The Russian climbers, who go by Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, were the subject of the 2024 Netflix documentary “ Skywalkers: A Love Story ” about their “rooftopping” exploits and budding romance.

Dressed in black and wearing masks but not tethers, the two balanced on a narrow ledge and appeared to kiss atop the New York skyscraper's antenna, news helicopter video showed. The banner, reading “when the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace,” waved from the structure, which rises 1,454 feet (443 meters) above midtown Manhattan.

After lingering for a time, the two collected the banner and began to climb down, picking their way along the latticework of metal to a wider ledge, where one seemed to set up a piece of photography equipment and got down on one knee. After the two kissed again and hugged, the other person took selfies with an outstretched left hand, as if examining a ring.

Police Emergency Services Unit officers started ascending a ladder in the spindly structure to intercept them. Police body camera video showed an officer calling out a greeting and explaining, “Well, you can't be up here.”

An off-camera voice replied with what sounded like, “We are engaged.”

A few seconds later, officers reached a landing within the antenna and met the couple, who were coming down a ladder and calmly spoke with police, the video showed.

Nikolau posted images of the escapade on her social media accounts, including a photo that modeled an engagement-style ring above a bird’s-eye view of Manhattan.

The two climbers — whom police identified by their formal names, Angelina Nikolau and Ivan Kuznetsov — were arrested on burglary, reckless endangerment and other charges. It wasn't immediately clear whether they had attorneys who could speak to the allegations. Messages seeking comment were sent to the couple.

“Skywalkers: A Love Story” follows Beerkus and Nikolau as they make often unauthorized ascents of tall structures, sometimes posing as construction workers to sneak in.

It wasn’t clear how the pair gained access to the Empire State Building's antenna, which rises well above public areas of the 102-story building. Building management said in a statement that the episode was “unauthorized” and didn’t endanger anyone in the skyscraper.

The management didn’t answer questions about how the two reached the antenna and what interactions, if any, they had with security workers. Empire State Building visitors are screened and told not to bring large packages, sports equipment, costumes or masks, among other items.

Tourist Julie Morris told local TV stations that she was on one of the building's observation decks when she saw two people pass through some mesh gates into an off-limits area. She said she assumed the pair, who weren't masked, worked there.

As the stunt unfolded, onlookers gaped from the sidewalks near the Art Deco office tower.

“It's crazy — it's like being in the movies,” said Jonathan Roman, a tourist visiting from the Scottish city of Glasgow. He and his 15-year-old son had observation platform tickets but arrived to find the building blocked off because of the antenna activity.

Still, the spectacle was “probably more exciting than going up to the viewing platform for the second time,” Roman reasoned.

Daredevils have previously climbed the antenna and other parts of the Empire State Building. Those ascents have largely been unauthorized, but actor and musician Jared Leto was allowed to climb up to the base of the antenna from the 86th floor in 2023 to promote a tour.

___ This story has been corrected to show that the incident happened Wednesday, not Tuesday.

Thousands of displaced Venezuelans are sleeping in crowded shelters or outside without access to clean water amid dismal sanitary conditions following the June 24 earthquakes which officials say killed at least 2,295 and left more than 11,000 injured.

Aid workers said the aftermath of the quakes has become a major medical crisis that, unless quickly controlled, would take more lives in the days and weeks ahead. The emergency has laid bare Venezuela's chronic shortage of doctors, the result of years of economic crisis, underfunding and emigration.

“The issue we foresee just around the corner is the infections that patients who have been exposed to the disaster for the longest time might bring,” said Eugenio Cova, the head of the trauma unit at Hospital del Oeste Dr. José Gregorio Hernández in Caracas, the capital. “We’ve already gone through a period of complex trauma — which will continue to occur — but now it’s complicated by infections."

Aid workers also warn that the extensive damage to infrastructure could fuel outbreaks of diseases in the hardest-hit communities.

“It’s very hot and there’s a lot of concern about potential vector-borne diseases,” said Veronique Durroux, the U.N. humanitarian agency spokesperson for Latin America and the Caribbean. “Waste management is an issue. Debris management, when you see the scale of devastation, it’s very concerning.”

US military deploys 900 personnel to aid Venezuela

The United States had 900 military personnel currently on the ground to support relief and rescue operations as of Wednesday, Steven McLoud, a U.S. Southern Command spokesperson, told The Associated Press.

The military has repaired an earthquake-damaged runway at the country's main international airport that serves Caracas to allow for the arrival of humanitarian assistance and stationed naval assets off the coast to receive airlifted survivors. An additional 100 people from the U.S. State Department have been sent to aid those efforts, McLoud said.

