the drop. Congolese health authorities previously said contact tracing has been hampered by community resistance in some areas and by the rapid expansion of the outbreak into new health zones, increasing the workload for surveillance teams.

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

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

The health ministry said Sunday 40 people have recovered since the start of the outbreak, and the current fatality rate of the outbreak is 23%.

Life goes on, including nightlife, as the population adjusts.

The World Health Organization said Sunday it is intensifying testing and contact tracing and treatment. Tons of supplies from the WHO have arrived in Congo.

And Africa’s top health body said it is deploying technical expertise and supporting laboratory systems, case finding and community engagement efforts to accelerate the response.

“We remain committed to supporting affected countries until transmission is stopped. We call on partners and donors to urgently mobilize resources to strengthen the response and save lives,” said the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jean Kaseya.

___

Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal.

For roughly 250,000 filers, they’re still waiting for their refunds.

The Michigan Department of Treasury reports roughly 95 percent of returns filed on time have been processed.

Since the filing season opened January 26, more than 5.12 million individual income tax returns have been processed and more than $3.43 billion in refunds issued with an average refund of $901.

That means about five percent of filers — an estimated 250,000 people — are still waiting for their refunds.

Previous coverage --> Waiting on a Michigan tax refund? Here’s why it may be stuck in ‘pending review’

New system, new headaches

The source of many delays traces back to November, when the Treasury retired its 40-year-old mainframe and switched to GenTax, a tax processing platform made by Fast Enterprises.

Melissa “Missy” Snyder, division administrator in the Individual Income Tax Division, says the overhaul was long overdue, but that doesn’t mean it came without growing pains.

“We came off a mainframe system that was 40 years old,” Snyder said. “When you transition from something that’s four decades old, there’s a lot that comes with it — not just the technology. There’s training, there’s learning curves, there are interfaces with other groups like IRS files that we get.”

Snyder compared the transition to upgrading from an outdated device to the latest smartphone.

“The best analogy I can give is we went from a flip phone to an iPhone 15,” she said.

Why returns are getting flagged

Treasury officials say the new system is significantly more sophisticated than its predecessor and that’s part of why so many returns are being held up.

The upgraded platform performs detailed, line-by-line evaluation of returns, flagging discrepancies the old mainframe may have missed. Missing data fields, mismatched information or math that doesn’t add up can all trigger a manual review.

“So, the delays that people are experiencing are related to either incomplete, incorrect or information that just doesn’t make sense,” Snyder said. “It might be complete on the form, but the math isn’t math-ing as we’re trying to work through the returns.”

The new system also introduced stronger fraud protections, something Snyder says was a driving reason for the upgrade.

“One of the major changes that we made with this technology update is a lot of support to prevent fraud,” she said. “We have to be conscious of people’s identities being stolen, tax preparer credentials being stolen. When the initial return doesn’t pass that eye test, if you will, we will stop and we will ask for more information.”

David Yesh, a retired Navy Reserve officer from the Detroit area, filed his Michigan return electronically on March 18. Weeks passed with no refund and no explanation.

“I filed my return and it was accepted 64 days ago,” Yesh said during a mid-May interview. “I don’t know, 30 or so days ago I called to find out where it was. Couldn’t talk to a live person, but I got a message that my return was still under review — with no explanation about what it was being under review for.”

Yesh said he was told his return would be completed by May 13. When that date came and went, the automated message remained unchanged.

“On May 13, I called, I got the same message,” he said. “May 14, I call, same message saying that my review will be completed by May 13.”

Yesh, who says he’s been filing Michigan taxes for 50 years, including three years while stationed in Japan, called the lack of communication the most frustrating part.

“If the state made an error, they need to own up to it, communicate what the problem is and what’s being done to fix it,” he said. “If it is just a problem with my return, then be able to communicate with me and let me know what error you found or what information you need to resolve that error.”

State lawmakers taking notice

Yesh isn’t alone. State Rep. Erin Byrnes, D-Dearborn, says her office has fielded complaints from roughly 15 constituents in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights who are still waiting on refunds, it’s a number she calls unprecedented.

“By the time we got to about five, the alarm bells started to ring,” Byrnes said. “Then it became 10, and then it got up to 15. We’ve been talking with other offices throughout this time period and we’re far from the only office. A lot of state reps are seeing this issue.”

Byrnes says she understands the real-world financial impact of delayed refunds.

“You’re banking on it — quite literally,” she said. “Months later, you’re still left waiting and you don’t really have any answers, and that’s not acceptable. We know that folks are being squeezed financially right now on a variety of fronts.”

Byrnes says her office has been in contact with Treasury but describes the process as challenging.

“We definitely need more communication from the Treasury Department, and we need to get a handle on this software system,” she said. “We know that other states are using the same software, and we’re trying to figure out why Michigan is struggling so much.”

27,000 erroneous letters sent

Compounding the confusion: Treasury acknowledged sending approximately 27,000 incorrect notices to taxpayers.

Snyder says the letters incorrectly suggested taxes were owed when they weren’t which stemmed from the result of a data-pull error during processing.

“The payments themselves were correct,” Snyder said. “They were accounted for on the financials, but when the letter was generated to the taxpayers, it pulled in the wrong data element. The letters themselves were wrong.”

Bob Doyle, president and CEO of the Michigan Association of CPAs, says the erroneous letters created a ripple effect for tax professionals across the state.

“There was these erroneous notices that were sent out to taxpayers,” Doyle said. “Of course, the first thing they’re going to do is call their CPA. That’s definitely how we’ve gotten involved in ensuring Treasury understands the issues.”

Doyle says the Michigan Association of CPAs has since been working closely with Treasury to address ongoing issues — and is already looking ahead.

“Meeting more regularly is what we’ve started to do,” he said. “We’re working on how we can better use language in letters that explains the situation better. We’ll continue to ensure that the next deadlines coming up are smoother for our members.”

Overloaded phone lines — repeat callers to blame?

For taxpayers trying to get answers by phone, the frustration is real. But Treasury says part of the problem is a small group of repeat callers tying up the lines.

In April, Treasury found that just 65 people accounted for 11,000 calls to its phone line — with some individuals getting through 14 or 15 times.

“When you start breaking that number down, it blocks everybody else,” Snyder said. “They’re constantly eating up a phone line.”

A new phone system is expected to go live in July, Snyder said.

In the meantime, Treasury recommends taxpayers check the status of their return through the e-service portal at michigan.gov, where they can also view any letters sent to them, send a message and request a callback.

To get to the e-service portal, click here.

For a president who revels in winners, Trump had to enjoy crowning two champions on a big fight night staged closer to the Rose Garden than Madison Square Garden in the co-main event of UFC Freedom 250.

American lightweight Justin Gaethje capped his unification championship victory in the main event over Ilia Topuria with a backflip off the top of the cage. He crouched near Trump for a celebratory chat and the betting underdog draped the American flag over one shoulder — and the 155-pound title belt over another. Trump later stepped into the cage to congratulate Gaethje.

“Hey, I'm from America, 250 years ago we were way more than 6-1 underdogs,” Gaethje said. “I know that was absolutely legendary because I cannot even believe it.”

Topuria and Gaethje made their walkouts from the Oval Office as fireworks exploded overhead during Bruce Buffer’s introductions. Gaethje — who appeared to skim the copy of the Declaration of Independence on his way out — mustered some scattered “USA!” chants against the Spanish-Georgian Topuria, though not even the main event could stop the trend of mostly quiet fights.

It took the gory sight of a bloodied Topuria — his back to Trump in a white “USA” hat as he peered through the wire-mesh cage — nearly having the fight waved off to get a “let them fight!” chant going. The fight continued, and the 37-year-old Gaethje won eventually via corner stoppage in the fourth round.

“Hard work, baby,” Gaethje said. “I am made for these moments. This sport is made for me.”

Earlier, Ciryl Gane hammered Alex Pereira with a series of elbows and fists to the head and won via TKO in 1:27 of the second round to claim the interim heavyweight belt for a second time and set up a rematch with heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall.

Like the bulk of the fighters who had their hands raised in victory, Gane thanked Trump.

The White House was a most improbable all-American setting for a fight promotion that long ago shed the “human cockfighting” tag and decades later became entwined with the emboldened right-wing “ manosphere ” that soaks up UFC fights and threw its support behind Trump in two elections.

Trump and UFC boss Dana White, the tempestuous tag-team that rallied the fight company to the nation's capital, walked from the Oval Office to the Blue Room Balcony to chants of “USA! USA!” to kick off the fight card jacked up by a dose of high-octane patriotism on a blustery night for cage fighting.

This was no Easter egg roll.

UFC ramped up the patriotism for White House debut

The Marine Band jazzed up the festivities and played fighter entrance music in front of the White House and Zac Brown sang the national anthem — never performed before normal UFC fight cards because of the mix of nationalities fighting inside the Octagon. The Navy’s Blue Angels and Air Force Thunderbirds zipped overhead as part of a flyover to celebrate Trump’s birthday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence’s signing.

The 4,000-plus fans — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison among them — on the South Lawn who sat under the claw, the flying saucer-like, open-air structure that housed the cage, mostly sat on their hands until the fighters used theirs to deliver punishing blows and a true fighting spirit that got everyone on their feet.

Bo Nickal delivered the red, white and boom when the three-time NCAA Division I wrestling champion at Penn State earned the TKO win over middleweight Kyle Daukaus and immediately bolted the Octagon for a cage-side chat with Trump. Nickal met Trump in 2019 during a ceremony at the White House for collegiate national champions.

The first blight of the night for Trump came when American heavyweight Derrick Lewis lost his fight after he got a personal invitation from the president. Trump proclaimed himself a fan of Lewis and his unconventional celebrations and asked White to add him to the card. Josh Hokit instead improved to 10-0 when he flattened Lewis by TKO.

Sean O'Malley celebrated his walk-off KO win with a salute, and Mauricio Ruffy and Diego Lopes won their fights earlier in the night.

“That was sexy,” O'Malley said to cheers. “I felt the energy in here. I truly felt the energy in here.”

UFC says it's only running one card at the White House

More than $60 million and tens of thousands of hours of labor were poured into building the arena, according to a court filing from the National Park Service, which oversees the South Lawn, and the looming threat of rain that threw White into a tizzy each time a miserable forecast was raised never materialized over the early portions of the card.

The constant headaches over the weather, the site and the cost — UFC said it was footing the $60 million tab — made the Freedom 250 a one-time show.

“It will never happen again,” White said. “I can't afford it. I'll never do the Sphere again and we'll never do this again.”

White said he and Trump discussed the possibility of holding a “fight for the troops card” at an unspecified site at some point next season.

“He wanted it this year,” White said. “I said, ‘Sir, I need a year to recover financially for the White House fight, so give me a year.’”

Fight night came hours after the United States and Iran reached an agreement to end the war and open the Strait of Hormuz, offering relief to the global economy more than three months after the war began.

The rare UFC outdoors event marked the pinnacle of the relationship between White and Trump that has yielded personal, political and financial dividends for both parties. White's first card as UFC president came in 2001 at an event held at Trump Taj Mahal.

Trump attended fights throughout the decades from New York to New Jersey to Florida while White introduced Trump at two Republican National Conventions.

Trump got a home game for this one, making the short walk from the Oval Office to the Octagon, much like the fighters who made the walk down West Wing halls covered with presidential portraits and were flanked by first responders and medal of honor recipients, among other individuals who served.

Strickland causes trouble at the fan zone at the Ellipse

Thousands more outside the White House lawn watched the fights on big screens from the nearby Ellipse, though not everyone was able to get tickets.

Even one of UFC's champions.

UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland was escorted out of the Ellipse event by a group of police officers.

U.S. Park Police said in a statement that Strickland’s presence drew enough attention from attendees that it resulted in disorder. He wasn’t cited or arrested, they said. Instead, he was taken to his hotel and told not to come back to the venue.

___

AP MMA: https://apnews.com/hub/mixed-martial-arts

The seven-time champion's breakthrough first win with Ferrari on Sunday, his first since 2024, left him second in the standings and cut into the overall lead of Kimi Antonelli, the driver who replaced Hamilton when he left Mercedes.

Getting back to the front has been a long and painful process and Hamilton shed some light on his journey after the win in Spain.

Mental wellbeing takes priority

Hamilton said he'd trained harder than ever ahead of this season to keep up with younger rivals like the 19-year-old Antonelli, after an injury dogged him through 2025 and he started to doubt his abilities.

That paid off as Hamilton became, at 41 years, 5 months, the oldest F1 winner since 1970, but it wasn't all about physical fitness. Mental wellbeing has been central to his recovery.

“I’ve rebuilt my mind to this point, to get myself back to where I was,” he said Sunday, adding he'd focused on a message of “never second-guess yourself, never doubt yourself.”

That meant a social media detox and valuable real-world time with family and friends.

“I’m only human. So, you know, there’s moments where I see the stuff (on social media) and for sure there’s moments where I allowed it to get to me and penetrate deeply,” he said.

“I went through a sequence of unplugging from that matrix. I spent lots of time with family, lots of time with friends, real people that know me, that have never doubted me, have stuck to and by me my whole life.”

At the track, Hamilton's had support from Kim Kardashian, while he and his new race engineer Carlo Santi have been exchanging warm words of support over the radio after often-awkward exchanges with Riccardo Adami last year.

Ferrari's newfound innovation

Signing Hamilton in 2024 was something of a risk for Ferrari, too, given that when the move was announced, his most recent win had been more than two years before.

With plenty of runner-up finishes but no constructors' title since 2008, under team principal Fred Vasseur's leadership, Ferrari seems keener to take risks in a push to speed clear of the field rather than just be among the leading pack.

Hamilton talked up his meetings with senior Ferrari staff last year to plan out 2026, and the collaborative approach seems to be working.

“These guys have really listened and really worked hard to add performance and be innovative. This year is all about innovation,” Hamilton said, singling out the “Macarena” rear wing, which turns upside-down for better straight-line speed.

“This is what I was asking for last year. This team has to be the leaders in that, and they’ve shown that they can and they will.”

Reliability

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff brought out an old F1 cliche Sunday after watching Antonelli break down on track, the second Mercedes non-finish in three races.

“To finish first, first you have to finish,” he told Sky Sports.

Hamilton is the only driver to finish in the top 10 of every race this season while Mercedes seeks to sort out its issues. That streak of results might not last for Hamilton, though. Teammate Charles Leclerc had to retire Sunday with an issue affecting his brakes and steering.

Mercedes still has the edge

Hamilton says an historic eighth title hasn't been on his mind, and Antonelli's lead still stands at a formidable 41 points. Still, there are grounds for optimism for Hamilton.

F1 is heading into a run of European tracks which Hamilton knows well — including his home race in Britain next month — and where Antonelli largely underperformed last year.

In terms of car development, Wolff has suggested spending limits could restrict Mercedes' response to the package of new parts Ferrari used so effectively in Barcelona.

___

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

Why Michigan’s new tax system is holding up refunds for thousands of filers

Tax season ended two months ago.

For roughly 250,000 filers, they’re still waiting for their refunds.

The Michigan Department of Treasury reports roughly 95% of returns filed on time have been processed.

Since the filing season opened January 26, more than 5.12 million individual income tax returns have been processed and more than $3.43 billion in refunds issued with an average refund of $901.

That means about 5% of filers — an estimated 250,000 people — are still waiting for their refunds.

Read more.

Firefighters work to contain warehouse fire in Southwest Detroit

A massive fire at an industrial facility on Detroit’s west side is sending huge plumes of black smoke into the air Monday morning.

Firefighters and emergency personnel have been on the scene for more than an hour at the Cummings-Moore Graphite Co. warehouse, located on N Green and Calahan streets.

It’s not yet clear whether anyone was inside the building when the fire occurred, or what caused the blaze.

Read more.

Big Boy celebrates 90-year milestone with special offers, memories

A beloved family dining chain is celebrating its 90th birthday on Monday, June 15, and intends to mark it with tons of special offers, promotions and more for its dedicated customers.

“For 90 years, Big Boy has been about more than burgers and breakfasts,” said Tamer Afr, CEO of Big Boy Restaurants. “ Reaching 90 years is a testament to our loyal guests and the communities that have made Big Boy part of their lives.”

Anyone who visits participating locations on National Big Boy Day (Monday, June 15) can get their hands on an original Big Boy sandwich for $1.90 with the purchase of any Pepsi product.

Read more here.

District reports vandalism at shuttered Cooley High School in Detroit

The former Cooley High School building on the northwest side of Detroit was broken into over the weekend, Detroit Public Schools Community District officials reported Sunday night.

A large section of fence that was installed to protect the shuttered school until its impending demolition was reportedly broken, along with the seal protecting the entrance from unauthorized entry.

The district says the fence has been repaired and the school building will now have 24-hour security on the premises until the demolition is complete.

Read more here.

Weather: Metro Detroit gets relief from heat, but umbrellas will be needed this week

After a stretch of heat and humidity, Metro Detroit is settling into a more comfortable weather pattern this week.

The air conditioning will not have to work quite as hard as it did during the recent hot spell, as temperatures across Southeast Michigan return to levels typical for mid-June. Residents in the Thumb and northern Metro Detroit will notice the coolest temperatures, while communities closer to Detroit and the Ohio border remain several degrees warmer.

Monday brings a mix of sun and clouds. Skies will be sunny in the morning and partly cloudy in the afternoon.

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Fast-forward more than a decade and a half later, and the “Kids and the Hall" line was a huge reason the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup.

“Great all playoffs, all year,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Their game really hasn’t changed for months.”

Offsetting power-play struggles through the first three rounds and sagging production from the top line of Seth Jarvis, Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov for much of the playoffs, Hall, Stankoven and Blake combined for 29 of the Hurricanes' 66 goals in their title run.

That included the two scored on Carter Hart in Game 6 against Vegas to close out the final.

“Those two just work so hard,” Blake said. “They make it a whole lot easier on me to play out there, for sure. They were unbelievable all playoffs long, and it was so fun and to cap it off with this is very special.”

Hall had what will go down as the Game 6 winner, completing at 18 seasons the longest stretch between getting picked first and winning the Cup. The 34-year-old winger who was NHL MVP in 2017-18 while playing for New Jersey thrived as a role player with Carolina, his seventh team in the league.

“You never know what kind of turn your life’s going to take,” said Hall, who joined Carolina from Chicago as part of a three-team trade in January 2025 and signed an extension a few months later. "I got fortunate coming here. A special group to do it with. They allowed me, personally, just to come in and have success and that says a lot.”

In that same deal, the Hurricanes got big winger Mikko Rantanen from Colorado. He lasted just 13 games with them before getting flipped to Dallas.

The centerpiece of that return was Stankoven, who was most of the way through his first season with the Stars.

“I didn't see it coming,” Stankoven said. “It was tough at first just to kind of swallow it and realize that I was getting shipped out.”

Stankoven became the center Carolina needed and led the team in playoff goals with 11. Blake assisted on Hall's goal and scored the second one Sunday night, showing up big as the youngest player to lift the Cup this time.

“I have no words right now,” the 22-year-old Blake said. “I’m out of breath. But this is the greatest feeling I’ve ever had in my life. It’s unbelievable. And to do it with these guys, my family here and everyone here supporting us, it’s unbelievable.”