So far, the Trump administration has offered Venezuela $300 million in assistance channeled through aid groups and the United Nations. But that's just a fraction of the post-earthquake aid the country needs: Material damage from the quakes is estimated at over $6.7 billion, according to satellite analysis by the U.N. Development Program.

Fifty other international teams have arrived in recent days to help with search-and-rescue operations, including from countries like Ecuador and Israel that don't have diplomatic relations with Venezuela. Against the odds, rescuers are continuing to find a small number of survivors, including on Tuesday, a toddler who had been trapped for six days.

Crisis-stricken hospitals dealt another blow

Long before the earthquakes, Venezuela's public hospitals were strained by shortages of water, energy, critical medical equipment and highly trained staff.

More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2013, when Nicolás Maduro took office and the economy came undone as a result of mismanagement, corruption and a drop in oil prices.

Among those who took flight were many specialized doctors and nurses.

Venezuela’s medical association has estimated that about a third of its 60,000 registered physicians have left the country since the economic crisis began. Dr. Huníades Urbina, a member of the board of the pediatrics association of Venezuela, said the number left is roughly half of the 84,000 that the country needs based on World Health Organization standards.

Urbina added that a 2025 national survey of public hospitals revealed shortages of more than 30% of emergency supplies and more than 70% of supplies in operating rooms. Laboratories are “all practically closed or do the basic things only," he said.

The earthquakes "once again highlight the Venezuelan government’s inability to provide an adequate health care system that meets the needs of the Venezuelan people,” he said.

Underequipped hospitals face a surge

Those who remain now confront the overwhelming prospect of treating thousands of grievous injuries from crushed and caved-in concrete structures.

Hospital del Oeste Dr. José Gregorio Hernández in Caracas lacks screws and plates needed for orthopedic surgery and medicated gauze to prevent infections, said Cova, who conducts surgery on crushed limbs in makeshift operating rooms because possible earthquake damage has made parts of the building inaccessible. Doctors have even started posting what medical supplies they need on social media, asking for donations.

According to the government, the earthquakes damaged or otherwise compromised 38 hospitals nationwide.

There's also a nationwide shortage of ambulances that forces many injured Venezuelans to arrive at hospitals in the backs of pickup trucks, said Jaime Lorenzo, director of United Doctors of Venezuela, a nonprofit network of medical professionals. That's just one of the ways that ordinary citizens, feeling abandoned by the government, say they've been forced to shoulder much of the rescue effort.

When the chaos and trauma of the quakes starts to subside, Lorenzo said he fears a new wave of patients will hit hospitals: Venezuelans, who, rendered suddenly homeless after the earthquakes, have gone all week without medication for chronic diseases such as asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Questions over government response

The government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez — who served as deputy to Maduro until he was ousted by the United States in January and who became interim leader with the backing of the Trump administration — has faced growing criticism over its handling of the disaster.

Videos circulating on social media in recent days appear to show security officers picking through the rubble of fallen buildings and making off with U.S. dollars, appliances and other personal belongings and sparking widespread anger among Venezuelans. The videos couldn't be verified by the AP.

In response to the videos, the the Interior Ministry on Wednesday said it dismissed and detained four police officials for “deviating from their duties and taking advantage of the rescue and humanitarian aid efforts."

Many thousands remain missing, adding ambiguity to the complete toll and leaving families in an agonizing limbo as they wait days by collapsed buildings, hoping for the bodies of their loved ones to surface. One non-governmental digital database where families can register missing loved ones showed over 40,600 people still unaccounted for as of Wednesday.

On Wednesday, U.S. officials pushed back against accusations that Rodríguez was politicizing response efforts and brushed off widespread criticisms of failures by Venezuela's government to respond to the crisis. Gen. Francis Donovan, head of U.S. Southern Command, turned blame on decades of neglect in Venezuela which he said “made this even more challenging for the current government.”

“It is a big problem for any leader to deal with a challenge of this magnitude,” Donovan said.

___

This story has been corrected to show the U.S. Southern Command spokesperson's name is Steven McLoud, not Steven McCloud, and the hospital name is Hospital del Oeste Dr. José Gregorio Hernández, not Hospital del Oeste Dr. José Gregor Hernández.

___

Janetsky reported from Mexico City and DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press journalist Ben Finley contributed to this report from Washington D.C.

Tielemans was fouled just before the end of the 30 minutes of extra time were finished and the referee awarded the penalty after a video review.

Habib Diarra and Ismaïla Sarr gave the Senegalese a 2-0 lead, but Belgium substitute Romelu Lukaku got one back in the 86th minute and Tielemans equalized in the 89th.

Tielemans was fouled by Lamine Camara in the area in the final seconds of extra time. The referee took several minutes to go over the video before awarding the penalty.

Belgium is back in the round of 16 for the third time in four tournaments. The team reached the quarterfinals in 2014 and the semifinals in 2018 but failed to get out of the group stage four years ago in Qatar.

The Belgians will next face either the United States or Bosnia-Herzegovina on Thursday in Santa Clara, California.

Sarr scored his fourth goal of the World Cup, and one of the most beautiful of the tournament, to give Senegal a 2-0 lead in the 51st minute. He made a perfect first touch off his chest on a long ball from Moussa Niakhaté and then sent his shot past Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.

Senegal, which was without goalkeeper Édouard Mendy because of a knee injury, took the lead on Diarra's goal in the 25th minute. But Lukaku started the comeback by scoring with time running down and Tielemans forced extra time less than three minutes later.

Senegal had advanced to the knockout round as one of the best third-place finishers, ending up in that spot after playing in a tough group with two-time champion France and the Erling Haaland-led Norway.

Belgium players Kevin De Bruyne and Jérémy Doku both surprisingly came off in the 56th minute.

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The species' population has jumped from around 2,000 to around 35,000 in approximately 40 years, close to their population before whaling, said Enrico Marcovaldi, co-founder of the Humpback Whale Project. That means they are increasingly being spotted in Rio’s postcard Guanabara Bay.

“It’s wonderful. It shows that the whales are making a recovery, are healthy and thriving, and hopefully they’ll continue to do so,” said Marcovaldi.

In 1982, the International Whaling Commission decided that there should be a pause in commercial whaling on all whale species and populations from the 1985/1986 season onward.

Louise Raulais, who runs the Rio Ocean Club with her partner Theo Andrade, is among those who see the tourism opportunities in the whales' resurgence.

This year, the company began offering sailboat trips for between five and 10 people to observe the whales. Raulais said they always have a biologist onboard to share information, which can stimulate a desire to protect the whales and the ocean.

“These animals are so iconic and charismatic that they have the power to transform people, to change the way they see the world,” said Raulais.

Humpback whales are known for roaming long distances across major oceans in predictable patterns, typically following migration routes learned from their mothers. They feed on krill and small fish in the warmer months and breed in tropical waters over winter.

Between June and November, thousands of humpback whales migrate through Brazilian waters, traveling roughly 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) from their feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean to breeding and calving grounds off northeastern Brazil.

Most gather around the Abrolhos Bank, a coral reef region spanning the coasts of Bahia and Espirito Santo that is one of the South Atlantic’s most biodiverse marine environments.

The Humpback Whale Project set up a scientific expedition, scheduled to run from June 26 to July 9, to study the humpback whales’ behavior, size and health, as well as identify their travel route, key gathering areas, and to measure how far offshore the whales pass.

“They’re exploring this area," said Pedro Fróes, a biologist for the Humpback Whale Project who is part of the expedition. "They want to find out whether, in the future, it could become a place for them to rest, to mate, or to give birth to a calf,” Fróes said.

___

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

The Resolute Desk is one of the most recognizable pieces of furniture in the White House — and probably in the entire nation. As the president’s desk, it’s been at the center of American history for nearly 150 years.

That famous front panel has its own story. Many accounts claim it was added during FDR’s presidency to conceal his wheelchair and leg braces, but some historians dispute that. They argue Roosevelt used the desk in his private study, away from the public eye, and that the panel itself was not installed until after his death.

The desk’s origins extend far beyond the Oval Office. In fact, it's not American; it’s British.

The desk is crafted of timbers from the HMS Resolute, a British naval vessel that set off for the Arctic in the early 1850s in search of Sir John Franklin, who disappeared while seeking the Northwest Passage. During that mission, the Resolute became trapped in ice and was abandoned by its crew. Years later, it was discovered drifting through Arctic waters by an American whaling vessel.

The United States repaired it and returned it to Queen Victoria. The vessel resumed service for many years before eventually being retired.

Once decommissioned, Queen Victoria expressed her gratitude to the United States by ordering the timbers of Resolute to be transformed into several pieces of furniture. One of them was a large desk that she presented to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880.

The desk spent much of its early White House history out of public view until 1961, when first lady Jacqueline Kennedy moved it into the Oval Office.

Every president since Jimmy Carter has used the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, with the exception of President George H.W. Bush, who instead placed it in the Treaty Room. The desk has also become the place where recent presidents leave a letter for their successor on Inauguration Day.

The Resolute Desk stands not only as a symbol of the American presidency, but also as a reminder of the enduring friendship between the United States and Britain.

___

Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here. For more stories on the anniversary, click here.