It all worked because Stankoven was able to fill the void in the middle that had prevented the Hurricanes from getting over the hump.

Hall became the muscle. Blake was the distributor. Stankoven turned out to be the finisher, while also creating the offense at even strength.

“It’s what you dream of as a kid is to obviously, one, win a Stanley Cup, but you want to be a difference-maker in the NHL,” the 23-year-old Stankoven said. “I know that I’m not a finished product. I still have work to put in, and I’m still a young guy. I just want to keep working at my game and just being a sponge.”

While the Stars are more than happy to have Rantanen in his prime, Stankoven made the best of the move 15 months ago. Last summer, he signed a $48 million contract through 2034 and already looks to be worth every penny.

“Everything kind of happens for a reason,” Stankoven said. “Dallas got their player, and I just want to become the best version of myself here in Carolina.”

___

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

The city was caught up in this championship run for nearly two months and the party will last at least a few days more, with the Knicks' first parade through New York — they didn't have one in 1970 or '73 — scheduled for Thursday.

The team will be remembered long after the confetti is picked up off the streets of Broadway — and not only in New York.

The 2025-26 Knicks have a place in NBA history.

Their postseason performance is in the discussion for the best in the 80-year history of the league, a run of routs and then comebacks for their first championship since 1973.

“What a run!” former President Barack Obama wrote in a tweet congratulating coach Mike Brown, Brunson and the rest of the Knicks.

One that was arguably as good even as any of Obama's beloved Bulls.

The Knicks finished 16-3, an .842 winning percentage that matched the 2024 Boston Celtics for the second best since the format switched to best-of-seven series in all rounds beginning in 2003. The 2017 Golden State Warriors finished 16-1.

The Los Angeles Lakers went 15-1 in 2001 and the Philadelphia 76ers finished 12-1 in 1983. Five teams finished a postseason with two losses.

The Knicks won 13 consecutive games at one point, second only to the Warriors' 15 in a row in 2017. They set records by winning nine straight on the road and outscoring their postseason opponents by 283 points.

They were still midway through the NBA Finals when rapper Fat Joe, one of the Knicks' orange-and-blue dressed celebrity fans, came to Brown's news conference and said what the team had spent weeks making clear.

“Let’s just wait until it’s over, but right now you analyze the numbers, we might be looking at the greatest team ever, like if you analyze the numbers,” he said.

And when things stopped coming easily, the Knicks set records for the other ways they won. Their comeback from a 29-point deficit in Game 4 was the biggest rally in an NBA Finals game since detailed play-by-play began in 1997, and the Knicks capped it off by coming from 16 down in the clincher.

Add it up, and the Knicks can make a compelling case for the most dominant postseason ever.

“It's absolutely one of the greatest ever," said Mike Breen, who calls Knicks games on MSG Network during the regular season and has been ABC's lead announcer for the NBA Finals since 2006.

"It's impossible for me to rank it, but when you take into account the point differential, the nine straight road wins, clinching all four series on the road, the two losses by one point, the two record-setting comebacks, it's in the conversation as the best ever.”

Two of the Knicks' losses were by one point to Atlanta in the first round. The other was by four points in Game 3 against the Spurs, leaving them six points from a perfect postseason.

On the other side, they won clinching games by 51, 30 and 37 points in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

The Knicks were never going to care about how they won, just that they did. Before the playoffs started, All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns summed up the pressure the players faced in trying to get back to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999 by saying: “At the end of the day we’ll be judged by what we do in this run.”

They will be judged well — historically well.

“We went through a lot this season, a lot of ups and downs, but we just stayed with it,” forward OG Anunoby said. “We’re resilient, mentally tough and we won.”

___

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

Popular notions of philanthropy as merely a game for the ultrawealthy to fund partisan projects and commit fraud have left the sector vulnerable to political attacks, as the Council on Foundations sees it, influencing policies that hamper essential community services. The advocacy group, which represents about 1,000 nonprofits, hopes to overcome what CEO Kathleen Enright calls the sector’s “perception gap” with its “Generosity Builds” campaign, launched Monday.

Enright believes most Americans don’t recognize their reliance on the charitable sector. Just about 1 in 20 adults said they or anyone in their immediate family received nonprofit services in the past year, according to a 2023 Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy report.

“This week, I got an MRI at Georgetown University Hospital, I participated in my church at St. Columba's, my daughter was inducted into National Junior Honor Society. Four or five nonprofits have been instrumental in my life this week," she said. “Folks just aren’t putting that tag on it.”

And that tag is growing increasingly important, Enright said. Last year, negotiations over President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill included proposals to levy new taxes on private foundations that Enright said would have taken resources from communities if they made it into the final law.

The battle over defining what nonprofits actually do has recently been amplified from the highest rungs of the Trump administration, which has upended decades of partnerships built with nonprofits. Trump froze, cut or threatened a sweeping range of social service grants characterized by the White House as “government largesse that's often riddled with corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse." More recently, the Department of Justice charged the Southern Poverty Law Center — a civil rights nonprofit accused by Republicans of targeting conservatives in its work tracking extremists — with defrauding donors through payments to informants.

Vice President JD Vance described the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation and the Harvard University endowment as “cancers on American society" back as a 2021 U.S. Senate candidate, telling Tucker Carlson that “we are actively subsidizing the people who are destroying this country and they call it a charity.”

“All across our country, we have nonprofits — big foundations — that are effectively social-justice hedge funds," he said in a talk that year on “woke capital.”

Narratives about nonprofits being “overly politicized” or wasteful are “extreme minority stories" that don't reflect how philanthropy operates, according to Enright.

Across many surveys, trust in the nonprofit sector has remained higher than most others. But its impact is sometimes difficult to measure and explain. The sector hasn't faced an environment this challenging in almost six decades, according to Kathryn Thomas, the vice president of communications for the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in Flint, Michigan.

She cited the congressional effort to increases taxes on foundations' investment incomes and acknowledged the Trump administration's federal funding cuts.

“In an era when everything is under partisan attack and there's so much polarization, we really have to do a better job of emphasizing why we exist,” Thomas said.

Enright said the story of philanthropy is not one where a rich person “saves the day.” She sees growing concerns about billionaires' influence fueling suspicion about philanthropists' motivations. Some argue the charitable sector allows moneyed interests to decide how tax dollars are spent rather than elected officials.

The campaign will emphasize that most donors “have just a little bit more than they need and therefore want to give back,” she said, especially at the local level.

“Money does not solve problems. It’s a tool that creative people and institutions inside communities use to solve problems,” she said. "The real heroes of most of these stories are nonprofit leaders, religious leaders, civic leaders who just roll up their sleeves and get something done — but do it with some financial underpinning by charitable foundations.”

That's the story told by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation in Sarasota, Florida. A 10-apartment affordable housing complex for military veterans opened last year with the foundation's support.

The area has an “embarrassingly high” number of veterans without housing, according to Jon Thaxton, the foundation's director of policy and advocacy. Many are priced out in Sarasota, increasingly a luxury destination with high real estate prices.

Local donors had been trying to build a similar project when they approached the foundation in 2020 for help. Thaxton secured land already vested for affordable housing, corralled $2.2 million in donations, got $800,000 from the city and won the backing of their U.S. representatives.

The foundation's leaders believe their track record made that possible. Phillip Lanham, the president and CEO, noted the project was completed across multiple election cycles and a pandemic, suggesting that community foundations are well situated to “play the long game.”

“Most people think that foundations like us deal with money and donors. We really don't. We deal with relationships and trust,” Thaxton said. “That's our commodity. That's what we earn. That's what we save. And that's what we contribute back to the community.”

The Council on Foundations will also elevate examples of early, ordinary philanthropists as part of its case for philanthropy as an integral “part of the American story.” Enright credited a formerly enslaved man with donating land in North Carolina that became an African Methodist Episcopal church that endures as a pillar of the local community.

Lillian Kuri, the president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation, welcomed the focus on everyday philanthropists. The Cleveland Foundation is considered the first community foundation, established in 1914 by lawyer Frederick Harris Goff as a way to fund durable change in the city.

The foundation aims to find new ways to expand today's tent of philanthropists dedicated to improving their surrounding areas. It announced new investments this week in a fund dedicated to turn vacant industrial land into job-ready work sites. They've also launched a fund that allows donors to invest in major Northeast Ohio companies, supporting local business growth while that money increases into a sizable amount that can be donated to nonprofits.

“Generosity cuts across everybody,” she said, adding that community foundations offer “a way for everyday people — not just the largest, wealthiest people — to participate in the change they want to see in their communities."

___

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

Related: The majestic and surprising unifying power of raccoons

It happened Friday, June 12, in Genesee County.

Authorities said one raccoon had its head stuck in the center of the metal sewer grate and the other was trapped beneath it.

With the help of Genesee County Animal Care, the two raccoons were rescued safely and returned to the wild.

It’s not the first time this has happened in Southeast Michigan.

The fires in May 2025 damaged the home Starmer moved out of when he became prime minister, as well as an apartment building he once owned a share of and destroyed his former Toyota SUV. Nobody was injured in the blazes.

A Russian-speaking ringleader who went by the name “El Money” hatched the scheme and offered Ukrainian national Roman Lavrynovych money through the Telegram messaging app to torch the properties and get video of the evidence that could be posted online to draw attention to the attack.

El Money’s identity was never revealed and he was not charged.

There was no evidence proving a hostile state orchestrated the fires because police never discovered El Money's motive or who the figure worked for, said Cmdr. Helen Flanagan, head of the counterterrorism team at the Metropolitan Police.

“Clearly the tasking was to intimidate and create fear for the prime minister and to attack the U.K.,” Flanagan said.

Lavrynovych, 22, and Stanislav Carpiuc, a 27-year-old Romanian citizen, were found guilty in London's Central Criminal Court of a conspiracy to damage property by fire. Petro Pochynok, 35, was acquitted of the charge.

Lavrynovych was also convicted of two counts of arson that could have recklessly endangered life.

Lavrynovych said he needed money and admitted he set the fires, saying he wanted the bounty of 3,000 pounds ($4,000) in cryptocurrency to pay for medical treatment his father needed.

But he said he only followed through because he had been threatened by El Money. He said he had no idea who owned the property until after the fires and said he didn’t intend to hurt anyone. He told police he didn't even know who Starmer was.

El Money provided detailed instructions to Lavrynovych on the targets, how to mix flammable substances and steps to avoid being caught.

Messages recovered from Lavrynovych’s phone showed he discussed setting the fires as well as other vandalism he conducted for money, such as painting the windshields of cars black and putting up anti-Islam posters in Muslim areas of London.

After the fires, El Money promised Lavrynovych he would pay and told the Ukrainian to send him a secret message with the code word “geranium” if he was detained by police. Shortly after Lavrynovych received that message he was arrested. The court was told he never received any money for setting the three fires.

Carpiuc acted as a middleman, and Pochynok allegedly was recruited to record video of the fires so Lavrynovych could get paid.

The fires were set in the dead of night and occupants sleeping in the homes awoke to smoke billowing in their front doors.

Starmer’s sister-in-law, who was living in his home, heard a loud bang and said she struggled to breathe as smoke filled a stairway. Her 9-year-old daughter was terrified.

An occupant of the apartment building retreated to the roof after discovering hallways full of smoke.

The two convicts are scheduled to be sentenced Friday.

The Ocean Observatories Initiative is a network of more than 900 ocean sensors built at a cost of $386 million. Over the last decade it has tracked ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, climate change and extreme weather, producing data freely available to the public and informing more than 500 scientific publications. The project was slated to run another 15 to 20 years.

The National Science Foundation had directed the removal of most of the system’s instruments from waters off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina and Greenland by 2027 — a decision scientists said came with no warning and no scientific review. The independent federal agency, which was established by Congress, described the move not as a cancellation but as a “descoping” aligned with a strategy to prioritize “evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies.” The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget had included a 55% cut to the agency.

‘Supreme stupidity’

“It just seems like this is supreme stupidity and a violation of the fundamental distribution of powers in our Constitution,” Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon told The Associated Press. “This program is authorized, it’s funded, and for the administration to shut it down without direction from Congress violates that vision in which the people’s representatives decide what’s done and funded, and the executive branch executes that vision.”

Merkley and Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska co-led the letter, which was also signed by Democratic Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Ron Wyden of Oregon. It urged the National Science Foundation, or NSF, to halt the dismantling of the Ocean Observatories Initiative and conduct a thorough review, including consultation with the marine science community, before any further action is taken.

“Eliminating most of this complex ocean monitoring system threatens the safety of our coastal communities while undermining our nation’s ability to monitor coastal environments, marine currents, and extreme weather events,” the senators wrote.

In a sharper rebuke, Democrats from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee sent a joint letter demanding the agency “cease this expensive, destructive, and — crucially — illegal action at once.” The letter was led by Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Jared Huffman of California, the top Democrats on their respective committees, and was signed by 23 Democratic members from each panel.

In a June 3 statement, the NSF said its decision drew in part on a 2025 National Academies report on the future of ocean science. “NSF remains committed to ocean science and will continue working with the scientific community on high-priority research objectives,” it wrote.

Cuts seen as sign of broader retreat

The ocean observatory cuts are part of a broader retreat from environmental and climate-related science under President Donald Trump's Republican administration, which has moved to scale back research programs, reduce staffing at agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, and ease emissions regulations.

Federal appropriations law requires the NSF to notify the House and Senate Appropriations Committees at least 30 days in advance of any planned decommissioning of agency-owned facilities or assets valued at more than $2.5 million. The House letter said no such notification had been transmitted.

Merkley said he learned of the dismantling through news reports.

“It was like the alarm bells just went off,” he said. “None of us knew about this, and there didn’t appear to have been any consultation or any scientific commission or stakeholders that were leading to this.”

Merkley said his office is still confirming whether formal notification was given, but he added: “If there was no notification, this would appear to be illegal.”

He and Murkowski planned to file legislation Monday that would prohibit the NSF from spending federal funds to decommission instruments until a thorough review has been completed.

Pulling buoy off Oregon coast

Scientists are scheduled to begin pulling the first buoy off the Oregon coast on Tuesday.

In their letter, the senators cited the approaching El Niño — a periodic Pacific warming that disrupts weather patterns and supercharges marine heat waves — as evidence the cuts are particularly ill timed.

“The loss of this deep-water observation system would threaten our ability to prepare for and monitor future El Niño events,” they wrote, warning coastal communities, fishermen and emergency responders would be left without crucial information.

“Instead of paying for the valuable insights that can be gleaned from the 10-years-and-counting continuous monitoring, taxpayers are now paying for research vessels to span the ocean dredging up hundreds of pieces of instrumentation. This is pathetic,” the House letter states. “In a time of strained resources, the NSF is wasting time and money to destroy its own scientific infrastructure.”

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Follow Annika Hammerschlag on Instagram: @ahammergram.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

The incident happened around 5 p.m. on June 13.

According to police shots were fired on the 12500 block of Payton.

Preliminary investigations say that a repast was taking place when a vehicle drove by a fired shots into the crowd.

Police say individuals in the crowd shot back.

Two men were struck in the incident and taken to a local hospital, police say.

According to authorities one of the men were listed as in temporary serious condition, the other has been listed as stable condition.

Anyone with information can contact the Detroit police department’s 9th precinct at 313-596-5940 or Crimestoppers at 1-800-SPEAKUP

“For 90 years, Big Boy has been about more than burgers and breakfasts,” said Tamer Afr, CEO of Big Boy Restaurants. “We’ve been part of family traditions, first dates, after-game celebrations, road trips and Sunday mornings with grandparents. Reaching 90 years is a testament to our loyal guests and the communities that have made Big Boy part of their lives.”

Anyone who visits participating locations on National Big Boy Day (Monday, June 15) can get their hands on an original Big Boy sandwich for $1.90 with the purchase of any Pepsi product.

The 90th anniversary festivities on Monday continue a month-long celebration that has included throwback pricing, guest giveaways and other promotions aimed at honor the restaurant’s legacy while welcoming and encouraging a new generation of diners.

“Our guests don’t come to Big Boy because it’s trendy, they come because it feels like home,” Afr said. “For 90 years, we’ve stayed true to who we are — a place where families can gather, celebrate milestones and create memories over a great meal.”

The 2016 law creating the nonpartisan America250 commission mandated that a time capsule be buried in Philadelphia on July 4, 2026, and dug up 250 years later in 2276. Last week, the resulting 900-pound cylinder was sealed shut, capping years of technical design and construction, collaboration with states and meticulous review of collected items.

“Once it was closed, it was a little bit anti-climactic, and then it was kind of really emotional,” said Michael Berilla, who directs the fabrication technology office at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and led the team that designed and built the capsule.

Designed to stay dry

Berilla’s office, part of the Department of Commerce, has built encasements to protect historical documents in the past, but those tend to be stored indoors under carefully controlled conditions. With time capsules, the number one enemy is water, so much of the design work focused on how to keep it out.

The stainless steel capsule is shaped like a cylinder, not the typical box, because square edges tend to crack and break. It will be covered with a secondary cylinder that will trap air and push out any approaching water, and the capsule itself is rimmed with a soft metal that compresses under pressure.

“When you smash it shut with the lid, that metal goes into all the cracks and spaces and makes an airtight, watertight seal,” Berilla said.

The items inside were at 35% relative humidity. That's moist enough to ensure they won’t dry out and disintegrate, but dry enough that they won’t create moisture problems. The capsule will be buried 10 feet below ground, safe from temperature fluctuations or storm damage, Berilla said.

“Philadelphia would have to be six feet underwater in order for this time capsule to even possibly take on water,” he said. “And if Philly is six feet underwater, you’ve got way bigger problems in the world.”

Filled with diversity

Inside the capsule are contributions from the three branches of the federal government, many of the ongoing America 250 events and programs, and all 50 states, the five U.S. territories and the District of Columbia. Most contents are in small archival boxes, while paper documents are in a separate compartment. According to a list posted on the America250 website Monday, archival quality paper was a particularly popular choice, with states submitting hundreds of letters, postcards, posters, poems and other printed material.

In a nod to its past, New Hampshire submitted a brochure featuring a timeline of major events in the state’s Revolutionary War history. California looked to the future, including the answer it got when it asked an AI ChatBot, “Write me a prediction of what California will be like 250 years from July 4, 2026.” Highways will be gone, grizzly bears will be back, and the entire state will secede and join Oregon, Washington and British Columbia to form the “Pacific Federation.”

Some states went all out. Utah sent 100 cards featuring historical citizens, 13 coins, eight documents, eight pins, two granite disks and a booklet. Arizona used nano-etching technology to put the full text of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution on a stainless steel coin. Other submissions were more bare bones, literally. Maine’s submission included a bone from the endangered North Atlantic right whale. Arkansas sent a diamond.

The variety was fascinating, said Tom Medema, a retired National Park Service official and project manager for the time capsule.

“I’m glad there wasn’t really a prescription for it,” he said. “I know that was hard for them, but in the end, it was just up to them to represent themselves.”