Temperatures in the high 90s Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) were forecast for the Northeast; Philadelphia and Boston could top 100 by Thursday. Throw in humidity, and the real-feel heat index will be even higher at times, the National Weather Service said.

A heat dome — high-pressure systems above a region that trap heat and humidity — has been smothering parts of the U.S., from the Midwest to the East Coast. It will add much discomfort amid 250th anniversary parades, ship flotillas, outdoor concerts and, in Boston, a popular public reading of the Declaration of Independence from a historic balcony Saturday.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani advised residents to stay cool inside and avoid “extraordinary temperatures.”

“To be breaking into triple digits over the course of these many next days — it is of immense concern given that too often the heat is something that is underestimated,” Mamdani said.

In Hamptonburgh, New York, air conditioning failed on a bus carrying Junior ROTC cadets, resulting in multiple heat-related illnesses, Orange County authorities said. Some cadets were taken to hospitals as a precaution.

Concrete and steel aggravate hot weather

Humidity is not uncommon in the Northeast. But Dr. Alexander Azan of NYU Langone Health in New York said high air temperatures and humidity are a dangerous combination.

“Their body doesn’t have that level of acclimatization to respond appropriately to the heat, and so heat stress in the form of what we call heat exhaustion, and in more severe cases, heat stroke, can occur at much lower temperatures than we see in people who live in the South,” Azan said.

Experts say cities in particular are at greater risk.

“The concentration of concrete, asphalt, steel, all of those materials help to retain heat,” said Vijay Limaye, a climate scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The number on your phone may actually not reflect the true temperature profile that you’re going out into.”

New York City said more than 200 teams of government workers and volunteers will check on homeless people and encourage them to get inside. There will be hundreds of cooling centers, from the Javits Center convention hall to vans to outdoor spots with misting fans.

Cashing in on the weather

The phone seemed like it wouldn't stop ringing at Acme Ice Co. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which delivers ice to bars and restaurants in the Boston area. The owner, Marc Savenor, said this week's stretch of hot weather is an “ice man's dream.”

“What could an ice man ask for? ... I’ve hired a couple extra drivers. I’ve put on an extra couple trucks. I put ice in different freezers so I don’t run out,” Savenor said. “After my ice is depleted here, we go pick up another load, bring it back, and we deliver it everywhere.”

The American Kennel Club’s Museum of the Dog in New York is allowing visitors to bring their dogs to cool off, through Sunday. Executive Director Christopher Bromson said he got the idea from seeing his own Newfoundland sprawled on the museum’s cool floor.

“I thought every dog should have access to this,” he said.

In Washington, D.C., where the high temperature was 95 F (35 C), thirsty children reached for cold water from U.S. Park Police as they waited in line for the Ferris wheel on the National Mall.

In the Midwest, meanwhile, heat risks remained. Taylor Harnist, whose Cincinnati business installs and repairs air conditioners, said he was trying to keep his employees comfortable with breaks, water and electrolyte drinks.

“You get an attic job when it’s this hot, we do them but it’s strenuous,” Harnist said. “It’s so hot the attics will reach temperatures of 145 degrees.”

Jeff Schlegelmilch, associate professor at Columbia University Climate School, said heat is one of the easiest things to attribute to climate change.

“We have seen a continued increase in longer summers, hotter temperatures, hotter temperatures earlier on, more evaporation of moisture, higher humidity — effects like that,” he said.

___

Associated Press reporters Jennifer Peltz in New York, Rodrique Ngowi in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.

Days after selecting play-making 18-year-old forward Gavin McKenna with the first pick in the NHL draft, Chayka added veteran depth — with Stanley Cup Final experience — in a series of moves highlighted by the signing of goalie Sergei Bobrovsky to a three-year, $21 million contract as free agency opened on Wednesday.

At nearly 38, Bobrovsky is a two-time Cup champion and leaves Florida to fill what’s been a long-unaddressed need in Toronto.

“Sergei’s a real game-changer for us in terms of the stability, the consistency, the durability,” Chayka said. “We think he’s really motivated to come into the largest hockey market in the world, and it’s important to him that he finish his career strong.”

Among the other more active teams were the San Jose Sharks. They signed free agent defenseman Jacob Trouba and forward Mason Marchment, while also acquiring defenseman Darnell Nurse in a trade with Edmonton.

Utah, coming off its first playoff appearance, signed former Islanders captain Anders Lee to a three-year, $16.2 million contract and Vincent Trochek of the Rangers as the Mammoth muscled up their front line.

Aside from Lee, and with veteran forward Patrick Kane and defenseman John Carlson still available, Bobrovsky was considered among the most prized free agents on the market.