Anything that might degrade or metals that would rust over time was forbidden: Maryland’s submission of Old Bay seasoning was rejected, while Native American beaded artwork backed by elk hide was resubmitted on a fabric background.

Some of the items reflect dark historical times, Medema said, as well as the nation’s current challenges. But an air of optimism still surrounded the project.

“There’s great hope in what this capsule represents and the messages that are put in it,” he said. “Something about this capsule has been truly uplifting for everyone who’s been involved in it.”

Looking back and ahead

This isn’t the first national time capsule tied to the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

A “Century Safe" filled in 1876 was opened by President Gerald Ford in 1976. That year in turn saw the creation of an official Bicentennial time capsule, which is stored at the National Archives and will be opened in 2076. And there’s another time capsule in the works that will be housed at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.

To ensure the America 250 capsule is found in 2276, the National Park Service has included details about it in its succession plans to be passed down through time. A capstone with information about it will cover the spot where it's buried.

Berilla, who helped build the capsule, said when he thinks back to what America was like 250 years ago, he thinks about resilience.

“And when I think forward to the future, I hope that’s what they see from us,” he said. “That, yes, we had it hard compared to them, but more importantly, we were diverse. We were interesting. We were creative. We worked together.”

The capsule contains a photo of his team and a letter he wrote on their behalf.

“Greetings from the living, breathing hearts and hands of 2026,” Berilla wrote. “We will have long since returned to dust, but our devotion, pride, and unwavering hope for what our world could become are alive right here inside this steel. We built this for you.”

The U.K. joins a global movement to enforce age-based restrictions or requirements for access to social media. Some parents and child advocacy groups have welcomed them, but critics say they are ineffective and come with privacy concerns.

Here’s what some other countries are doing:

Australia

The ban there was described as a global first when it was introduced in December. It bars under-16s from holding accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube and Twitch. Technology firms can be fined up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($35 million) if they fail to take reasonable steps to remove the accounts. No fines have been handed out. The government says companies have shut down almost 5 million accounts identified as belonging to children.

Indonesia

The government announced in March that under-16s will not be allowed to have accounts on platforms that could expose them to addiction, pornography, online scams and cyberbullying, including YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and gaming platform Roblox.

Malaysia

Social media platforms with at least 8 million users in Malaysia, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, must implement age-verification systems and block users under 16 from creating accounts. Companies that fail to comply can face penalties of up to 10 million ringgit ($2.5 million).

Brazil

A law that took effect in March stops short of a full ban but requires people under 16 to link their social media accounts to a legal guardian to ensure supervision. The legislation also prohibits platforms from using addictive features such as infinite scroll and the automatic playing of videos. Digital services are also obliged to implement an age verification mechanism that goes beyond self-declaration that the user is over 18 to protect them from accessing inappropriate or prohibited material.

Canada

The government introduced legislation this month to create a regulator, the Digital Safety Commission of Canada, which could ban children younger than 16 from having social media accounts unless the companies show they can remove harmful content including nonconsensual intimate images and material that induces children to harm themselves, incites violence or foments hatred.

Others

Other countries, including France, Spain, Denmark, Greece, Thailand and South Korea, are considering or in the process of introducing measures to restrict minors’ access to social media.

One place the Colorado coach won’t go — gambling on the college game, the likes of which has generated a scandal inside the very conference his team resides. Wagering has jumped to the forefront of college football as Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby won a court order early last week that restored his eligibility and set aside a ban by the NCAA for betting on pro and college sports. Colorado plays Big 12 rival Texas Tech on Oct. 3 as part of homecoming festivities.

“Somebody’s gambling on a sport they’re playing? You don’t think something’s wrong with that?” Sanders said in a recent interview with The Associated Press and before the latest court ruling with Sorsby. “Just say that to yourself: This guy on my team is gambling on the sport, in the competition, that we’re about to go out there and have. Something’s wrong that.”

Sanders has plenty of thoughts on refining the game in this day and age of the volatile transfer portal and lucrative name, image and likeness deals. His takes include a salary cap in an effort to even the NIL playing field, hiring a retired coach as commissioner (a Nick Saban type ), instituting some sort of an age limit, expand the College Football Playoff to 24 teams and, of course, a hard pass when it comes to betting (he's talked to his squad about this topic).

“The game is still the game,” Sanders said. “The game is just positioned differently. Money’s involved, and any time money’s involved people tend to migrate to what they think they can get out of it, instead of what they could put into it — and that’s unfortunate.”

Bladder cancer diagnosis

A year ago, Sanders was going through treatment for bladder cancer, which included having a section of his intestine reconstructed to function as a bladder. This being Men’s Health Month, he's working with Depend underwear to encourage regular checkups (and launching a program titled “Depend Wake Up Calls” that allows consumers to receive video messages from Sanders through June).

Earlier this spring, Sanders stepped away from the team for a few days as he dealt with blood clots. But he said he's “feeling great. I've got my old swagger back.”

Along with it, a new outlook, which includes actually taking vacation time. Sanders recently partnered on a beachfront property in St. Croix with his son, Shedeur, who's entering his second season as a quarterback with the Cleveland Browns.

“I never would’ve done that, because I don’t go anywhere,” the 58-year-old Sanders said. “I'm stepping out, just living life.”

Sanders missed football camps last summer in Boulder as he went through cancer treatments. The Buffaloes finished with a 3-9 mark a year after making a bowl game behind Shedeur Sanders and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter.

This offseason, a more hands-on version of Deion Sanders.

“I have everybody in that locker room because we said we want them,” he said. “Because I sat there and watched tape on them and said, ‘That’s who I want, that’s what I want. Let’s go get them.’”

The new landscape of college football

Sanders found it funny that his heavy reliance on the transfer portal once drew so many raised eyebrows.

“Now, everybody’s doing the same thing that I did,” he said. “But it was crazy back then, right?”

He's seen and heard the plans from conferences — and the legislation proposals from lawmakers — on how to adapt college football in this new landscape. It’s a lot to untangle, which is why he advocates for an authoritative figure to help oversee the sport.

“A guy like Coach Saban and some of the other coaches that have walked away from the game not because they can’t coach anymore but because they were fed up with how things are operating,” he said.

Sanders also would be in favor of implementing a salary cap (see: NFL).

“So you can really have a consistency with the game,” Sanders said. “The thing about the pro game, everybody gets to spend the same amount of money. It’s who is crafty in regard to business. College football isn't like that. You may have a team that's spent $40 million playing against a team who spent $10 million. You darn well know the outcome in that game.”

That leads him to his next point — a potential age cap.

“You can’t have a 30-year-old man playing against a 21-year old man and think it’s fair,” he said. “Should be a transfer rule as well. You’re teaching kids not to fight through adversity when you're having kids able to transfer two or three or four times.”

As for NIL, he momentarily pondered if anything might have been different for him had a similar system been in place when he was at Florida State.

“It probably wouldn’t have (changed),” said Sanders, a college and pro football hall of famer. “I've had a pretty good run. I’m still running, too — still high stepping. I’m probably in the third quarter of this game (of life) and we’re winning. We’re up by about 21. I’m loving life.”

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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

The primary runoff election will lock in the party nominees for most races in the general election in the fall, when candidates will compete for a full docket of state and federal races in the heavily Republican state.

Primaries for four of the state’s seven congressional districts were postponed from May 19 to an Aug. 11 special primary in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that prompted Republicans in a handful of southern states to throw out their congressional maps.

In the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, Barry Moore and Jared Hudson vie for the nomination to succeed U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who opted to run for governor rather than seek a second term. Moore is a third-term congressman representing Alabama’s 1st Congressional District. He has President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Hudson is a former Navy SEAL, owner of a security and weapons training company and founder of a nonprofit combating human trafficking.

Moore was the top vote-getter in the primary, with about 39% of the vote, compared with about 26% for Hudson. State Attorney General Steve Marshall was a close third with about 25% of the vote.

Moore’s strongest performance was in his 1st Congressional District in southern Alabama along the Florida border and the Gulf Coast. He also won pluralities across a swath of Central Alabama, including Montgomery, and by more modest margins in the north and northeast along the Tennessee and Georgia borders.

Hudson scored one of his biggest margins in his home base of Jefferson County, the most populous in the state and home to Birmingham. Padding his 19-percentage-point lead and 45% of the vote there would be a critical ingredient to a runoff victory.

Moore heads into the runoff with an advantage in the key county of Madison, the second largest in the state and home to Huntsville, also known as Rocket City for its NASA facilities. He received about 34% of the vote there, while Hudson placed third with about 22%.

Trump’s endorsement should be an important asset to Moore in a state where Trump won two out of every three votes against Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race. Trump’s picks have a near-perfect winning record at the ballot box, but his choice for Iowa governor fell short of the nomination earlier in June.

Alabama Democrats will also decide a U.S. Senate runoff. The two finalists are former corporate executive, aromatherapy pet care entrepreneur and policing reform advocate Dakarai Larriett and attorney and former Midfield Municipal Court Judge Everett Wess. Wess led the primary field with about 40% of the vote, followed by Larriett with about 29%.

Additional Republican runoffs will be held for lieutenant governor, attorney general, agriculture commissioner and other state offices. A Democratic runoff also will be held in the 5th Congressional District, which was one of the three congressional districts to hold primaries in May. Primaries for the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th Congressional Districts will be held in the Aug. 11 special election.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 7 p.m. CT, which is 8 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in primary runoffs for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, lieutenant governor, attorney general, agriculture commissioner, state Public Service Commission, state Board of Education, state Senate and state House.

Who gets to vote?

Voters who cast a ballot in a partisan primary on May 19 may only vote in the runoff of the same party as they did in the primary. In other words, Democratic primary voters may not vote in a Republican primary runoff or vice versa. Registered voters who did not participate in a party primary on May 19 may vote in the runoff for either party.

How many voters are there?

As of Thursday, there were about 3.8 million registered voters in Alabama.

How many people actually vote?

In the May 19 primary, about 482,000 people voted in the Republican U.S. Senate primary, about 474,000 in the Republican lieutenant governor primary and about 340,000 in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary.

The two U.S. Senate seats last had Republican primary runoffs in 2022 and 2020. In 2022, total votes fell from about 647,000 in the primary to about 402,000 in the runoff, or 18% of registered voters to 11%.

In 2020, when Tuberville was first on the ballot, total votes fell from about 718,000 in the primary to about 551,000 in the runoff, or 20% of registered voters to 15%.

How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?

Relatively few Alabama voters cast their ballots before Election Day. The state is one of the only holdouts in the country not to offer some form of in-person early voting. In the 2024 primaries, about 4% of Democratic primary voters and about 1% of Republican primary voters voted by mail.

When are early and absentee votes released?

Vote release practices vary from county to county. Most counties tend to release results from absentee voting in the first vote update, sometimes along with results from in-person Election Day voting.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the May 19 Republican U.S. Senate primary, the AP first reported results at 8:28 p.m. ET, or 28 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 12:54 a.m. ET, with more than 99.9% of total votes counted.

When will the AP declare a winner?

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

How do recounts work?

Alabama has an automatic recount law, but the Alabama attorney general in 2010 issued an opinion that it does not apply to primaries.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 56 days until the special congressional primaries on Aug. 11 and 140 days until the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

A large section of fence that was installed to protect the shuttered school until its impending demolition was reportedly broken, along with the seal protecting the entrance from unauthorized entry.

The district says the fence has been repaired and the school building will now have 24-hour security on the premises until the demolition is complete.

The historic school, which first opened its doors nearly 100 years ago in 1928, is being demolished to make way for the construction of a new sports complex, despite backlash from some community members.

School officials are reminding the public that the building remains closed to the public and any unauthorized entry into the school building risk prosecution for trespassing.

A Democratic hold in the heavily Democratic district would further tighten an already thin Republican majority in the U.S. House.

Swalwell resigned from Congress in April following sexual-assault allegations he has denied. He also withdrew from the California governor's race, in which he was a top contender.

There are two campaigns underway for Swalwell's former seat. One is a regularly scheduled election to serve in the next Congress for a term that starts in January 2027. The other is Tuesday's special primary to serve out the remaining 15 weeks of Swalwell’s term.

Among the Democrats running in the special primary for the abbreviated term in the 14th District are former Dublin mayor and Bay Area Rapid Transit board member Melissa Hernandez, state Sen. Aisha Wahab and attorney and education entrepreneur Rakhi Israni Singh. Republican candidates include real estate investor Wendy Huang and small business owner Dena Maldonado. The top two finishers regardless of party will advance to a special general election on Aug. 18. California has a top-two primary system in which all candidates run on the same ballot.

These five candidates also ran in the June 2 primary for the full-term seat in a slightly smaller field of nine. Wahab and Hernandez placed first and second, guaranteeing the seat will remain in Democratic hands next year.

The boundaries of the 14th Congressional District were redrawn as part of a new congressional map approved by voters in a 2025 statewide ballot measure known as Proposition 50. The map goes into effect for the full-term seat in January, while the winner of the special election will serve under the current boundaries for the remainder of the year.

Proposition 50 was placed on the ballot in response to mid-decade redistricting efforts led by President Donald Trump in several Republican-controlled states. While the plan created a congressional map more favorable to Democrats, no dramatic changes were made to the 14th District. Under the current boundaries, Democrats made up 50.4% of registered voters in October, compared with 17.6% for Republicans. Under the new boundaries, Democrats comprised about 49.7% of registered voters as of mid-May, compared with about 17.4% for Republicans.

In 2024, Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris carried the current 14th District with 65.8% of the vote. If the election had been held under the new boundaries, she would have received 65.4% of the vote.

Both versions of the district are contained entirely within Alameda County in the East Bay. The current district includes Hayward, Livermore, Pleasanton and Union City, as well as parts of San Leandro, Fremont and Dublin.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 8 p.m. PT, which is 11 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in the 14th Congressional District special primary.

Who gets to vote?

Any registered voter in the pre-redistricting, pre-Proposition 50 version of California’s 14th Congressional District may participate in the special primary.

How many voters are there?

As of October 2025, there were about 429,000 registered voters in California’s current 14th Congressional District, including about 216,000 Democrats, about 76,000 Republicans and about 114,000 voters with no party preference.

How many people actually vote?

About 214,000 voters in the current iteration of the 14th Congressional District cast ballots in the statewide Proposition 50 ballot measure in November 2025.

About 126,000 14th District voters cast ballots in March 2024, the last time the district held a primary under these boundaries.

How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?

About 93% of Alameda County voters in the March 2024 primary and about 87% of 2024 general election voters cast their ballots either early in person or by mail.

As of Friday, about 106,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election, including about 57% from Democrats, about 19% from Republicans and about 20% from unaffiliated voters.

When are early and absentee votes released?

In Alameda County, the first vote update of the night usually includes only results from mail voting, but the county typically still has a sizable number of mail ballots left to tally by the next morning.

Since mail voting tends to favor Democrats and in-person Election Day voting tends to favor Republicans, the release of only mail voting results at the start of the night could result in an early lead for Democratic candidates, while Republican candidates may narrow the gap as more Election Day results are counted. It also means that Democratic candidates could see additional gains later on because of the number of mail ballots tabulated after election night.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the statewide special election for Proposition 50 on Nov. 4, 2025, the AP first reported results from Alameda County at 11:14 p.m. ET, or 14 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 1:33 a.m. ET, with about 57% of total votes counted. The county completed about 99% of the vote county by Nov. 10.

When will the AP declare a winner?

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

How do recounts work?

There are no automatic recounts in California. Any registered voter may request and pay for a recount. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 63 days until the Aug. 18 special general election for Congressional District 14 and 140 days until the Nov. 3 midterm general election.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

Three babies between 2 and 5 months became ill in April and May in California, Pennsylvania and Washington after consuming Nara Organics Whole Milk Organic Powdered infant formula, which is also sold on Nara.com, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.

They were hospitalized and treated with the FDA-approved treatment for infant botulism, the agency said.

Infant botulism is a rare but serious illness that occurs in babies under age 1, whose gut microbiomes are immature. It is caused when infants consume bacteria with spores that produce a toxin in the gut.

Symptoms include constipation, poor feeding, drooping eyelids, weak muscle tone, difficulty swallowing and breathing problems, among others.

Babies who develop those symptoms need immediate medical attention. The sole treatment is BabyBIG, an IV medication made from blood plasma of people immunized against botulism.

Nara Organics Whole Milk Organic Infant Formula makes up less than 1% of all infant formula sold in the United States, and the outbreak does not create shortage concerns for parents and caregivers, the FDA said.

People who have the formula are urged to stop using it immediately, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said in a statement. The formula is manufactured in Europe but sold only in the U.S., it added.

The CDC recommended that anyone with an opened can take a picture, record the lot number and use-by date and watch their infants for symptoms.

“Label it ‘DO NOT USE’ and keep it stored in a safe place away from other items you feed your baby for at least a month,” the CDC said. “If no symptoms appear after a month, throw the leftover formula away.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Collins and former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley are the finalists for the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff in November. Ousting Ossoff would give Republicans more breathing room as they defend competitive seats in Alaska, Maine, Ohio, North Carolina and elsewhere. Republicans can afford to lose up to three of their current 53 Senate seats and still maintain control of the chamber with Vice President JD Vance casting tiebreaking votes.

Collins was the top vote-getter in the May 19 primary among the field of five. He received about 41% of the vote by amassing sizable wins in smaller, more rural counties across the state, as well as in some larger counties north of the Atlanta area.

Dooley's path to the runoff looked quite different. He carried only 14 of Georgia’s 159 counties, but they included five of the six most populous: Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb and Clayton. He also carried Clarke County, which includes the University of Georgia in Athens. Overall, he received about 30% of the primary vote.

U.S. Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter was the close third-place finisher. The 25% of voters who backed Carter in the primary could help either Collins or Dooley clinch the nomination.

Carter had a base of support that much more closely resembled Collins’ rather than Dooley’s. Carter performed best in the small, rural counties clustered in southeastern Georgia, which significantly overlaps with the 1st Congressional District he represents.

Carter and Collins are also more closely identified with President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, whereas Dooley says he didn’t vote in the 2016 or 2020 presidential elections.

Trump did not endorse a candidate during the primary campaign, but he endorsed Collins on Sunday for the runoff. Outgoing Republican Gov. Brian Kemp endorsed Dooley, which likely helped him edge out Carter.

Trump did endorse in the competitive Republican primary for governor. His pick, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, was the top vote-getter in the primary, with about 38% of the vote, followed by healthcare executive Rick Jackson, with about 33%. Kemp endorsed Jones on Sunday.

Like Collins, Jones collected wins in small rural counties across the state. Jackson remained competitive by notching narrow wins in larger counties like Fulton County and some of the counties in the Atlanta suburbs.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in primary runoffs for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, insurance commissioner, state school superintendent, labor commissioner, public service commissioner, state Senate and state House.

Who gets to vote?

Voters who cast a ballot in a partisan primary on May 19 may only vote in the runoff of the same party as they did in the primary. In other words, Democratic primary voters may not vote in a Republican primary runoff or vice versa. Registered voters who did not participate in a party primary on May 19 may vote in the runoff for either party.

How many voters are there?

As of May 28, there were about 8.1 million registered voters in Georgia.

How many people actually vote?

In the May 19 primaries, about 934,000 votes were cast in the Republican primary for governor and about 913,000 in the Republican U.S. Senate primary.

How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?

Early in-person and mail ballots made up about 46% of the total vote in the May 19 primary.

As of Friday, about 119,000 Democratic and about 222,000 Republican primary runoff ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election.

When are early and absentee votes released?

A sizable amount of results from pre-Election Day voting is released fairly early in the night before most in-person Election Day ballots are tabulated. About four out of every five counties release all or almost of their early in-person results in the first vote update of the night, while about two-thirds of counties release all or almost all of their mail voting results in the first update.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the May 19 Republican primary for governor, the AP first reported results at 7:13 p.m. ET, or 13 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 3:13 a.m. ET, with more than 99.9% of total votes counted.

When will the AP declare a winner?

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

How do recounts work?

There is no automatic recount provision in Georgia, but a losing candidate may request a recount if the margin is less than or equal to 0.5% of the total vote. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 140 days until the 2026 midterm elections.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

The primary takes place against a uniquely complex backdrop. Residents are contending with an unprecedented level of ongoing federal intervention by President Donald Trump in how the district looks and functions. A rare combination of open seats in top offices has caused a ripple effect down the ballot. And local election officials are rolling out a new ranked choice voting system.

The competitive Democratic primary field for mayor includes Ward 4 Councilwoman Janeese Lewis George, former At-Large Councilman Kenyan McDuffie and five others. Their key endorsements suggest the fault lines that have formed between the party’s establishment and its more progressive wing.

Lewis George has endorsements from four of her fellow council members, including at-large member Robert White, who is running for U.S. delegate to Congress. She also has the backing of several progressive organizations including the Working Families Party, the Metro D.C. Democratic Socialists of America and Our Revolution, a political committee affiliated with allies of independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats.

McDuffie’s endorsements include former Mayors Sharon Pratt and Anthony Williams, outgoing At-Large Councilwoman Anita Bonds, former longtime Councilwomen Charlene Drew Jarvis and Linda Cropp, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and former Democratic National Committee Chairmen Tom Perez and Jaime Harrison.

Although retiring three-term Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser hasn’t made an official endorsement in the race, she has made her preferences clear. In 2025, she said at an Economic Club event that “if you like me, you’re going to love Kenyon, wink, wink,” according to NBC4 Washington. And at a June Axios Live event, she said, “I support Kenyon McDuffie, and I have always supported Kenyon McDuffie,” although she added she was not making an endorsement.

Bowser has walked a political tightrope since Trump’s return to office in 2025, balancing her role as the elected leader of a heavily Democratic city with only limited ability to self-govern. Her measured approach has drawn criticism from progressives who advocate for a more vigorous response to Trump's Republican administration. On the campaign trail, Lewis George has made veiled barbs against unnamed leaders for “complying in advance” and who “shrink in the face of injustice.”

Trump weighed in on the race on Thursday, saying he would consider a federal takeover of the District of Columbia if Lewis George becomes the next mayor, a variation of a threat he has made since the early days of his second term.

In the race for D.C.’s non-voting seat in Congress, White, Ward 2 Councilwoman Brooke Pinto and three others are competing to replace retiring 18-term Democratic U.S. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Norton’s and Bowser's retirements mark the first time since 1990 that both the mayor’s office and the congressional seat are open in the same year. Their decisions triggered a chain reaction of open seats as incumbent district council members and others jockey for higher office.

Washington is overwhelmingly Democratic. The city has almost 15 times more Democrats than Republicans and has never gone for a Republican presidential candidate since it gained the vote in 1964.

But the general election landslides tend to obscure fairly wide socio-economic gulfs within the district’s boundaries. For example, Ward 3 in the affluent upper Northwest has the city’s largest white majority, the highest median income and the lowest poverty rate. Ward 8 in Southeast has the city’s largest Black majority, the lowest median income and the highest poverty rate.

When Bowser first won the Democratic mayoral primary in 2014, she carried the five westernmost wards, while incumbent Mayor Vincent Gray carried Wards 5, 7 and 8 to the east.

White’s only competitive council primary in 2016 also showed an east-west divide. He carried Wards 1, 2, 3 and 6 to the west and ran almost even in Ward 4 to the north. When he challenged Bowser for mayor in 2022, he carried only Ward 1, which is in the center of the district and includes the neighborhoods of Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant and the U Street Corridor.

In McDuffie’s successful 2022 council race, when he won the second of two at-large seats at stake, his strongest performances were in the northwesternmost parts of Wards 3 and 4.

The primary marks the first time the city will use a ranked choice voting system, in which voters rank the candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate in last place is dropped, and votes cast for that candidate are reallocated among the rest of the field according to the preferences of the dropped candidate’s voters. This process repeats until one candidate emerges with a majority of votes.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for U.S. Delegate to Congress, mayor, attorney general and district council. There is also a special election to fill a vacant at-large council seat.

Who gets to vote?

Voters registered with a political party may participate only in their own party’s primary. Democrats may not vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. Independent or unaffiliated voters may not participate in either primary.

How many voters are there?

As of May 31, there were about 481,000 registered voters in Washington, D.C. More than three-quarters of them, about 363,000, were registered Democrats. Roughly 25,000, or 5%, were registered Republicans, and about 18%, or roughly 86,000, were not affiliated with any party.

How many people actually vote?

About 127,000 Democrats voted in the 2022 mayoral primary, or roughly 26% of registered voters. About 92,000 Democrats voted in the 2024 primary for U.S. delegate.

How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?

About 78% of all voters in the 2024 primary cast their ballots early in-person or by mail. That was slightly higher than the 76% who used the same methods in the 2022 primary.

As of Wednesday, about 35,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election.

When are early and absentee votes released?

Results from early in-person and mail voting are usually released throughout the night along with results from in-person Election Day voting.

Election night results will not include totals from mail ballots received on Election Day by mail or by ballot drop boxes or from mail ballots received after Election Day with the necessary postmark.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the 2022 primary election, the AP first reported results at 8:30 p.m. ET, or 30 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 11:59 p.m. ET, with about 69% of total votes counted.

In contests in which the ranked choice voting process is triggered, only the results of voters’ first choices will be reported on election night. Results from subsequent rounds of vote-counting are expected by June 21 and June 24, with final round-by-round results expected on or after June 26. The certification of the election is expected on July 17.

When will the AP declare a winner?

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

How do recounts work?

Recounts are automatic in D.C. elections for federal offices, mayor, attorney general and district council, among others, if the margin is less than 1% of the total vote. Candidates may also request and pay for a recount regardless of the vote margin. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 140 days until the 2026 midterm elections.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

Voters will select nominees to replace departing federal and state officials ranging from U.S. senator and representative to governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and state legislator. They’ll also decide whether to renominate some incumbents for another term and consider a statewide ballot measure on the minimum wage.

Among the most notable open-seat contests are the primaries to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt.

The crowded nine-person Republican primary ballot includes state Attorney General Gentner Drummond; former state Secretary of Public Safety Chip Keating, who is the son of former Gov. Frank Keating; former state Sen. Mike Mazzei; and former state House Speaker Charles McCall.

The Democratic field includes state House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson and former state Sen. Connie Johnson.

President Donald Trump opened up another high-profile seat in Oklahoma when he named Republican U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace fellow Republican Kristi Noem as Department of Homeland Security secretary. Mullin's appointed replacement, U.S. Sen. Alan Armstrong, opted not to seek a full term.

The Republican primary to replace Mullin and Armstrong features U.S. Rep. Kevin Hern and four others. Five Democrats seek the nomination, including attorney and minister Jim Priest. Hern and Priest lead their respective fields in campaign fundraising, although the Hern campaign’s $6.8 million in available cash as of May 27 far eclipses the $118,000 the Priest campaign had.

Trump has endorsed Mazzei for governor and Hern for U.S. Senate.

Candidates must receive a majority of votes in the primary to win the nomination. Otherwise, the top two vote-getters in the primary will advance to an Aug. 25 runoff.

Also on the ballot Tuesday is State Question 832, which would raise the state minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour by 2029. Starting in 2030, it would tie future minimum wage increases to cost of living increases.

Oklahoma is solidly Republican in general elections. It had Trump’s fifth highest vote share of any state in the 2024 presidential election. A Democrat hasn’t carried Oklahoma in a presidential race since President Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

The state last elected a Democrat for governor in 2006 and for U.S. Senate in 1990.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 7 p.m. CT, which is 8 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer, state school superintendent, labor commissioner, insurance commissioner, corporation commissioner, state Senate and state House, as well as for the statewide ballot measure.

Who gets to vote?

Voters registered with a political party may participate only in their own party’s primary. Democrats may not vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. State parties have the option to allow independent or unaffiliated voters to participate in their primaries, but none has done so for 2026 elections. All registered voters may cast ballots on the statewide ballot measure.

How many voters are there?

As of May 31, there were about 2.4 million registered voters in Oklahoma, including about 1.3 million registered Republicans, 614,000 registered Democrats and 495,000 independent voters not registered with any party.

How many people actually vote?

Roughly 360,000 votes were cast in the Republican primaries in 2022, compared with about 168,000 in the Democratic primaries. This was about 16% and 7% of registered voters at the time, respectively.

How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?

In the 2022 state primaries, about 10% of the Republican primary vote and about 13% of the Democratic primary vote was cast early in person or by mail.

As of Friday, about 35,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election. That includes about 21,000 ballots from Republicans, about 12,000 from Democrats and about 2,000 from voters not affiliated with any party.

When are early and absentee votes released?

Almost every county in Oklahoma releases all or almost all of its results from early in-person and mail voting in the first vote update of the night, usually before any results from in-person Election Day voting are released.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the 2022 state primary, the AP first reported results at 8:10 p.m. ET, or 10 minutes after polls closed. By 10:30 p.m. ET, more than 90% of the votes had been counted. The last vote update of the night was at 12:33 a.m. ET, with about 99.9% of total votes counted.

When will the AP declare a winner?

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

How do recounts work?

Oklahoma does not have automatic recounts for elections involving candidates, but candidates may request and pay for one regardless of the vote margin. The state does require automatic recounts for statewide ballot questions if the margin is 0.5% or less of the total votes cast. The required margin is larger for state constitutional amendments. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 70 days until the Aug. 25 runoff and 140 days until the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

🍇 Grapevine

🌅 Good morning! On this day in 1921, American aviator Bessie Coleman made history by becoming the first African American and first Native American woman to earn a pilot’s license. With no flight training opportunities in the U.S. at the time, she traveled to France for flight school.

Here are a few things to know about for Monday, June 15, 2026:

⛅ 4Warn Weather: After a stretch of heat and humidity, Metro Detroit is settling into a more comfortable weather pattern this week. Check out the 10 day forecast.

🛝 Occupy the Summer: City leaders and mentors are officially launching Detroit’s “Occupy the Summer” initiative, aimed at providing children and teens with safe spaces and plenty of programming while school is out. Read more.

🫱🏾‍🫲🏼 Building Bridges: Michigan State Police officers led a community workout in Detroit on Saturday to both build connection among law enforcement and the public and to support the Officer Daniel Kerstetter Foundation. Read more.

💸 Tax Refund Delays: The Michigan Department of Treasury reports roughly 95 percent of returns filed on time have been processed. That means about five percent of filers — an estimated 250,000 people — are still waiting for their refunds. Read more.

🏒 PWHL Signing: Professional Women’s Hockey League Detroit has signed Macomb County native forward Taylor Girard to a two-year standard player agreement ahead of the team’s inaugural 2026-27 season. Read more.

🏊 Morning Dive

Good morning ☀️

Missed trash pickups, delayed collections, and unanswered phone calls have plagued Priority Waste customers in Southeast Michigan for more than a year.

“When you boil it all down, you got to have drivers, you got to have trucks, and customers need a container to put their waste in, too, and when all that breaks down, they got to be able to get ahold of us,” PW CEO Aaron Johnson said.

Johnson did not mince words about the state of the company’s service.

“I know service is not as good as it’s supposed to be.”

The newly appointed CEO says the issues stem from a driver shortage, an aging fleet, and a backlog of residents still waiting for new trash bins.

Get the full story here.

🗞️ Other headlines to know today

• ‘Without medication’: Seniors at Clinton Township complex say broken elevators leave them stranded without meds
• 2 injured after drive-by shooting at a repass in Detroit
• Farmington Hills bar hosts fundraiser for Livonia shooting victims’ families
• ‘I don’t trust them’: Chesterfield man says he’s out over $800 after car damaged on tracks at Jax Kar Wash
• 1 found fatally shot in a Detroit backyard
• Clintondale High School students attend community prom after threat cancels event
• Relatives arrested after an illegal firearms lab is discovered inside home in Warren
• Oakland County man who killed neighbor, attacked his family, pleads no contest to murder
• Teamsters Airgas workers in Ferndale reinstated with back pay after year-long strike
• How wrong food order led to Michigan sisters facing serious criminal charge, prosecutors say
• Man found passed out in car with girlfriend’s body in Roseville convicted of her murder
• 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:

The United States and Iran reached an initial agreement early Monday that would extend their shaky ceasefire and lead to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but challenges immediately loomed, including Israel insisting it would hold onto land seized in Lebanon as it battles Hezbollah.

Details of the deal, which would potentially allow desperately needed oil and natural gas to reach the global market through the critical waterway, were not immediately released. Iran signaled implementation would not start until the signing, which key mediator Pakistan said would take place Friday in Switzerland.

But the memorandum of understanding over the war already faced hurdles. Israel’s continued hostilities with the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs Sunday, nearly derailed the negotiations. (Read more)

----

President Donald Trump marked his 80th birthday on Sunday by hailing an initial agreement to end the war in Iran and staging a once unfathomable cage-fighting show on the White House’s storied South Lawn.

Trump had been touting the emerging deal for weeks and the continuing conflict threatened to overshadow the UFC mixed martial arts extravaganza, where combatants inside a wire-mesh octagon tried to punch, kick, chop and pummel each other into submission.

Ahead of the fight starting, however, the president said an agreement to end the conflict “is now complete.” He declared that the U.S. will end its blockade of Iran, and that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. (Read more)

----

Britain will ban children under 16 from using a range of social media apps including Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube to protect young people from harmful content and excessive screen time, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday,

Starmer told a news conference that he will fight back if technology companies resist the move, and acknowledged some teens would try to find their way around a ban. But he said he is “not prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children.”

The move, expected to take effect early next year, makes the U.K. part of a growing global movement to tighten online safety for children. (Read more)

---> Find more headlines from around the world right here <---

📝 Word Up

Today’s Word Up is: Bucolic / byo͞oˈkälik / (adjective) -- defined as “Of or relating to the pleasant aspects of the countryside and country life.”

Example: “She traded her fast-paced job in Manhattan for a bucolic life running a small goat farm upstate.”

🧹 Housekeeping

Hey, if you like this newsletter, let us know. We’d love your feedback. We also offer several other newsletters, including 4Warn Weather, All 4 Pets and more. Hopefully, we have one that caters to your interests — unless you’re only interested in quantum physics. 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.)

The air conditioning will not have to work quite as hard as it did during the recent hot spell, as temperatures across Southeast Michigan return to levels typical for mid-June. Residents in the Thumb and northern Metro Detroit will notice the coolest temperatures, while communities closer to Detroit and the Ohio border remain several degrees warmer.

Monday brings a mix of sun and clouds. Skies will be sunny in the morning and partly cloudy in the afternoon. After morning temperatures in the upper 40s and lower 50s, highs will range from around 70 degrees in the Thumb and mid 70s across Metro Detroit and Monroe. Overnight lows will fall into the 50s, providing comfortable sleeping weather across the region.

Tuesday

The next opportunity for wet weather arrives Tuesday afternoon and evening as a disturbance moves through the Great Lakes. Showers and thunderstorms are expected to develop after lunchtime before becoming more widespread later in the day.

There will be enough instability for a few stronger storms capable of producing gusty winds, although widespread severe weather is not expected at this time. High temperatures Tuesday will range from the middle 70s in the Thumb to the upper 70s in parts of Metro Detroit.

Additional showers and thunderstorms remain possible Tuesday night before another round of unsettled weather arrives Wednesday and Wednesday night.

Wednesday

Wednesday’s storms may become more widespread, especially during the evening and overnight hours. Abundant moisture moving into Southeast Michigan could support periods of heavy rainfall. Localized flooding may be an issue in urban and poor-drainage areas if heavier storms repeatedly move across the same locations.

Rainfall totals of 1 to 2 inches will be possible in some communities between Wednesday afternoon and early Thursday.

Thursday

Conditions gradually improve Thursday as the system exits the region. A lingering shower remains possible, but sunshine should return during the afternoon. High temperatures will range from the lower 70s north to the upper 70s south.

Juneteenth and Father’s Day

The forecast looks favorable for Juneteenth celebrations Friday. While an isolated shower cannot be completely ruled out, much of the day appears dry with a mix of sunshine and comfortable temperatures. Afternoon highs are expected to range from the lower 70s in the Thumb to the upper 70s across Metro Detroit.

The weather also appears cooperative heading into Father’s Day weekend. Saturday should feature a blend of sun and clouds with highs in the 70s.

Father’s Day on Sunday currently looks seasonably mild with mostly sunny to partly cloudy skies and temperatures generally ranging from the middle 70s north to the upper 70s south. A stray shower cannot be ruled out, but most of the day appears suitable for outdoor celebrations, cookouts, golf outings and family gatherings.

Overall, Southeast Michigan is transitioning from a pattern dominated by heat and humidity to one featuring comfortable temperatures and periodic opportunities for rain. The biggest weather concern this week will be the potential for heavy rainfall and localized flooding, particularly Wednesday night into early Thursday.

Share your weather photos with Local 4 at MIPics.

They hired John Tortorella with eight games left in the regular season in a move that included firing Bruce Cassidy. But there were no guarantees Tortorella would remain the coach beyond this season.

By taking Vegas all the way to the Stanley Cup Final before the Golden Knights lost in six games to the Carolina Hurricanes, Tortorella would seem to have a good argument to get an extended stay. But he wasn't ready to think about that Sunday night after a 3-0 loss that ended his team's season.

“I've got to swallow this a little bit,” Tortorella said.

As he has done since coming aboard, Tortorella praised the organization and the players, and even with the loss to Carolina still quite fresh, he didn't sound like a coach ready to step away as his 68th birthday approaches.

“I feel very fortunate to get to know the team, get to know the organization,” Tortorella said. “It's a first-class organization. Just to have the opportunity. I wanted to coach. I want to coach. To jump in with this gang, I feel so fortunate.”

The Golden Knights had fallen from first to third place in the Pacific Division when general manager Kelly McCrimmon made the bold move to fire Cassidy, who coached Vegas to the 2023 Stanley Cup.

“If we didn’t have the expectations and the belief in our team that we do, we probably would have let this thing ride out,” McCrimmon said at the time. “We like our team a lot, and we think our team has a chance to win. We needed to make this change to help that happen.”

McCrimmon turned out to be right.

The Golden Knights took off under Tortorella, going 7-0-1 to finish the regular season and claim the Pacific Division for the fifth time in the franchise's nine years. They then eliminated Utah and Anaheim in six games each in the first two rounds of the NHL playoffs.