“A sincere thank you to Sergei Bobrovsky for all he did for this organization,” said Panthers general manager Bill Zito, who this past week had traded for goalies Jacob Markstrom and Akira Schmid. “Things happen where decisions get made and people move on. It’s part of our game. We have nothing but appreciation for Sergei.”

Though nearly a decade removed from winning the Vezina Trophy for a second time as the NHL’s top goalie with Columbus in 2017, Bobrovsky represents an upgrade for a Leafs team that’s gone through a carousel of netminders, including five alone last season. Toronto is attempting to retool on the fly with a new coach after finishing last in the Atlantic Division standings to snap a nine-year playoff run.

The Leafs also acquired veteran forward Nick Paul in a trade with Tampa Bay, while also signing center Teddy Blueger, who won a Cup in 2023 with Vegas, center Colton Sissons and center Jack Roslovic.

Rangers wheel and deal

The Rangers made four trades in a five-hour span, most notably sending Trocheck to Utah for defenseman Sean Durzi, prospect Cole Beaudoin and a third-round pick in the draft next year. They also acquired Marcus Pettersson from Vancouver for a conditional 2030 first-rounder, shipped fellow defenseman Will Borgon to Boston for picks and made an additional trade with the Bruins to get backup goalie Joonas Korpisalo.

New York also signed former Tampa Bay forward Oliver Bjorkstrand to a one-year $4.5 million contract.

Sharks stock up

The fast-improving Sharks are suddenly a destination. They acquired Nurse in a deal that sent defensive prospects Shakir Mukhamadullin and Zack Sharp to Edmonton. Trouba signed a four-year, $33 million deal and Marchment signed a five-year, $33.75 million contract.

After the Sharks enjoyed a 19-win jump in the standings and barely missed the playoffs, Trouba called being part of a team on the rise behind Macklin Celebrini one of the biggest reasons he signed in the Bay Area.

“You want a team that you feel like you can grow with and make an impact and help these young guys,” Trouba said on a video call with reporters. “It’s important to get into where everybody wants to be is on a contending team, and I think we have a good opportunity in San Jose to do that.”

Goalies on the move

The Oilers shuffled goalies by acquiring Buffalo’s minor-league prospect Devon Levi in a trade. And they did so after losing goalie Stuart Skinner, who signed a two-year, $7.5 million contract with Winnipeg.

The Jets' goaltending depth could be in flux with the team listening to trade offers for three-time Vezina Trophy-winner Connor Hellebuyck. Minnesota signed Calvin Pickard, while Tampa Bay got Denis Hildeby from Toronto for forward Nick pPaul.

Free agent signings

— Washington, still waiting on Alex Ovechkin’s decision about whether to return for a 22nd NHL season, signed Columbus winger Boone Jenner ($23 million) and San Jose defenseman Vincent Desharnais ($16.8 million) to four-year contracts.

— The Los Angeles Kings signed Nashville forward Erik Haula to a two-year, $7.2 million contract. And Mats Zuccarello left Minnesota to sign with L.A..

— Chicago got veteran defenseman Ian Cole (Utah) for next season at $4.75 million.

— Colorado signed former Seattle winger Jaden Schwartz to a three-year, $9.75 million contract.

— Detroit signed Swedish winger Viktor Arvidsson (Boston) to a two-year contract worth $10 million.

Staying put

In the meantime, teams were also busy retaining players.

-- Florida signed rugged defenseman Radko Gudas, who just turned 36, to a six-year deal worth $1.5 million annually for a total of $9 million. The 36-year-old Gudas played in Florida for three seasons from 2020-23 and acquired in a trade with Anaheim on Monday.

— New Jersey locked up captain Nico Hischier by signing the Swiss center to a five-year extension worth $58.5 million with an annual cap hit of $11.7 million from 2027 through 2032.

— Montreal re-signed Ivan Demidov to an eight-year, $73 million contract after the 20-year-old Russian forward led all NHL rookies with 62 points (19 goals, 43 assists) last season.

— Philadelphia got two extensions done, signing forward Tyson Foerster to an eight-year, $56.8 million contract and extending goalie Dan Vladar for five years at $27.5 million.

___

AP Sports Writer Tim Reynolds in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.

___

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

Beasley, the latest big name caught up in a sweeping federal gambling investigation, said little at his arraignment in Brooklyn federal court. He answered a judge's questions with “yes, your honor” but let his lawyer, Jason Goldman, enter his plea on his behalf.

Afterward, the 6-foot-4 (1.92 meter) shooting guard stood quietly as Goldman spoke to reporters outside the courthouse, demurring when one asked if he had anything to say to his fans. Beasley, who played for six NBA teams in nine years, missed the most recent season because he was under investigation. Instead, he played for a Puerto Rican team co-owned by the rapper Bad Bunny.