Then came the real shocker, a sweep of Colorado, which not only won the Presidents' Trophy, but had gone 8-1 in the postseason.

That set up the final with Carolina, and the Golden Knights took 2-1 series lead. But the Hurricanes then won three in a row to capture their first Cup in 20 years and send Vegas players into an offseason of what-could-have-beens.

Should he return, Tortorella likes his chances to make another deep run next year, and the Golden Knights will again possess one of the NHL's more talented rosters that includes players such as Mitch Marner, Jack Eichel, Pavel Dorofeyev and Mark Stone.

This also is an organization not afraid to go look for more talent.

“I know we're on the wrong end of it here, but I just feel that's a strong room,” Tortorella said. “I'm anxious to see what happens next year because it has another chance.”

Doesn't sound like a coach ready to hang it up.

What management thinks should be known in the coming days.

___

Freelance writer W.G. Ramirez contributed to this report.

___

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

The Chicago White Sox have been one of baseball's most pleasant surprises this season. With a 38-32 record, they're atop the AL Central. That's after losing 102 games last year and a record 121 in 2024. So the vibes were already good when Montgomery played his first major league game Tuesday night.

Then he sent a drive to left in the bottom of the 10th for a two-run homer to win the game, 6-5 over the Atlanta Braves. Montgomery became the fifth player to hit a walk-off homer in his debut, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He joined Billy Parker, Josh Bard, Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Pérez.

Montgomery is Chicago's No. 2-ranked prospect according to MLB Pipeline. The outfielder was a first-round draft pick by Boston in 2024, then he was part of the trade that sent Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox before last season.

The White Sox finished the week by taking two of three from the Los Angeles Dodgers. That was after beating Atlanta twice in a row.

Performance of the week

There are two obvious candidates this week. Yoshinobu Yamamoto retired the first 23 batters he faced Saturday and took a no-hitter into the ninth inning before allowing a leadoff homer in the Dodgers' 7-1 win over the White Sox.

But even that wasn't as impressive as Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski's one-hitter against Philadelphia on Friday night. He struck out 15 in a 6-0 win and threw a pitch at 104.5 mph, the fastest by a starter since tracking began.

Trivia time

Misiorowski became the fifth pitcher since 1903 to strike out at least 15 with no walks while throwing either a no-hitter or a one-hitter. Who were the others?

Comeback of the week

The San Francisco Giants were eight runs behind in the eighth Wednesday against Washington when they scored five runs in each of the final two innings to win 11-10. San Francisco's win probability was 0.2% in the eighth according to Baseball Savant.

Matt Chapman and Rafael Devers led off the bottom of the eighth with home runs, and after a pair of walks, Daniel Susac doubled home a run. Two more came home on a groundout and a wild pitch.

After the Nats extended the lead to 10-6, Luis Arraez and Chapman led off the bottom of the ninth with consecutive doubles to pull the Giants within three. After a walk and a single loaded the bases, Bryce Eldridge won it with a grand slam.

Teams trailing by at least eight runs in the eighth inning or later had lost 4,291 consecutive games, according to Sportradar. The last team to win after facing such a deficit was Cleveland against Tampa Bay in 2009.

Trivia answer

Kerry Wood of the Chicago Cubs struck out 20 in a one-hitter on May 6, 1998, against Houston.

Pedro Martinez of the Boston Red Sox struck out 17 in a one-hitter on Sept. 10, 1999, against the New York Yankees.

Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals struck out 17 in a no-hitter on Oct. 3, 2015, against the New York Mets.

Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers struck out 15 in a no-hitter on June 18, 2014, against Colorado.

Only Misiorowski faced the minimum 27 batters.

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

Shinsegae Group, which owns a 67.5% stake in Starbucks Korea, said group executives and employees at Starbucks Korea’s headquarters will attend training led by history and sociology professors on Wednesday. All Starbucks stores nationwide will close at 3 p.m. next Monday so employees can watch a recording of the session, Shinsegae said in a statement.

The coffee chain triggered an uproar when it attempted to promote a series of stainless-steel tumblers it called “SS Tank” by declaring May 18 to be “Tank Day.” The date marks the anniversary of the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southern city of Gwangju. It was violently suppressed by Seoul’s military government at the time, which deployed troops, tanks and helicopters, leaving hundreds dead or injured.

The campaign further fueled outrage by using the slogan “Thwack it on the table!” which many read as a reference to a notorious 1987 police statement that attempted to cover up the torture death of student activist Park Jong-chol. Authorities had falsely said Park died after investigators “hit the desk with a thwack.”

With the promotion sparking immediate backlash, Shinsegae canceled it within hours and fired the chief executive of Starbucks Korea. Shinsegae Chairman Chung Yong-jin later issued a nationally televised apology as police opened an investigation following complaints from relatives of the victims of the Gwangju crackdown. Chung will undergo separate training with the chief executives of Shinsegae affiliates on June 24.

Shinsegae said the decision to close all Starbucks stores early for the first time since the chain’s 1999 launch in South Korea and require companywide training shows “how seriously it views the marketing controversy and its determination to prevent a recurrence."

The crackdown in Gwangju came months after General Chun Doo-hwan seized power in a coup in late 1979. Government records show about 200 people died in Gwangju, but activists say the true death toll was much higher. Chun’s government also imprisoned tens of thousands, saying it was rooting out social evils.

Public anger over Chun’s dictatorship led to massive nationwide protests in 1987, forcing him to accept a constitutional revision introducing direct presidential elections, which is widely seen as the start of South Korea’s transition to democracy.

Ecuador lost to Ivory Coast 1-0 on Sunday in Philadelphia. Brazil drew 1–1 with Morocco on Saturday, and Paraguay was routed 4–1 by tournament co-host the United States.

Comments from coaches after the underwhelming results struck a similar tone.

Ecuador coach Sebastián Beccacece called it a “very painful situation.” Paraguay coach Gustavo Alfaro referred to his team's loss as a “very painful lesson.”

Coach Carlo Ancelotti said five-time World Cup champion Brazil cannot lose heart: “You don’t win a World Cup based on your first match.”

Uruguay plays its first game Monday against Saudi Arabia, defending champion Argentina takes on Algeria on Tuesday and Colombia is against Uzbekistan on Wednesday.

South America has a proud soccer tradition, and is the only continent other than Europe to produce World Cup champions.

The slow start to the tournament of some South American nations contrasts to a solid opening performance by North American teams on home soil.

“The U.S. won this match very clearly and fairly,” Alfaro said after Paraguay's opening loss. “They dominated tactically, technically and physically as well. They have answers to everything you throw at them.”

Adding to the victory by the U.S., Mexico kicked off the World Cup with a 2-0 win over South Africa, and Canada earned its first World Cup point after a 1-1 draw with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ecuador, making its fifth World Cup appearance and aiming to reach the knockout round for the second time, was playing a virtual home game at Philadelphia Stadium, where most of the capacity crowd of 68,274 wore the team's yellow jerseys.

But La Tri saw its 19-game unbeaten streak end with its first loss since a 1-0 defeat to Brazil in September 2024.

“I'm very sorry we did not give our fans the joy they came to seek,” Beccacece said. “It was an unfair defeat, played out in a fantastic stadium atmosphere. We have to process it, put what happened behind us, focus on what lies ahead, and — I believe— keep the faith.”

Ecuador captain Enner Valencia said the team remains hopeful despite the loss.

“We’re keeping our heads held high knowing that this is just the beginning,” he said, “and there’s still a tournament ahead of us.”

After the game, Ecuador goalkeeper Hernan Galindez spoke about the unpredictability of the World Cup opening games and how they shouldn't necessarily be a marker of the tournament's finishing results.

“In the last World Cup, we won the first game and then were left out,” he said. “Argentina, in the last World Cup, lost the first game and won the World Cup, so nothing guarantees you anything.”

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

Rong Chhun, a top adviser to the Nation Power Party, was found guilty last year of inciting social unrest after he met villagers displaced by government construction projects. His conviction was seen as one of many legal moves taken by the government of Prime Minister Hun Manet to stifle criticism.

The 56-year-old was sentenced to four years in prison and barred from running for office and from voting. At his trial he had argued his innocence, saying all he had done was post photos of himself with the villagers and comments on Facebook.

He emerged from the morning hearing to a crowd of some 300 supporters chanting “Drop the charges, release Rong Chhun!" and holding signs with slogans calling for his freedom.

He told them that with tensions between Cambodia and neighboring Thailand, a struggling economy and other issues facing the country, he wants to promote “national reconciliation and national unity” for Cambodia's 17 million people.

"I hope the court will grant me freedom and justice so that I can continue to practice politics in the future,” he said.

Roads leading to the court were blocked by several dozen police officers at barricades, and Rong Chhun walked to the hearing accompanied by his supports, including local and international human rights advocates.

“We are not worried about going to prison,” he said. “We are willing to sacrifice everything and we are determined to use the resources our parents gave us to invest so that Cambodia can achieve true freedom and democracy.”

Incitement allegations are frequently used by authorities in Cambodia against opponents.

Rong Chhun was already sentenced to two years on incitement charges in 2021, based on accusations he spread false information about Cambodia’s border with Vietnam after meeting with farmers in the area. He was released later the same year by an appeals court.

Cambodia’s government insists it promotes the rule of law under an electoral democracy, but political parties seen as mounting strong challenges to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party have been dissolved by the courts or had their leaders jailed or harassed.

Under almost four decades of autocratic former Prime Minister Hun Sen, Cambodia was widely criticized for human rights abuses that included suppression of freedom of speech and association. He was succeeded in August 2023 by his American-educated son, Hun Manet, but there have been few signs of political liberalization.

On Monday, Tim Ratha drove several hours from Siem Reap province in the north to the capital, saying she wanted to show her support for Rong Chhun.

“He has devoted everything to us, he had no wife, no children,” the 55-year-old vegetable vendor told The Associated Press.

The Supreme Court's verdict is due June 19.

_____

Rising reported from Bangkok

Alexander Isak and Viktor Gyökeres each had a goal and an assist, and Mattias Svanberg also scored for Sweden, which entered ranked 39th in the world and missed the 2022 World Cup after reaching the quarterfinals eight years ago in Russia.

Omar Rekik scored for 45th-ranked Tunisia, which is playing in its seventh World Cup but has never advanced beyond the group stage.

The higher-ranked teams in the group, the Netherlands and Japan, played to a 2-2 draw earlier Sunday at Arlington, Texas.

Ayari bookended the scoring for the Swedes at Estadio BBVA with long-range goals in the seventh minute and in second-half stoppage time. He was muted in his celebration of the first goal, raising his hands out of respect for the country where his father was born.

Isak scored his 18th international goal in the 30th minute when Gyökeres found the Liverpool striker — who was sidelined much of last season with a broken leg — on a counterattack. Isak cut inside and fired a low shot past the hands of Tunisian goalkeeper Mouhib Chamakh, who struggled all night.

Isak said he and Gyökeres and “have quite different qualities which is very beneficial for the team,” adding: “We can bring different types of attacks.”

After Rekik stalled Sweden's momentum with his goal in the 43rd minute, Isak and Gyökeres put Sweden back in control. Isak stole the ball and found Gyökeres for a one-on-one against Chamakh that the Arsenal striker won easily for his 16th goal in his last 15 appearances for Sweden and 21st overall.

Sweden coach Graham Potter said Isak and Gyökeres have strong chemistry.

“Behind them, they needed a team that functioned well. I’m pleased for the players tonight that we took a step forward in that,” Potter said.

Svanberg scored in the 84th minute, a goal that was awarded after a lengthy video review.

Sweden will play the Netherlands at Houston on Saturday, while Tunisia will remain in Monterrey and face Japan the same day.

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Ethan Wilcox is a student in the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.

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

The announcement on social media came just a couple of hours before the president was slated to celebrate his 80th birthday and the nation’s 250th anniversary with an unusual White House event: a UFC show featuring seven fights within an eight-sided, wire-mesh cage on the White House South Lawn.

UFC Freedom 250 is winding down after the headlining fight saw Justin Gaethje batter Spanish-Georgian lightweight champion Ilia Topuria for the UFC lightweight title. In the night’s other championship fight, Ciryl Gane beat Alex Pereira to take home the interim UFC heavyweight title.

The rest of the event saw knockouts by Diego Lopes against Steve Garcia; Bo Nickal against Kyle Daukaus; Mauricio Ruffy against Michael Chandler; Josh Hokit against Derrick Lewis; and Sean O’Malley against Aiemann Zahabi.

Here's the latest:

Trump congratulates American Justin Gaethje after win

Trump congratulated American Justin Gaethje after his upset win to cap the UFC Freedom 250.

Gaethje stopped Spanish-Georgian lightweight champion Ilia Topuria after the fourth round in the event on the White House South Lawn.

Trump came into the Octagon after the fight to congratulate Gaethje, who had an American flag draped around his neck.

Gaethje provides a big American win to cap UFC Freedom 250

American Justin Gaethje stunned Spanish-Georgian lightweight champion Ilia Topuria to cap off the UFC Freedom 250.

With the fans chanting “USA! USA!” throughout the match on the White House lawn, Gaethje delivered an upset performance to win the title.

He landed a left-right combination that bloodied Topuria in the face in the third round. The doctors came out after Topuria said he couldn’t see. There was an extended break after the round but Topuria said he wanted to keep fighting even though the doctor initially seemed to signal that the fight should end.

Topuria’s corner then called for the fight to be stopped after the fourth round.

Cabinet Room, Roosevelt Room get cameos for the title fight

The broadcast of fight night has taken viewers on a bit of a tour of the White House, with fighters warming up in different storied rooms.

For the final bout, Ilia Topuria prepared in the Roosevelt Room, while Justin Gaethje warmed up in the Cabinet Room.

Each of them passed through the Oval Office before winding their way to the Octagon — with Gaethje appearing to briefly read the copy of the Declaration of Independence that Trump has added.

Gane beats Pereira to win the interim UFC heavyweight title

Ciryl Gane of France finished off Alex Pereira of Brazil in the second round to win the interim UFC heavyweight title.

Gane sent Pereira stumbling with a right jab followed by a hammer fist. The referee then stopped the fight 1:27 into the second round after a left to the chin.

Mixed results for Americans

It’s been a mixed result so far for the American fighters at the UFC Freedom 250.

After the U.S. fighters lost their first two bouts against international opponents at the event at the White House, Sean O’Malley delivered an impressive knockout of Canadian Aiemann Zahabi in their bantamweight fight.

Brazilian fighters went 2-0 against Americans with Diego Lopes knocking out Steve Garcia in a featherweight bout and Mauricio Ruffy knocking out Michael Chandler in a lightweight bout.

Hokit invokes conspiracy theory about Michelle Obama

Josh Hokit, after knocking out Derrick Lewis, thanked Trump, and “my lord and savior Jesus Christ” before veering into an unfounded right-wing conspiracy theory about a former first lady: “Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?”

Hokit also headed over to Trump and placed a chain around the president’s neck.

Sean O’Malley knocks out Aiemann Zahabi before saluting troops

Sean O’Malley knocked out Aiemann Zahabi in the second round of a bantamweight fight

O’Malley stunned Zahabi with a left and finished him off with a right 4:02 into the second round.

O’Malley then went over and shook hands with Trump and saluted the troops in the crowd.

Josh Hokit knocks out Derrick Lewis

Josh Hokit knocked out Derrick Lewis in the second round of a heavyweight fight.

Hokit was in control from the start and finished off Lewis with a combination round that sent him to the mat. The fight was called off by TKO 4:09 into the second round.

Hokit presented Trump with a necklace and shook his hand after the fight.

Hokit spent time on the practice squad of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers after competing in football and wrestling in college at Fresno State.

Comedian who insulted Puerto Rico during Trump’s campaign is a VIP

Tony Hinchcliffe was one of the VIPs at the event, smiling and waving for the broadcast.

Near the end of Trump’s 2024 run for a second term, Hinchcliffe caused an uproar at a Madison Square Garden rally when he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.”

Trump’s campaign took the rare step of distancing itself from the comedian at the time, saying the joke didn’t reflect Trump’s views.

Ruffy proposes after beating Chandler

Brazilian Mauricio Ruffy got a knockout and followed it with a wedding proposal.

In the interview after his knockout of Michael Chandler, Ruffy proposed to his girlfriend, Nadine.

She gave a thumbs up.

Ruffy TKOs Chandler in first round

Brazilian Mauricio Ruffy knocked out American Michael Chandler in the first round of a middleweight fight.

Ruffy stunned Chandler with a kick and then finished him off by TKO 4:29 into the fight.

President Donald Trump pumped his first in approval after the knockout from his ringside seat.

Park Police says Strickland wasn’t arrested, advised not to return

U.S. Park Police said in a statement that UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland’s presence at the Ellipse drew enough attention from attendees that it resulted in disorder. He wasn’t cited or arrested, they said. Instead, he was taken to his hotel and told not to come back to the venue.

Earlier in the day, Strickland was escorted barefoot out of the White House Ellipse area, where thousands of ticketed fans congregated to watch the fights.

The law enforcement agency said Strickland’s removal from the site was due to concerns for his safety and the UFC fans. U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Park Police and other agencies were involved in escorting him out.

Sen. Graham, in the crowd at UFC, is skeptical about the Iran agreement

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is a close ally of Trump and an Iran hawk. He expressed skepticism about the emerging deal, saying that Congress would need to review and vote on it, and said he expects Vice President JD Vance — “the architect of the deal” — to present it.

“I am somewhat concerned that Iran’s view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming,” Graham said on social media.

Nickal knocks out Daukaus and then chats with Trump

Bo Nickal knocked out Kyle Daukaus in the first round in a middleweight fight.

Nickal knocked Daukaus down with a right hook, and the referee quickly stopped the second fight of the event 4:34 into the opening round.

Nickal went right over to Trump after the win and talked briefly with the president. Nickal, a three-time NCAA Division I wrestling champion at Penn State, has forged a friendly relationship with Trump after they met in 2019 at the White House during a ceremony for collegiate national champions.

UFC fighters walk out of White House with ‘heroes’

The fighters are getting impressive walkouts before each fight.

They leave the White House, one at a time, accompanied by two people described by the broadcast as “heroes.”

Bo Nickal and Kyle Daukaus were each joined by a Las Vegas police officer and a medal of honor recipient before the second fight.

Diego Lopes and Steve Garcia each walked out with two first responders before the first fight.

Lopes knocks out Garcia

Diego Lopes knocked out Steve Garcia in the second round of the first fight of the UFC Freedom 250.

Lopes connected with a left hook that knocked Garcia down and then finished him off before the referee stopped the fight.

UFC Freedom 250 at the White House begins

The UFC Freedom 250 event started with a featherweight fight between Diego Lopes and Steve Garcia.

Garcia walked out of the White House draped in an American flag and accompanied by two police officers. Lopez walked out the Mexican song “La Chona.”

Fans were chanting “USA! USA!” just before the start of the fight.

Trump arrives at the Octagon

The president and UFC chief Dana White walked together from the Oval Office to the Blue Room balcony, then stood for the national anthem as fighter jets streaked overhead.

Before the anthem began, the two men shared a moment on the balcony. Trump smiled as White pointed to the Octagon and “The Claw” on the White House’s South Lawn.

After the anthem, the crowd cheered and chanted “USA! USA!”

Trump and White then put on somber expressions as they walked the rest of the way to the cage where the UFC fights will take place.

Trump has a seat very close to the Octagon.

Weather watch

Clouds are getting darker but there’s still no significant rain at the Ellipse, where a live band was still playing for fans when the broadcast’s 8 p.m. start time arrived.

Earlier, a message appeared on the video screens warning about possible bad weather and telling the crowd to be prepared to leave and take shelter.

Sean Strickland escorted away by police

UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland was escorted out of the Ellipse event by a group of police officers and taken into a Park Police van Sunday.

Once a vocal supporter of Trump, Strickland has recently said on social media that he was not invited to participate in the event at the White House because he is an outspoken critic of Israel.

Strickland was wearing a black anorak jacket and was barefoot. It wasn’t immediately clear why law enforcement led him away.

UFC CEO Dana White has rejected Strickland’s accusation that he was banned from UFC Freedom 250 events.

“Nobody is banned. Nothing is banned,” White told reporters earlier this month.

Not everyone was able to get tickets to the big UFC event

Richard Williams doesn’t have tickets to Sunday’s fights. But he drove with a friend from Pittsburgh to attend Saturday’s Fan Festival in Washington, D.C., because he wanted to see what all the hubbub was about.

He’s never been to an MMA event before but described the show the UFC put on for fans as “pretty awesome.”

For the fights to coincide with Trump’s 80th birthday and America’s 250th year, “all of that coming together at once is really amazing,” Williams said.

It will take months for oil and gas to flow freely

Even with a deal in place, it will take months for oil and gas supplies to be flowing freely enough for the world’s needs to be met, because shipping and insurance companies will want to be confident the agreement will last, energy experts said. And countries in the Middle East who paused production may have a long road ahead to restart those oil fields.

Vance says it’s possible Trump could be at the signing ceremony

Vice President JD Vance in an interview with Fox News said the White House was still figuring out the logistics of who will attend Friday’s signing ceremony in Switzerland.

“I certainly plan to be there, but it’s possible the president himself could be there,” Vance said.

He said the deal could have a transformative impact on the Middle East.

“This region of the world has been a basket case for my entire life, and longer than that,” Vance said, explaining the deal could “eliminate the nuclear threat of Iran” as well as build prosperity.

VIPs begin arriving at the White House ahead of fights

Along with a string of Trump administration officials and lawmakers, including FBI Director Kash Patel, acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, at least one foreign dignitary was seen entering the White House campus on Sunday.

Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki was spotted heading into the White House before the UFC event on the South Lawn.

Tkachuk brothers at the Ellipse

Hockey’s Tkachuk brothers were at the Ellipse as part of pre-fight festivities. They were interviewed on the main stage.

Matthew Tkachuk offered the following hot take: “It’s going to be the under in every single fight,” he said. “I think it’s not going to last like halfway through. They’re all going to be knockouts or finishes early.”

Attendees include eager first-timers

Jake Rowe, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, traveled to Washington, D.C., with his brother for the UFC fights.

“I’ve never been to an MMA match before,” he said. He jumped at the chance when he got tickets to Sunday’s events.

He’s hoping American Justin Gaethje emerges the victor in the lightweight title bout against Spanish-Georgian lightweight champion Ilia Topuria.

The fight card has two championship bouts

In a card that has been panned by fans online as underwhelming, Alex Pereira of Brazil will meet Ciryl Gane of France for the interim UFC heavyweight title. Spanish-Georgian lightweight champion Ilia Topuria then takes on interim champ Justin Gaethje, one of just two Americans who currently hold even a share of the UFC’s 11 championship belts.

There are five other fights on the main card that include former title-fight participants Michael Chandler and Derrick Lewis and former 135-pound champion Sean O’Malley.

UFC CEO Dana White said the show will go on rain or shine. Strong thunderstorms and heavy lightning disrupted Friday’s Lincoln Memorial promotional event, and the forecast for Sunday evening also looks threatening.

Macron says G7 leaders will discuss consequences of US-Iran deal

French President Emmanuel Macron said the deal between the United States and Iran will be discussed at the G7 summit, which begins Monday in the French resort town of Evian-les-Bains and brings together leaders of the world’s major advanced economies, including President Donald Trump.

“The aim will be to assess the implications of this agreement, support for Lebanon, the long-term reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, of course, reaching a deal on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic (missile) programs,” Macron said in a video posted on X.

Egypt, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will join discussions in Evian on Tuesday.

The G7 includes the U.S., France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Polish visitors on hand to witness their president attend the fights

Tomasz Oracz, from south Poland, traveled from his home country to watch the seven Sunday fights.

He was spotted watching one of the many mixed martial arts fighter interviews that were taking place on the mainstage Saturday. Oracz said he was equally excited about each bout on Sunday’s fight card and couldn’t pick a favorite.

“These events are very important,” he said, especially since Poland’s president, Karol Nawrocki, is expected to attend the festivities, according to Polish media. Nawrocki has a background as an amateur boxer.

Weather woes could hit UFC show

UFC posted on social media that severe weather was expected Sunday night and fans should plan accordingly.

“We anticipate inclement weather in the area, so attendees should plan accordingly,” the UFC wrote. “We will share additional information when available.”

UFC CEO Dana White said the show will go on rain or shine. Strong thunderstorms and heavy lightning disrupted Friday’s Lincoln Memorial promotional event, and the forecast for Sunday evening also looks threatening.

Watch party o

n the Ellipse

Sunday’s event includes a watch party on the Ellipse, the expansive lawn area located between the White House and Washington Monument.

In addition to the massive video screens, there are various military-themed vehicles on display, as well as concession stands and free water that fans were lining up for under the afternoon sun.

The area is heavily secured from the outside, and there’s law enforcement presence inside as well, but as of 5 p.m. there was little sign of any unruliness.

Trump confirms US-Iran deal

Trump says “the Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete” and says the Strait of Hormuz will open immediately.

“Congratulations to all!” he wrote Sunday on his social media site. “I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade.”

The president added, “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”

Trump’s post came hours before a UFC event at the White House marking his 80th birthday.

Pakistan’s prime minister says Iran, U.S. have reached peace deal; accord to cover Lebanon

Pakistan says the United States and Iran have reached an agreement to end the war and open the Strait of Hormuz, offering relief to the global economy more than three months since the war began.

Full details of the deal were not immediately available. The signing will be Friday in Switzerland. It is not clear how quickly the strait might reopen to all traffic. The U.S. previously said it would ease its blockade of Iranian ports as the strait reopens, and would agree to relax sanctions to allow Iran to sell more of its oil and strengthen its battered economy.

The White House lawn is ready for Trump’s UFC birthday bash — but the weather may not cooperate

A muggy and very hot afternoon in Washington was forecast to give way to thunderstorms shortly after the evening fights in honor of Trump’s 80th birthday are set to begin.

UFC chief Dana White has insisted for days that the show will go on rain or shine.

But he’s also conceded, “I’m sick and tired of hearing about the weather” and said his league is sticking to indoor arenas going forward.

The White House is also touchy.

After the Weather Channel warned on X of a “60% chance of thunderstorms, heavy downpours, and wind gusts up to 34 mph,” the Rapid Response 47 account — which posts for the Trump administration — dismissed the post as the work of a “friendless loser” and added an expletive for emphasis.

Trump and White’s relationship spans 25 years

The Freedom 250 card marks the pinnacle of the relationship between UFC CEO Dana White and Trump, which has yielded personal, political and financial dividends for both parties. White’s first card as UFC president took place in 2001 at an event held at the Trump Taj Mahal casino.

Trump has attended four UFC cards as sitting president, walking to the cage amid rock music and patriotic chants from fans, much like the fighters themselves. White introduced Trump at two Republican National Conventions. White also attended the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April that was cut short by a shooting.

‘Bread and circuses’

The UFC event is an apt metaphor for Trump’s pugilistic political style. He is as big a fan of cage-match-style politics as he is of cage-fighting itself.

But Trump has also long been a master of political misdirection, purposely presenting people with something other than his presidency to focus on when things aren’t going well.

With the war in Iran grinding on despite weeks of assurances from Trump that its end is nigh, gas prices staying high, renewed concerns about inflation and plummeting job approval ratings for Trump — a White House birthday party unlike anything America has ever seen is definitely a diversion.

The apparent breakthrough in negotiations comes after Iran exchanged fire with the U.S. and Israel over three days this week, threatening to push the region into a full-scale war. U.S. Central Command late Friday said in a social media post that it intercepted several Iranian attack drones that were targeting commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. (Produced by Luke Garratt)

“This is all distraction,” said Mike Fontaine, a classics professor at Cornell University, who likened it to the gladiatorial games of Imperial Rome, when combatants brutalized each other for public entertainment meant to bolster rulers’ popularity and quell potential unrest.

“This is a classic strategy,” Fontaine said. “In ancient Rome, the phrase would be, ‘bread and circuses.’”

Who’s paying for all this?

Trump says the UFC is paying for the event, and while its full costs haven’t been divulged, the National Park Service said in a court filing that $60-plus million and tens of thousands of hours of labor have gone into it, while seven government agencies have “allocated significant resources and manpower.”

UFC also announced on Friday that it was adding World Liberty Financial as an official partner for the event to create a special $250,000 athlete bonus pool for Sunday night’s winners. The cryptocurrency company is co-owned by the Trump family, founded with the president’s special diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff and run by his son, Zach. The arrangement further blurs lines between the Trump family’s financial interests and the events and construction projects the president has prioritized and used government resources to pull off.

Inside the crowd drawn to Trump’s unusual UFC fight night at the White House

One by one, the burly mixed martial arts fighters made their entrance past the solemn, hulking marble statue of America’s 16th president and jogged down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to roars from thousands of fans drawn to the unusual sporting weekend.

The news conference Friday night featured the fighters who are preparing to face off Sunday in the Octagon built outside the White House. But it was also a chance to see the UFC fans who have thronged to Washington and endured lightning, humidity and bugs for the spectacle.

Tracy Philbeck and his son Levi drove from Charlotte, North Carolina, with a group of friends to support their favorite fighter, American Justin Gaethje, in the upcoming lightweight title bout against Georgian Ilia Topuria.

“You will hear an eagle screaming when Justin Gaethje wins,” the elder Philbeck chuckled.

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Donald Trump turns 80 and celebrates with UFC cage fighting on the White House lawn

President Donald Trump turned 80 on Sunday and is set to celebrate with one of the more surreal spectacles both in sports and even in the nation’s capital: cage fighting on the White House lawn.

Against the backdrop of a 3-month-old war with Iran that’s been broadly unpopular with Americans and has rattled global oil markets and with inflation spiked to the highest level since April 2023, the White House — long known as the people’s house and a symbol of American democracy — opened its backyard Sunday night to stage a bruising UFC card on the South Lawn.

More than $60 million and tens of thousands of hours of labor have been poured into building the arena, according to a court filing from the National Park Service, which oversees the South Lawn.

UFC is staging seven fights with all male fighters under the Freedom 250 banner to celebrate Trump’s 80th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence’s signing.

But when it came down to doing what it takes to win the Cup, the Hurricanes' defense put its stamp on this series, shutting down the Vegas Golden Knights and not letting up.

The Hurricanes held Vegas to five total goals in Games 4 and 5 and used a suffocating defense in a 3-0 shutout Sunday night in Game 6 to win their first championship in 20 years.

“That’s a lot of years,” said Carolina center Jordan Staal, who received the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. “It’s amazing. This is something I’ve been going after ever since we got the first one. You want to win it again and again and again. "

Brandon Bussi, whose entrance late in Game 3 helped turn around the series, had his first career playoff shutout in stopping 22 shots. Jackson Blake had a goal and assist, and Taylor Hall scored just 3:47 into the game to set the tone. Nikolaj Ehlers added an empty-netter.

“Your mind wanders the last couple of days and wonder what it may be like out here (on ice after winning) and it’s better than I could have expected," Hall said.

The Golden Knights struggled badly to muster any kind of offense in Game 6 and went 18:37 between shots on goal in the second and third periods. Playing in their third Cup final, this is the first time they have been shut out.

This final game was what many observers expected the series to be like between the defensive-minded teams, but each side watched leads of two-plus goals disappear in the first three games.

Now, the Cup belongs to the Hurricanes, led by coach Rod Brind'Amour, who also captained Carolina to its 2006 title.

“It's just as awesome,” Brind'Amour said. “But as a player, it was a little different. I worked and dreamt of winning the Cup my whole life, so that was like a piano came off my back. This time around, I wanted it for the group."

This was the first game of the series that Vegas goalie Carter Hart didn't allow four goals in a game. He finished with 20 saves.

The Hurricanes began to assume control of the series after falling behind by the score of 4-0 in Game 3. They came back force overtime, and though the Canes lost, they outplayed the Golden Knights from there on out.

Reflecting the do-or-die situation for the Golden Knights, they made several lineup changes, with Brett Howden replacing the injured William Karlsson at second-line center. Mitch Marner could have moved there, but remained at right wing.

Original Golden Knight Reilly Smith made his Cup final debut at third-line right wing, and Braeden Bowman made his playoff debut at fourth-line right wing. Kaedan Korczak replaced Dylan Coghlan on the third defensive pairing.

“This is tough to be on this side of it,” Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “But on the other side, these chances don’t come around very often. So it stings."

This title is a testament to Carolina’s resilience as a franchise that kept coming close to winning the Eastern Conference, but couldn’t quite get through until now.

Brind’Amour made sure the Hurricanes kept getting back up after losing in the conference final twice in the past three years and three times in their current eight-year playoff run. The talent was clearly there, but there was always a stumbling block.

Not anymore.

After dispatching Montreal in five games to make the final, the Hurricanes then faced perennial power Vegas and took care of business there, too. Now, Brind’Amour will get his name on the Cup for the second time.

So will 37-year-old Staal, who also won the title in 2009 with Pittsburgh. He planted himself in front of Hart and dared the Golden Knights to knock him out of the way. Staal scored in each of the first five Cup final games, the first time that has happened.

The Hurricanes got off to a fast start with a goal just 25 seconds into Game 1, only to lose 5-4 on a late goal from Tomas Hertl. And the Golden Knights were on the verge of taking complete control as minutes ticked down in Game 2 while holding a 2-0 lead and appearing as if they would take a two-game advantage back home.

Then, it all changed. Carolina showed a fight that not only brought the Hurricanes back into the series by rallying to win 4-3 in overtime on Seth Jarvis’ one-timer, but would serve as their signature throughout the series.

That was especially true the following game when the Golden Knights took a 4-0 lead into the third period and the Canes seemed to have no answers. Brind’Amour even appeared to wave the white flag by removing goalie Frederik Andersen and replacing him with Bussi.

But the Hurricanes weren’t simply trying to get to Game 4. They sent a message, going on a remarkable rally to force overtime. Though Carolina lost, it was inflection point, with Bussi backstopping a team that was only growing stronger. Carolina then went on to win the next two games and moved within a victory of the championship.

The Hurricanes got it done against the Golden Knights team that was on a heater after John Tortorella replaced Bruce Cassidy with eight games left in the regular season. Vegas then went from third in the Pacific Division to first, knocked off Utah and Anaheim in six games apiece in the playoffs and shockingly swept Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado to win the West.

“I am very proud to be a part of this organization, very proud to lead this team, very proud to play with every single guy that steps into our locker room,” Vegas captain Mark Stone said. “This feeling sucks. I never want to have it again."

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

“Haven’t had to use him, (and) to be honest, I hope we don’t because something’s gone wrong,” Brind'Amour said.

Turns out the late-blooming goaltender came out of the bullpen after all and backstopped the Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup.

“I thought they were really good tonight, Vegas," Hurricanes wing Jackson Blake said. “If it wasn't for Bus, there's no way we're winning that game.”

After Frederik Andersen was in net for every minute of the first three rounds and the start of the final, Bussi came in during Game 3 and finished out the series. He stopped 81 of the 87 shots he faced against Vegas as Andersen’s status was shrouded in mystery; the veteran from Denmark did not dress from Game 4 on because of a knee injury that was only revealed after the final was over.

“Freddie battled," Brind'Amour said. “He got a little nicked up, wasn’t 100%. I felt for him, but he got us here and then Bus took over. This is a team.”

Bussi and Andersen embraced after Game 6 ended Sunday night. Andersen, at 36 the second-oldest player on the team, was the first player captain and playoff MVP Jordan Staal handed the Cup to after getting it from Commissioner Gary Bettman.

“It’s disbelief, really," Andersen said. "I did not expect that. It really beat every emotion I could think of or what I’ve been feeling."

Bussi, a 27-year-old from Long Island, was not an unknown quantity for the Hurricanes because he played in nearly half their games this season, winning 31 of his 39 starts to help Carolina earn the top seed in the Eastern Conference. He got a three-year extension at a bargain-basement $5.7 million price in February.

Before the past several months, he was on track for the career of a journeyman.

Going undrafted, he spend several years in the Boston Bruins' farm system with the Maine Mariners of the ECHL and Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League. Liking what they saw, the astute back-to-back champion Florida Panthers signed him last summer to be their third goalie behind Sergei Bobrovsky and Daniil Tarasov.

Trying to get him to the AHL in Charlotte, the Panthers lost Bussi when Carolina claimed him off waivers. He and fiancée Mary Raclawski were 10 hours into a drive from from South Florida to North Carolina when his agent called to tell him the Hurricanes had claimed him.

“The next thing you know, the following day I’m in Raleigh and I’m on the opening night roster,” Bussi said. "It’s crazy.”

Injuries to Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov thrust him into an important role for a top contender.

Bussi was even more needed in the final. He entered at the second intermission in Game 3 with the Hurricanes down 4-0. He stopped all 18 shots to allow a stirring comeback, and the only goal he allowed was the Golden Knights' winner in double overtime when the puck took a bad bounce off the end boards behind him and Bussi inadvertently kicked it in.

In the Game 6 clincher, Bussi denied playoff-leading goal-scorer Brett Howden, who got in all alone in the first period. He stopped Tomas Hertl on a 2-on-1 rush in the second, much to the joy of family members watching from the stands. Then Bussi robbed Hertl and Mark Stone on quality scoring chances in the final few minutes of regulation.

“Their goalie gives them a really good opportunity in the second part of the series to give them the opportunity to win the Stanley Cup," Golden Knights coach John Tortorella said.

Hurricanes fans in Las Vegas chanted “Buss-i! Buss-i!” on the way to his third career shutout. A journeyman no more, Bussi is now a Stanley Cup champion. So is Andersen.

“This is something everyone dreams of," Andersen said. "You don’t really know what it feels like until you try it, and now we’re here.”

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Whyno contributed from New York.

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

His tying goal will be remembered for a long time in his homeland, especially if the country with some soccer momentum reaches the round of 16 again.

Kamada scored when a header by teammate Koki Ogawa deflected off his head into the Dutch goal in the 88th minute, sending the Samurai Blue fans into a frenzy and giving Japan a 2-2 draw with the higher-ranked Netherlands on Sunday.