“He looks forward to fighting. He’s fought every day,” Goldman said. “He’s presumed innocent and that has to mean something still, obviously."

Beasley, 29, and sports agent Paolo Zamorano, who also pleaded not guilty on Wednesday, were among six people charged in an indictment unsealed this week.

They are the newest defendants in a gambling sweep that has netted more than three dozen arrests, including former Miami Heat star Terry Rozier, who was accused of conspiring with friends to help them win bets, and Basketball Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups, who was accused of conspiring to fix high-stakes poker games.

Zamorano, 39, formerly represented another co-defendant, ex-NBA player Ed Davis, who had loaned money to Beasley and is accused of acting as his “gatekeeper" in the alleged scheme.

“We look forward to our day in court," Zamorano’s lawyer, Kenneth Breen, told reporters.

Beasley and Zamorano were both released on bond. They're due back in court for a status conference on Aug. 6.

Beasley is accused of fixing or trying to fix his performance in at least four games while playing for the Milwaukee Bucks in 2024 by under or overperforming bookmakers' expectations. In exchange, the indictment said, the bettors bribed Beasley and his debts to Davis were reduced or eliminated.

“Only way you can beat Vegas is sports betting,” Davis told Beasley in a Jan. 26, 2024, text message, according to the indictment. “Everything else they got the edge.”

In one example, according to the indictment, Beasley told Davis that he would try to outperform the 3.5 line that sportsbooks had set for his rebound total in Milwaukee’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers on March 10, 2024.

With a second left, and the Bucks up by seven points, Beasley challenged a Clippers shot and dashed past four players to grab his fourth rebound and securing a win for the bettors as the horn sounded.

One bettor made a $3,252 profit on a $2,838 wager, the indictment said, and another made a $2,107 profit on wagers totaling $2,400. Other bettors missed out and lost money, mistakenly placing wagers on Beasley to underperform the rebound total because of an apparent miscommunication, the indictment said.

“What’s funny is after he got it he had a big sigh of relief,” a co-conspirator said in a text message, according to the indictment.

Beasley borrowed money from Davis, a former teammate, after racking up millions of dollars in gambling losses. His widely reported financial problems include disputes with a Detroit landlord, a Milwaukee barber and a Minnesota dentist. A 2025 lawsuit from a sports marketing agency resulted in a $1 million default judgment against him.

“There’s a bigger conversation here about the industry, about individuals and institutions that are profiting billions and billions of dollars and fueling the addiction,” Goldman said.

Beasley has been aware of the investigation for about a year, Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Weintraub said.

He last played in the NBA for the Detroit Pistons on a one-year, $6 million contract in the 2024-2025 season. He averaged 16 points per game and scored 20 in his last game, a playoff loss to the New York Knicks. He is one of five players in NBA history with more than 300 three-pointers in a season.

Beasley's release was secured by his parents, actors Michael and Deena Beasley, who joined the arraignment by phone from their home in Georgia. Stone-faced for most of the hourlong proceeding, Beasley laughed at his mother's answer to Magistrate Judge Taryn Merkl's question about how often they talk to each other.

“I probably call him every day. He might not answer every day,” Deena Beasley said, prompting chuckles in the courtroom. “If I call him six times a week, he'll answer five times.”

During a tour of the 96,000-square-foot library and in a speech afterward, Trump spoke admiringly of Roosevelt and compared himself favorably to the former president, who he described as the embodiment of the American spirit, praising his toughness as a leader and outdoorsman.

“He had a freakin’ wild life,” Trump told an audience at a Western-themed amphitheater. “He didn’t want to be quiet. He wanted to be great.”

The official opening of the library on Saturday coincides with July 4th celebrations honoring the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Trump made the trip to see the $450 million project aboard his new Air Force One, a Boeing 747 given to the United States by Qatar. The visit was a boost for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a former governor of North Dakota, while also bringing the nation's birthday festivities to a region synonymous with its westward expansion.

In his speech after the tour, Trump weaved between his own administration's work while returning to lessons drawn from Roosevelt's life, recounting stories of bravery during Roosevelt's time in the West and as president.

“He was something special," Trump said. “He was a really great man. He was a man the likes of which you may never see again.”

During the visit, Trump announced that his administration was giving $750,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the library’s first year.

Roosevelt was a New York native with a strong North Dakota connection

Roosevelt visited Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. On Valentine’s Day the next year, his mother and wife died hours apart in the same house in New York.

Devastated, Roosevelt came to Dakota where he ranched cattle and hunted big game in the West during visits mostly from 1884 to 1887.

He underwent deep personal growth from his experiences, including chasing boat thieves down a river, standing up to a bully in a bar and working alongside cowboys who ridiculed him for wearing eyeglasses.

Roosevelt, who served as president from 1901 to 1909, later said he never would have been president were it not for his experiences in North Dakota.

Near the library is Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Visitors can hike trails and drive a scenic route through the colorful, rugged Badlands where bison and wild horses roam.

Trump has often described an affinity with Roosevelt

Trump began his second term last year by trumpeting the construction of the Panama Canal during the Roosevelt administration.

Trump even said the U.S. might seek to take back the waterway from Panama to curb influence from China. That goal has been overshadowed by his suggestions that Washington might seize control of Greenland or that Canada could become America's 51st state.

Given a chance to talk with an artificial-intelligence version of Roosevelt at the library, Trump asked if the 26th president considered the Panama Canal his greatest achievement. A digital Roosevelt said he took pride in it while also listing achievements involving parks, medicine and his Square Deal.

In the run-up to staging a UFC fight on the White House lawn for his 80th birthday, Trump said he was aware of Roosevelt holding far lower-key boxing matches in the White House. Trump made no mention of Roosevelt having detached the retina of his left eye during one such sparring session.

The trip also underscores the president's esteem for Burgum, who has become a key face of and cheerleader for the president’s expansive renovation projects around Washington.

In 2019, Burgum championed the library to North Dakota's Republican-led legislature when he was governor, touting its tourism potential. The legislature approved a $50 million operations endowment, requiring library planners to raise $100 million in private donations, a goal met in 2020. Donations total about $354 million as of early 2026.

Donors include oil executive Harold Hamm, the Waltons of Walmart fame, Kenneth Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel, a hedge fund, and Burgum himself.

The library will showcase Roosevelt's ideas and artifacts

Trump was the library’s first official visitor, according to the library’s executive director, Robbie Lauf.

All living presidents were invited to the grand opening of the library, which joins more than a dozen others across the country that examine the lives and legacies of U.S. presidents, from Ronald Reagan in California to Franklin D. Roosevelt in New York and Herbert Hoover in Iowa. The Obama Presidential Center recently opened in Chicago, bringing together four former presidents for the occasion.

Visitors will learn about Roosevelt's conservation ideas and his Rough Riders regiment of the Spanish-American War, but also his “horrific comments” about Native Americans and other issues “that have obviously aged poorly,” Lauf said.

Artifacts, many of them out of public view for decades, will tell Roosevelt's story. Visitors will see his Rough Riders uniform; the 1884 diary grieving his terrible loss; and the eyeglasses case, speech and shirt from the 1912 assassination attempt against him.

Organizers hope the library draws families and thousands of school children from the region, as well as some of the millions of motorists who travel to Yellowstone National Park and the Black Hills.

“It's a feature, not a bug, that we are in a county of 1,000 people and a town of 120,” Lauf said. “TR came here for that purpose.”

The Dakota Resource Council on Tuesday hosted several conservation leaders who criticized Burgum and Trump for policies they say contradict Roosevelt's conservation principles, such as cutting staff and budgets and prioritizing energy development on public lands.

Last year, Burgum signed an order prioritizing the openness and accessibility of parks to the public amid the workforce cuts. He has compared America's public lands and natural resources to “assets” that should be responsibly developed to exert “energy dominance.”

On Friday, Trump plans to visit South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore for Independence Day fireworks, as he did in 2020.

___

Binkley reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

Some of the children discovered Tuesday were unable to speak and one — an 18-year-old who was developmentally disabled — could not even write her name, investigators said.

“Most of our livestock was kept in better conditions than the children,” said Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain. “Just a disgusting scene.”

The children's parents and two grandparents were charged with felony child endangerment, a prosecutor said.

Authorities found the children while carrying out a search warrant in an unrelated investigation, Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson said Wednesday at a news conference.

Officials said it seemed as if no one outside the family knew about the children, who weren't enrolled in school.

“We didn’t know there were going to be 16 kids there,” said Wilson, who was nearly at a loss for words in describing what officials found in the tiny village of Hamden that sits in one of Ohio's poorest counties.

“It’s the type of thing that we’re not used to seeing here in America,” he said.

Rescued children looked like ‘feral animals’

The sheriff said it appears the children spent most of their time in a room that was roughly 12 feet by 12 feet (3.5 meters by 3.5 meters). He didn’t disclose how the kids were kept inside the home, but said authorities didn’t find any cages in the house.

The children ranged in age from 1 1/2 years to 18 years old and included both boys and girls, officials said. Seven were transported to hospitals in Columbus and two were flown by helicopter. One was in critical condition on Tuesday while some of the others were admitted for care, Wilson said.