While the Dutch extended their unbeaten streak to 17 games in group play, the orange-clad Oranje supporters were stunned by the late goal that left them with 21 wins, two losses and 11 draws in group play at the World Cup.

“Our players managed to be tenacious but at the same time be patient and just keep calm and finding and seizing an opportunity,” Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu said through an interpreter. His team reached the round of 16 for the fourth time in 2022 in Qatar.

Virgil Van Dijk and Crysencio Summerville scored off each post for the Netherlands early in the second half, while Keito Nakamura had a goal between those as part of a three-goal flurry in just 14 minutes.

A mostly uneventful first half changed quickly after the break for a crowd evenly split at AT&T Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys with the retractable roof that offered relief from the muggy Texas heat, and the giant video board that fans had a hard time keeping their eyes off.

Summerville gave the eighth-ranked Dutch the lead in the 64th minute, and Japan was running out of hope until a Ogawa's perfectly timed header off a corner kick. The ball glanced off Kamada's head and past goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen, who got his hands on it with a sprawling dive but couldn't keep it from going in.

Van Dijk sent a header toward the far post on the right in the 50th minute, bending forward from inside the penalty area as he stared at the ball before it caromed in for the Dutch captain’s 13th international goal.

Nakamura answered seven minutes later for 18th-ranked Japan, turning and rifling a shot past Verbruggen from the left side of the arc after taking a pass from Takefusa Kubo.

Another seven minutes later, Summerville took a pass from Ryan Gravenberch and sent a left-footed shot to the far left post past Zion Suzuki, where it caromed in again.

“It’s disappointing now because obviously conceding the lead is never good,” said Van Dijk, the second-oldest Dutch goal scorer in a World Cup at 34 years, 341 days, behind Giovanni van Bronckhorst at 35 and 151 against Uruguay in 2010. “It’s extra disappointing that we conceded from a set piece so late on.”

The Dutch’s most recent loss before the elimination round came the last time the World Cup was in the United States in 1994, when a group play defeat was followed by a quarterfinal loss to Brazil at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

The pressure is always on the Netherlands to reach the elimination round, in part because it's the only country to reach the final three times without winning the World Cup.

A draw to open Group F, which includes Sweden and Tunisia, won't ease that pressure on coach Ronald Koeman, who faced several pointed questions about strategy and shot back with cryptic replies.

The Dutch beat Japan in their only other World Cup meeting in 2010.

“I’m disappointed that we didn’t win, but that’s because we were ahead twice,” Koeman said through an interpreter. “Many people underestimated Japan, but for the 100,000th time, if you underestimate them, that’s your problem. You think Japan’s strength was overexaggerated before the match? Let’s wait until the end of the tournament to see who’s right.”

The Netherlands plays Sweden on Saturday in Houston, while Japan goes to Monterrey, Mexico, to face Tunisia on Saturday.

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This story has been corrected. A previous version reported incorrectly that Kamada scored on a header off Ogawa's corner kick.

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

Just an angler, a fishing pole and maybe thousands of dollars worth of sonar equipment offering an exact image of what that walleye or bass is doing in the watery depths below.

It's called forward-facing sonar, and the hot-selling products are not only helping anglers increase their catch, they are raising questions about why people go fishing in the first place and whether fish populations can survive the new technology.

“You’ve got people that are concerned about what’s going to happen to the sport of fishing,” said Gary Korsgaden, who has written about the sport for decades.

How fishing with sonar works

Fish-finding sonar is typically mounted on the bow or back of a boat, sending out sound frequencies that are converted into a picture on a screen based on the time it takes the pings to hit the bottom and return. Earlier products would show where fish were located, but advancements now enable anglers to see images of fish in real time.

“With forward-facing sonar, you can attach it to a trolling motor and you can look around the water under you and you could find exactly, pinpoint where that fish exactly is at any given time,” said Dave Dunn, a sales executive at Garmin, a company that manufactures the equipment.

Dunn notes the equipment, which costs about $2,500 for a full setup, enables anglers to even see their lures and cast directly to fish. It does have a learning curve.

For Minnesota angler Terry Rehm, the new technology is invaluable. Rehm said he doesn’t get a lot of lake time due to his work and kids’ schedules and forward-facing sonar ensures he makes good use of his time plying the waters.

“It’s just nice to be able to hone in on them a little quicker and find them quicker and catch more fish when I’m out here,” he said.

Growing use of the technology

Tens of millions of people fish recreationally each year, making it one of the nation's top activities.

But people fish for different reasons and those who care most about the tranquility and beauty of being on a lake can find it puzzling that other anglers eagerly hunch over their screens, watching as fish swim by below.

Still, the use of the technology is growing dramatically, with surveys in Minnesota finding about 30% of anglers now use forward-facing sonar. Surveys of anglers on several Minnesota lakes found the user rate as high as 63% on one lake last fall, Walleye Alliance spokesperson Nate Blasing said.

Much of the debate around forward-facing sonar plays out on social media, but also podcasts, online fishing forums, trade shows and tournaments.

“It's much like politics now. It tends to get personal. You can agree to disagree,” Blasing said.

Criticisms and reactions go back and forth on social media, said Korsgaden, the fishing writer. He said tournament anglers have banned him from their Facebook pages for even raising the topic.

“I think the unfortunate reality is fishing has gotten to be more about, shall we say, success or numbers or quantity, that type of thing, instead of the actual enjoyment of the engagement and making decisions on your own,” Korsgaden said.

Sonar may make little difference

Even as anglers say the equipment helps ensure they will actually catch fish, some studies indicate it hasn't led to overfishing.

Wisconsin researchers conducted a controlled experiment last year with two teams of anglers fishing for smallmouth bass, one with forward-facing sonar, the other without. Halfway through the summer, the teams switched.

The team without the technology had higher catch rates, though the team using it caught slightly longer fish, said Greg Sass, fisheries research team leader with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' Office of Applied Science. The sonar users searched more for fish before even fishing, while the other team spent more time actively fishing.

Sass said he is reluctant to apply the study to all fish species and water bodies, but the findings “would be counterintuitive to what I'm hearing in the bait shops or from other people that are on both sides of the fence with technology,” he said. More studies are ahead, including for the muskie, a prized predator fish.

Eric Sanft, a fisheries specialist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said an analysis of lakes across the state didn't find “negative impacts” from the use of forward-facing sonar in fishing.

Surveys by wildlife officers in Minnesota found people using forward-facing sonar ended up catching similar numbers and variety of fish as anglers who cast their lines the old-fashioned way.

“To some degree, it can get scapegoated a little bit, and people’s perceptions of what other people are doing is often different than what the reality is,” said Marc Bacigalupi, a regional fisheries supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

The department has proposed reducing the daily walleye limit from six fish to four, partially because of advancements in fish-finding technology, among other factors such as a boom in ice fishing, attention on hot spots from social media and lower limits in surrounding states.

Fishing is about ‘making memories’

For Daren Schneider, a lifelong angler from Bismarck, North Dakota, forward-facing sonar has changed everything he thought he knew about fishing.

When seeking walleye, for example, he thought you needed to catch them on or near the lake bottom, but after watching on sonar, he found “they do all kinds of things that you never thought a walleye would do.”

The technology has enhanced his understanding of fish and his enjoyment of fishing, Schneider said.

“Fishing isn’t necessarily about catching fish and getting your limit or whatever,” he said. “It’s about being out there and making memories, and if it’s making memories with forward-facing sonar, why is that such a bad thing?”

A rally is planned for outside the stadium near Los Angeles, home to the largest Iranian community outside Iran. Many of Southern California’s Iranian Americans arrived after the Islamic Revolution, and a hub of eateries, shops and markets about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the stadium is known as “Tehrangeles.”

Rally participants plan to wear lion-and-sun T-shirts and wave the country's flag from before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in protest of Tehran’s deadly January crackdown on dissent.

Ali Javahery, a 59-year-old consultant who was born in Iran and lives in California's Orange County, said he will be outside protesting Iran's opening match against New Zealand, not inside watching it. He said soccer and politics are intertwined, and though he loves the sport, he says the national team's players are under pressure to adhere to the Iranian government's positions.

“This is not ‘Team Melli,’” as the national team is known in Persian, Javahery said. “This is Team Islamic Republic.”

Iran's participation in the tournament has been fraught with conflict because of the country's war with U.S. and Israeli forces. The team moved its training base to Mexico from Tucson, Arizona, and some of the country's key soccer officials had not been granted visas to enter the United States. Many in the diaspora have mixed feelings over how to show their support of the Iranian people, but not the government, through their love of soccer.

“We play for every Iranian, be it in the diaspora or in Iran. People have different opinions, but we are here to unite people and we will try to bring joy to all Iranians wherever they live,” team captain Mehdi Taremi said at a press conference Sunday. “We are here to bring joy to Iranian people. We do not get involved in politics. We are here to play football.”

Reza Garajedaghi, 57, said he will watch the game with his 96-year-old father in San Diego. He said he didn’t buy tickets for the game, partly because of the sky-high pricing. But he said he supports the team, politics aside, while respecting the wide range of views shared by Iranians in the diaspora.

“I’m a football die-hard, and the boys, they’re representing all Persians, Iranians around the world,” said Garajedaghi, who left Iran when he was 10 years old. “To me, it has nothing to do with whatever government they have in Iran.”

Watch parties are planned to cheer on the team in Southern California, and when Iran was assigned last year to play in LA, many bought tickets. But in recent months some said they have sold off their tickets in anger, following January's brutal repression.

Some Iranian American soccer fans have also said the team is currently tied up in politics. In the past, Iranian athletes have faced serious consequences for speaking out. In 2022, a prominent former member of the national team was arrested for allegedly protesting against the country’s leadership, and star striker Sardar Azmoun wasn’t selected for the World Cup squad this year, reportedly because of a social media post that angered authorities.

Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei called Azmoun an “excellent player” and said he wished he were with the team.

“I am just happy that they are coming to watch us and I hope that they will pray for us and I hope that they will encourage us,” Ghalenoei said Sunday when asked about the sizable diaspora. He added that he hoped the team would pay back that loyalty by playing a good game.

Some Iranian Americans are also upset about FIFA's rule barring political flags from being flown. They want to fly the pre-revolution lion-and-sun flag, which is not the official flag of Iran. The Iranian American Institute for Voices for Liberty said it filed a lawsuit last week in California to challenge FIFA’s flag rule.

During Friday's opening ceremony in Los Angeles, members of the mostly American crowd booed when Iran's flag was brought onto the field.

Late Sunday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. had reached a deal with Iran to end the war and open the Strait of Hormuz. The war launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28 has rattled the region and virtually shut down oil and natural gas shipments from the Persian Gulf. Details of the deal, expected to be signed Friday, weren't available.

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AP Sports Writer Greg Beacham contributed to this report.

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

Details of the deal were not immediately released and Iran signaled implementation would not start until the signing, which key mediator Pakistan said would occur Friday in Switzerland. It could provide a way to end a war that killed thousands across the Middle East, including the top leaders of Iran's theocracy, and sparked a historic energy crisis.

But the memorandum of understanding over the war already faced intense challenges. Israel's continued hostilities with the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel bombed Beirut's southern suburbs Sunday, nearly derailed the negotiations.

Meanwhile, the deal gives just 60 days to resolve what to do about Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium and its atomic program. That took years to resolve in Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from that accord in his first term, setting the stage for the tensions that culminated in the war.

“Congratulations to all!” Trump wrote on social media as he celebrated his 80th birthday Sunday with a UFC cage match fight at the White House.

He added, “I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade,” which was imposed in retaliation for Iran’s grip on the crucial waterway.

He soon hedged, however, saying the strait wouldn’t open until Friday’s signing.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, confirmed the agreement on state television but said Iran would not start implementing it until it was signed Friday. He said the deal followed talks with Qatar, another mediator.

Israel, which has insisted it be allowed a freehand to pursue Hezbollah as it occupies southern Lebanon and has extended its military operations into areas its forces haven't been in a quarter century, did not immediately comment. Israel joined the U.S. in launching the war on Feb. 28.

Benchmark Brent crude oil fell more than $4 a barrel on the news as Asian stock markets rallied.

Pakistan, a key mediator, announces deal

Pakistan first announced the deal, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif saying “both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” It remains unclear whether Israel, which relies on the U.S. but has launched in wars against its enemies since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, agreed to that term.

He added that mediators this week will facilitate meetings to “lay the foundation for the technical talks.”

Broader negotiations on outstanding issues like Iran’s nuclear program would continue over the next 60 days, two senior Pakistani officials said earlier Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. If the sides fail to reach a resolution within that time, the timeline could be extended.

Iranian state television cited the secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council saying the war on all fronts “will end immediately and permanently beginning tonight” — but that the U.S. blockade “will be terminated immediately and in full.”

Qatari mediators later left Tehran following 17 hours of negotiations, said an official briefed on the developments who spoke on condition of anonymity due to sensitivity of the talks. Separate preparatory meetings with each side will take place in Doha this week, the official said.

It was not clear who from Iran would sign the deal on Friday. U.S. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News the White House was still figuring out who would attend: “I certainly plan to be there, but it’s possible the president himself could be there.”

But concern among Republicans in the U.S. already could be seen. They included U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who described Vance as “the architect of the deal.”

“I am somewhat concerned that Iran’s view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming,” Graham wrote online.

U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Congress would exercise oversight on any accord with Iran.

“We have seen time and again: War cannot change the Iranian regime," he said.

Interim deal faces intense scrutiny

The first strike of the war killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Khamenei’s son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is now supreme leader. He has not been seen in the public since the war began, but his approval was needed for Iran to sign off on the deal.

There was apparent friction inside Iran in the hours before the announcement, as the government warned that division at home over the deal weakened its negotiating position.

The deal likely returns the region to a status that existed before the war, but with Iran having proven its ability to disrupt shipping in the strait. The waterway is crucial to significant shipments of oil, natural gas and related products like fertilizer, and its effective closure rocked the global economy.

Even with a deal, it will take months for oil and gas supplies to flow freely enough for the world’s needs to be met because shipping and insurance companies want to be confident the agreement will last, energy experts said.

Tehran also still has a ballistic missile arsenal and enough highly enriched uranium to build several nuclear weapons, should it choose to pursue them.

Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful and has not publicly committed to giving up the enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried under three nuclear sites that were badly damaged by U.S. strikes last year.

The U.S. has sought the removal of the enriched uranium from Iran as part of a deal. Russia has offered to take it. But Iran insists it wants to keep the uranium.

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Frankel reported from Jerusalem, Sewell from Beirut and Weissert from Washington. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, Cathy Bussewitz in New York and Cara Anna in Lowville, New York, contributed to this report.

Before the final against Vegas started, Brind'Amour was clear about one thing.

“We’re not here today without Jordan Staal,” he said. “I can promise you that. We’re very lucky. And as a coach, you’re super fortunate to have a guy like that be your leader.”

The 37-year-old Staal led the Hurricanes to the second championship in franchise history by being the two-way shutdown center and faceoff ace he has been his entire NHL career. By elevating his game and leading them in goals with six in the final against the Golden Knights, Staal won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.

He is the oldest player to win the honor.

“He’s always really good, but yeah, he’s stepped it up at such a pivotal time,” teammate Seth Jarvis said. “It’s incredible to watch, and it’s so much fun playing with him and being around him.”

Staal is the longest-tenured player in the organization. He was also the only player on the roster with a Cup ring, from winning with the Penguins in 2009.

The 17 years in between is the longest gap between championships, breaking the record of 16 held by Chris Chelios.

“That’s a lot of years," Staal said. “It’s amazing. This is something I’ve been going after ever since we got the first one. You want to win it again and again and again. What a feeling.”

Staal joined the Hurricanes in 2012 in a trade from Pittsburgh on his wedding day. His first half-dozen years with them passed without a postseason appearance.

“I don’t want to say that the losing that he had to do for four, five years when he got here might have fueled him even more, but I think it did,” fellow veteran Jordan Martinook said. “The fact that he’s seen some pretty dark days here and then to be on the other side of it ... he stuck through it the whole time.”

The past seven seasons, Staal and the Hurricanes made the playoffs but failed to reach the final. He became captain in the middle of that stretch in 2020, taking on a role once filled by Brind'Amour from 2005-10 and older brother Eric from 2010-16.

Staal took on the weight of those premature exits.

“Each scar, each moment just drives a hunger even deeper into you,” Staal said. “Being a part of this core and all the scars that we’ve gone through just brings that care factor for each other that we want it for each other that much more.”

Staal has never gotten the Selke Trophy as the league's best defensive forward, but he has been a finalist and this run shows why. He won more than 56% of his faceoffs and is so valuable on draws that he begins power plays just to get the Hurricanes the puck.

“People got to see what I’ve know for forever — what kind of player he is, what kind of leader he is,” Brind'Amour said. "And here we go, he’s finally rewarded.”

Told of Brind'Amour's pre-series comment that the team would not have gotten this far without him, Staal praised his coach and downplayed changing anything in his game. The two shared a long hug on the ice in the moments after the Game 6 win.

“I’m just being me,” Staal said. “I’m not really anyone different. But just my day-to-day presence is showing up and working. That’s all I’ve done since I got here in Carolina, and being consistent with that must have been enough.”

The offensive outburst against Vegas put Staal over the top for the Conn Smythe after it looked like Logan Stankoven and Taylor Hall were Carolina's front-runners. He never scored 30 goals in a season, but his six in the final put him in the record books with the likes of Hall of Famers Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy.

“I’m not really surprised,” Brind'Amour said. “You take the goals away, it’d be the same impact. It’s just added that extra element.”

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AP Sports Writer Aaron Beard in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

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

“It’s going to be the under in every single fight,” he told the crowd on the Ellipse on Sunday night. “I think it’s not going to last like halfway through. They’re all going to be knockouts or finishes early.”

Tkachuk and his brother Brady — no strangers to occasional pugilism on the ice — were part of pre-fight festivities for UFC Freedom 250, the mixed martial arts event on the South Lawn of the White House on President Donald Trump's 80th birthday. While the crowd around the Octagon was full of VIPs, the Ellipse — an expansive lawn between the White House and Washington Monument — hosted a viewing party for the more common fan.

The Tkachuks appeared on stage and answered a few questions about their interest in UFC. Logan Paul was also among those who showed up to entertain the crowd, and at one point UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland arrived, causing a rush of fans in his direction. Strickland was escorted out by a group of police officers.

U.S. Park Police said Strickland’s presence resulted in disorder. He wasn’t cited or arrested, but was taken to his hotel and told not to come back to the venue.

For a while, the weather was a significant concern, and there were dark clouds hanging over the area around the time the fighting started. But although there were warnings posted on video screens about possible bad weather, the area avoided any storms.

The crowd seemed awed by the flyover at the beginning of the event, quickly starting a “USA!” chant. And there were other ways fans at the Ellipse were able to feel part of the proceedings, such as when competitors were brought back to address them from the stage after winning their fights.

“Maybe the greatest experience of my life,” Bo Nickal said after knocking out Kyle Daukaus in the first round in a middleweight clash. “Just so much fun. I'm so grateful for the opportunity.”

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AP MMA: https://apnews.com/hub/mixed-martial-arts

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

“We came here with ambitions and high hopes,” coach Emerse Faé said through an interpreter. “Everything is going well.”

The teams combined to hit the crossbar three times before Diallo — the Manchester United winger who entered as a substitute in the 56th minute — broke through with a left-footed shot from just inside the penalty area that beat diving goalkeeper Hernán Galíndez. Wilfried Singo set up the goal with a strong run down the right side.

“This was a fantastic goal,” Faé said. “(Singo) delivered a wonderful assist to Diallo, and he finished well. Very happy to see just what we worked on.”

Ecuador saw its 19-game unbeaten streak end with its first loss since a 1-0 decision against Brazil on Sept. 6, 2024.

“It hurts,” Ecuador coach Sebastián Beccacece said through an interpreter. “This is a very painful situation. It needs to make you stronger for the future.”

Elye Wahi hit the crossbar in the 52nd minute for Ivory Coast after Ecuador’s John Yeboah and Nilson Angulo did the same in the opening half.

Ecuador, making its fifth World Cup appearance and looking to reach the knockout round for the second time, was playing a virtual home game at Lincoln Financial Field, with most of the capacity crowd of 68,274 wearing the yellow jerseys of La Tri.

“I am very sorry we did not give our fans the joy they came to seek,” Beccacece said.

Ecuador looked strong before Diallo’s goal. Its best chance after halftime came in the 68th minute on Gonzalo Plata’s hard shot from about 25 yards out that was parried away by goalkeeper Yahia Fofana.

“We’re leaving with a loss, but we’re keeping our heads held high knowing that this is just the beginning and there’s still a tournament ahead of us,” Ecuador captain Enner Valencia said.

Ivory Coast was bolstered by the forward play of Yan Diomande. The Leipzig attacker created several scoring chances, particularly down the right side. That included Wahi’s near goal on a flick following Diomande’s hard cross.

“He is very talented,” Faé said. “Incredible player.”

Ivory Coast, which did not concede a goal while going 8-0-2 in 10 qualifying matches, will next face four-time World Cup champion Germany, which defeated Curacao 7-1 earlier Sunday in Group E. Ecuador will meet Curacao. Both matches will be played June 20.

Ivory Coast captain Franck Kessié set the tone for the physical play of Les Éléphant with a hard foul in the fourth minute. Kessié went on to pick up one of three yellow cards for his side, all for reckless challenges, in the opening 45 minutes. Jackson Porozo of Ecuador was cautioned in the 73rd minute.

“We know that high-level football requires much intensity,” Faé said.

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

The election system used throughout the political battleground state relies on a QR code printed on ballots to tally the votes. Legislators passed a law two years ago barring the use of that barcode for the official vote count beyond July 1 of this year, but no replacement method of tabulating votes was ever implemented.

One of the instructions Republican Gov. Brian Kemp laid out for lawmakers when he called the special session is to “address issues created” by that law. Meanwhile, the secretary of state's office and the State Election Board have further muddied the waters by issuing conflicting guidance for county election officials about how votes should be cast and counted.

If the issues are not resolved soon, there is likely to be confusion and possibly litigation over the state's elections after July 1. A special election to fill a U.S. House seat is scheduled for that month.

How did we get here?

Georgia's current election system was first used statewide during the 2020 primary. After the general election that year, when Republican President Donald Trump narrowly lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump and his supporters claimed without evidence that the machines had deleted or switched votes.

Trump's backers continued to complain about the touchscreen voting machines, with some loyalists espousing wild conspiracy theories. Election integrity advocates also criticized the machines, saying they are vulnerable to hacking and that voters cannot be sure their selections are accurately reflected because people can't read QR codes.

Republican lawmakers in 2024 tried to address those concerns by passing a law banning barcodes for the “official tabulation count” after July 1, 2026. But in the two years since, no other counting method has been adopted. Now, the deadline is fast approaching and a major midterm election looms.

Trump singled out those machines, which are used in at least some counties in more than a dozen states, in his first executive order on elections shortly after he took office for his second term in January 2025. That order has been blocked by multiple courts and is not being enforced.

The governor steps in

Last month, Kemp announced a special legislative session, scheduled to start Wednesday, to draw new congressional maps for the 2028 elections and to address the QR code issue.

It's possible that lawmakers could extend the deadline in the law to allow the QR codes to be used for now and give themselves some breathing room to come up with a new system before elections in 2028. But in the waning hours of the regular legislative session earlier this year, they rejected a proposal that would have done that.

Even if lawmakers agree on a solution, it might be tough to implement before a special election to fill the remainder of the term of U.S. Rep. David Scott, who died in April. The special election is set for July 28, with early voting beginning July 6.

Secretary of state offers guidance to election offices

The secretary of state's office last week issued guidance to election officials in the six counties included in that congressional district. The office says it's preliminary and subject to change based on any developments from the special session.

The ballots will be run through the scanners, which will read the QR code to generate the election night vote count. Then, before county certification, electronic images created by the scanners for each ballot will be uploaded to a server, where optical character recognition software will be used to tally the votes using the human-readable text. The results of that second process will be the official tabulation count.

The secretary of state's guidance expressly says counties must continue to use the current election system, including the touchscreen voting machines, and that there is nothing in the law that authorizes the use of hand-marked paper ballots for in-person voting.

Conflict with the election board

The State Election Board weighed in two days later with conflicting guidance. Board members argued the plan proposed by the secretary of state is not authorized by law.

The board passed a resolution instructing counties on what to do if the special legislative session does not result in an extension of the deadline for using QR codes. The resolution directs counties to use their emergency backup, which calls for hand-marked paper ballots with scanners used to count voters' selections.

When asked about the conflicting guidance during the election board meeting, Elizabeth Young, a lawyer with the state attorney general's office, said that while the guidance is not binding, "obviously it would cause confusion for elections superintendents if they are getting differing instructions from two agencies, both of which have some authority over what they’re doing.”

The election board has been controlled by a Trump-aligned majority and is often at odds with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who is a frequent Trump target.

Local election officials are in the middle

Henry County in Atlanta's suburbs is one of the counties where voters will go to the polls for next month's special election. Axiver Harris, interim elections director, said the county is aware of the conflicting guidance and is awaiting further clarification from the state.

“Given the uncertainty surrounding the guidance currently available, we believe it is wise to wait for further direction to ensure that any decisions made are consistent with state requirements and election administration best practices,” he wrote in an email.

Marcye Scott, who is running in the special election to serve the remainder of her late father's term, said she is not sure most voters are even aware of the issue and is focusing her attention elsewhere.

“My goal is to get people to the polls, get my people to the polls and get them to vote for me,” she said.

But Carlos Moore, another of the six candidates running in the special election, said he is worried about legal challenges if a new method of vote-counting is implemented without enough time. He hopes lawmakers extend the deadline to allow the use of the QR codes for now.

“I would ask that legislators do the right thing, leave well enough alone for the special election," he said. “Otherwise, it’s almost certain there will be challenges in court.”

It will likely take months before energy companies can resume operations to the point of meeting the world’s demand, according to energy experts. The slow pace of the process of shipping and refining crude oil, and doubts about the security of traveling through the strait mean the effect won't be seen immediately, they said.

Ships loaded with crude oil have been stranded in the Persian Gulf for more than three months, unable to safely travel through the waterway, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gasoline supplies typically traveled before the war began.

“It’s going to take time for people to feel comfortable and for insurance to be in place ... particularly to get people on the ground to restart some of these assets,” said Daniel Evans, global head of fuels and refining research at S&P Global Energy.

Still, oil prices slipped early Monday after the deal was announced.

Brent crude, the international standard, was down $3.45 at $83.89 per barrel. U.S. benchmark crude oil lost $4.03 to $80.85 per barrel.

Those prices are still well above the roughly $70 per barrel where oil was trading before the war started.

As the higher prices unwind, ships that have been stranded will have to exit the strait, and then new tankers will have to come in to be loaded, Evans said.

“To bring a ship in, you need to be confident that you’ve got a big enough window of safety to bring it in, load it and move it out," he added.

Oil tankers also move slowly, he explained. It takes months to travel from the strait to distant countries, deliver the crude oil to a refinery for processing and then arrive at its final destination.

In addition, some producers in the Middle East paused extracting oil from the ground, known as a shut-in, when they ran out of storage space. Restarting those operations can be a slow process.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, where there are alternate pipelines or routes besides the Strait of Hormuz to deliver oil, may be among the quickest to resume production, said Alan Gelder, senior vice president of refining, chemicals and oil markets at Wood Mackenzie, an analytics firm.

“But places like Iraq could be much more challenged because they’ve had a much bigger shut-in, their fields are more difficult ... it may well take about a year before they get back," he said.

Investment in the energy system, which can take years to see the results, ground to a halt after the strait's closure, Gelder said. So it will take time for this capital to restart.

Countries that shut in oil production won't want to restart until they know there is a stable, durable strait, and that a ceasefire will last more than 30 or 60 days, said Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

“We don’t know what open means or what the speed of evacuation of trapped material is going to be,” he said.

If this is what big league baseball looks like in Sin City, pitchers might run for cover in a couple of years under every craps table in town.

Willi Castro had seven RBIs, Hunter Goodman got a career-high five hits and the Rockies set a franchise record for runs with a 23-9 victory over the Athletics on a 101-degree afternoon at Las Vegas Ballpark.

“You’ve just got to make contact and the ball’s gonna go,” Goodman said.

Castro and Goodman each hit two of Colorado’s six homers. Troy Johnston and TJ Rumfield also went deep for the last-place Rockies (27-45), who ended a three-game losing streak.

Scheduled to move to Las Vegas full time in 2028, the A's got a taste of the city this week with a six-game homestand against Milwaukee and Colorado at the site of their top minor league affiliate.

The teams involved combined to score 102 runs in a stretch that began with a wild slugfest last Monday night, when the Brewers outlasted the Athletics 15-14 in a 12-inning game that featured 11 homers and 34 hits.

Colorado's lineup provided an exclamation point Sunday, but Goodman is going to reserve judgment about major league baseball in Vegas.

Because while the Triple-A Las Vegas Aviators of the Pacific Coast League play outdoors, the A's are gearing up to move into a new $2 billion stadium under construction on The Strip. That building will be enclosed.

“I’ll be curious to see how it plays,” Goodman said. “I think time will tell. With it being indoors, I don’t know if it will play the same or not. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer has participated in plenty of games similar to Sunday’s series finale, especially at Triple-A Albuquerque.

“This is a very, very tough environment to play baseball,” he said. “As you saw, obviously the ball flies in the thin air, the heat and the sun. It’s just a hard place to play.”

Castro finished with four hits, including a grand slam off Scott Barlow in the eighth inning. Goodman drove in four runs and Kyle Karros also had four hits as the Rockies piled up 24 in all — one shy of the team mark established against Houston on Sept. 25, 2011.

Max Muncy and Tyler Soderstrom homered for the A’s (35-36), who had won four straight. Lawrence Butler got three hits and Zack Gelof extended his hitting streak to 18 games.

Tomoyuki Sugano (7-4) got the win despite giving up eight runs and nine hits in five innings. Eiberson Castellano tossed three scoreless innings to earn a save in his major league debut.

Athletics starter Jeffrey Springs (3-7) allowed eight runs — six earned — and seven hits in four innings.

Colorado scored six times in the fifth to build a 14-6 lead. Goodman homered to begin an outburst capped by Tyler Freeman’s run-scoring triple.

A’s right fielder Carlos Cortes moved to the mound in the eighth and was their most effective pitcher, yielding one run and three hits in the final 1 2/3 innings.

The Athletics went 4-2 on their Las Vegas homestand, winning a pair of three-game series. They return Monday to their regular temporary home in West Sacramento, California, for a series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

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

A violent standoff extended into the evening after a series of incidents — including a car set ablaze and a bank's windows smashed — along the route of an afternoon march that drew an estimated 20,000 people, including some 600 so-called “Black Bloc” militants, according to figures from Geneva police spokesman Alexandre Brahier.

The demonstration, which had been previously organized by a hodgepodge of activist groups after weeks of negotiations with local authorities, was otherwise peaceful — with environmentalists, women's rights advocates, supporters of Palestinians and foes of imperialism, fascism and capitalism.

Early on during the march, firefighters extinguished a Tesla that was set ablaze next to the central bus stop and a phalanx of riot police cordoned off a secure area as a crowd congregated nearby.

A handful of demonstrators ripped down wooden barriers that were previously erected to protect a Banque du Leman and smashed its windows.

Several groups of dozens of youths wearing black hoodies, masks and goggles were mixed in among the other marchers — including behind an anti-Trump banner. Two with their faces totally covered refused to speak with The Associated Press and silently waved off questions before the protest began.

Some protesters fired flares toward officers or tore up chunks of asphalt and chucked them toward police in shields and riot gear.

The clashes continued even after police ordered the demonstrators to disperse.

The vast majority of marchers at the front were advocates of women's rights, many wearing purple T-shirts and holding up banners and posters that decried the “patriarchy,” a lack of women in executive positions and inequality in pay and executive jobs in the workplace.

Other marchers held signs that showed sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza, carried slogans like “Antisemitic never; anti-Zionist always” and criticized Trump — often with expletives — among other sharply worded messages.

Organizers of the protest printed a handbook for demonstrators that included a map of the security perimeter, tips on how to gear up for the march, and advice on how to behave if detained by police.

Travel restrictions and limited border crossings during the summit

Swiss and French authorities have deployed thousands of police to provide security for the three-day summit starting Monday in the resort town of Evian-les-Bains, France. The leaders are set to discuss wars in Ukraine,Iran and the Middle East, and economic issues like global inequality and access to critical minerals.

Ahead of the gathering, authorities in Geneva blocked off roads, banned unauthorized gatherings and pledged financial support for businesses who could be hit by unrest.

Scores of businesses and shops in downtown Geneva boarded up their storefronts with wooden panels as a precaution, leery of upheaval that left a trail of damage in the city during a similar summit in Evian in 2003. Only seven of the 35 roadway border crossings will remain open.

The show of activism began a day earlier: a flotilla of around 20 boats appeared on Lake Geneva off the coast of Evian on Saturday, displaying anti-G7 and pro-Palestinian banners. Swiss media reports said some 20 protesters had been detained on Friday evening.

Resident Robin Hedz lamented the “mess” and expressed bafflement about the “wood-wall everywhere,” while acknowledging the memories of the trail of damaged property over 20 years ago.

The G7 brings together Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, though leaders of several other countries including India, Kenya and Ukraine were expected to join for discussions.

France has announced the deployment of more than 13,000 police and gendarmerie officers to ensure security in the summit area. Over 800 French border control officers will be active, up from about 60 normally.

Trump is the focus of protests

Protests are nothing new around such elite gatherings. This time, activists expressed frustration with Trump’s leadership on issues as diverse as tariffs, the war in Iran, climate, and even his past ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The G7 summit takes place as the United States and Iran appear close to a deal to end the war and open the Strait of Hormuz.

“We are very afraid of the policy and the politics of Mr. Trump and also of the other leaders of the G7, because they are fighting, making war all over the place," said Francoise Nyffeler, spokesperson for the NoG7 coalition behind the demonstration on Sunday.

"The planet is in danger and we are very scared about it and we want to protest and say that the people of the world are against their policies,” she added.

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Associated Press journalists Oleg Cetinic, Kwiyeon Ha, Baz Ratner and Florent Bajrami in Geneva and Samuel Petrequin in London contributed to this report.

The Iranians arrived in the Los Angeles area on Sunday from their training base in Tijuana, Mexico, just over the U.S. border — about 140 miles (225 kilometers) from the stadium where they will open group-stage play against New Zealand on Monday night. Iran's training camp was relocated from the U.S. after the war began, and the Iranian team has endured numerous distractions since then, including visa problems.

“I have felt the tension from the first moment we arrived at this World Cup,” Taremi said through an interpreter. “At any tournament when there is tension, we won’t have the same beautiful experience we always talk about with peace and joy. ... I know it wasn’t just us. I know several countries had visa problems and changes with training camps. Before we arrived, the feeling, the sensation people always have, how they look forward to the World Cup, I think this time maybe they haven’t had the same feeling.”

The U.S. attacked Iran on Feb. 28, and the initial missile strikes killed its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The war has slowed and resumed several times since then, with President Donald Trump even announcing a peace deal earlier Sunday — one that wasn't addressed at the news conference.

“This kind of tension, it undermines that joy and it undermines the message of FIFA and our people, which is that football brings about peace,” said Taremi, the 33-year-old Olympiacos striker who is playing in his third World Cup. “I feel like this World Cup could have provided a better atmosphere than it has, but I hope in the future it will be better for all fans, whatever team they are supporting in the World Cup.”

Iran initially planned to train in Tucson, Arizona, before the war’s outbreak, but quickly moved to Baja California. FIFA then rejected Iran’s desire to play its group-stage World Cup matches outside the U.S., claiming logistics and contracts wouldn’t allow it.

Iran has been beset with logistical problems since then, including the denial of visas for certain members of its delegation. A team spokesperson said Sunday that two members of its media relations group were denied U.S. visas for the opening match. Iran and its traveling fans also have faced multiple issues with match tickets.

“Without any doubt, this will impact negatively the spirit of football,” Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei said. “Football is supposed to bring nations and cultures together. Whether we win, whether we lose, that’s a personal feeling we have, but football as a game is about bringing about joy. These conditions, they have impacted our technical focus, but I have really tried to make sure that my players focus on strategy and techniques.”

The Iranian team is limited to brief trips into the U.S. for its matches, flying in the day before the game and reportedly flying out immediately afterward. Iran plays in Inglewood, California, again next Sunday against Belgium, before completing the group stage in Seattle against Egypt on June 26.

Without giving details, Taremi said Iran's travel from Tijuana to SoFi Stadium took roughly five hours, including the very short flight.

“Of course that impacts us,” Ghalenoei said. “I would like to thank the good people of Mexico, but we Iranians, we are accustomed to make opportunities out of hardship, and we don’t think about anything other than bringing joy to people.”

The Iranian team took the field at SoFi Stadium after the news conference, allowing the players to familiarize themselves with the unfamiliar venue. Players walked around the futuristic arena in small groups, pointing out features of the towering stands and examining the quality of the grass.

Iran was among the earliest qualifiers for this World Cup, and its strong team is currently 20th in FIFA’s rankings. But after the war began, Trump suggested the Iranian team might not be safe in the U.S. — and Iranian officials debated whether the team should compete in the tournament at all.

The Los Angeles area likely was picked to host two of Iran's matches in part because it has the world's largest Iranian population outside Iran. The so-called Tehrangeles area of the city is filled with the families of untold thousands who fled the country after the Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s.

Taremi and Ghalenoei are aware that many U.S.-based Iranians will be cheering against their success — both inside the stadium and outside, where various protests against the Iranian government are reportedly planned. Yet another source of possible tumult doesn't bother the team leaders.

“We play for every Iranian, be it in the diaspora or in Iran,” Taremi said. “People have different opinions, but we are here to unite people and we will try to bring joy to all Iranians wherever they live. We do not get involved in politics. We are here to play football.”

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