“They looked like almost feral animals,” Wilson said. “It was terrible.”

The children were in temporary custody of the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services.

Vinton County prosecuting attorney William Archer said the four adults were charged with second-degree felony child endangering because it involves “serious physical harm.”

Gary Siders Jr., Gary Siders Sr., Christina Siders and Elizabeth Siders appeared in court Wednesday where a judge entered not guilty pleas on their behalf and set bond at $300,000 for each. They have not yet been assigned lawyers.

Steve Irwin, a spokesperson for the attorney general's office, would not say whether all of the children are siblings or how they were related.

Neighbor saw ‘no kids at all’

The house where the children were found sits on a road tucked away alongside a steep railroad embankment, where tracks carry rumbling trains through Hamden. The closest neighbors are separated by trees and thick brush, but the house is easily visible from the road.

An open door revealed bits of trash inside while a wooden deck and the backyard were filled with discarded tires, a high chair and other debris.

Investigators said members of the family had moved around southern Ohio over the past two decades and that it looks like they avoided setting up medical and government records.

“These folks were pretty good at hiding these kids,” Wilson said.

Investigators were reviewing whether the family was reported to any children’s services agencies in the past.

Neighbor Joseph Stewart, 60, said he saw “no kids at all” since the family moved in three houses down and that he could clearly see the house and yard when passing by.

“It’s a sad situation,” he said. Stewart has lived on the street for six years and called it “a quiet neighborhood.”

On Wednesday, the home's doors and windows stood open to the sweltering heat. A tangle of discarded children’s items -- two busted bicycles, a plastic play table, a beach pail and two infant carriers -- stood in a pile in the yard.

Hamden has a population of less than 1,000 people and is about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southeast of Columbus.

The discovery of the children is reminiscent of past horrific cases of family abuse.

In 2019, David and Louise Turpin pleaded guilty to torture and years of abuse that included shackling some of their 13 children at their home in California, starving them and providing only a minimal education.

They were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. The couple were arrested in 2018 after their 17-year-old daughter escaped from the home and called 911.

___

Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Julie Watson in San Diego contributed.

The festivities will kick off with a smaller rehearsal dinner planned for Thursday night, the official said. The person spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the events.

Speculation about the superstar singer and football player’s nuptials has built to a frenzy in recent days, following weeks of unconfirmed reports that it would take place over July Fourth weekend at one of New York’s iconic landmarks.

In recent days, crews have been unloading equipment from trucks outside the Manhattan arena. A large carpet was briefly unveiled outside one entrance and then promptly removed.

Still, nothing has been publicly confirmed by the couple, despite multiple requests from the AP to Swift’s representative for comment, including on Wednesday.

While city officials have made coy references to an upcoming wedding at Madison Square Garden, they have offered few details about the plan, including potential impacts to nearby businesses or local transit.

“We are fully prepared,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a news conference on Wednesday. “There isn’t anything to share beyond that.”

In a separate social media post, he offered New Yorkers tips for staying cool during the heat wave, “especially if you’re (hypothetically) having your wedding at MSG this weekend.”

Swift and Kelce first announced their engagement on Instagram last August, fueling widespread speculation among the Swiftie fan base about possible venue locations.

Following initial reports last month that the event would be held at Madison Square Garden, some theorized that the choice could be an elaborate smoke screen to divert attention from the couple’s real wedding plans.

The arena, which seats up to 19,500 people, is located above Penn Station, the busiest rail hub in the U.S., in the heart of Midtown, Manhattan.

It has on occasion hosted weddings in the past, including funk singer Sly Stone’s marriage to actor Kathy Silva in 1974 and a mass ceremony officiated by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1982.

The arena has guarded entrances, a secure garage and a lack of windows, allowing Kelce, Swift and celebrity guests to stay out of sight of photographers or camera-equipped drones.

On Wednesday, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch outlined a slew of challenges facing the city this weekend, including huge Independence Day celebrations, a World Cup match and a searing heat wave.

“I would be remiss not to mention an event that we are tracking at Madison Square Garden on Friday night,” Tisch added. “The NYPD will, of course, have a detail in place, but I am not going to go into more specifics on that at this time.”

The decision handed several victories to the League of Women Voters of Arkansas and other plaintiffs, which sued last year amid efforts in various states to make it harder for regular citizens to make laws or amend their states’ constitution through ballot initiatives.

One such measure required someone signing a petition to show photo ID. That and other additional ballot-initiative restrictions were imposed by Arkansas’ GOP-controlled state government after election officials cited a legal technicality to reject petitions submitted by abortion rights supporters in a 2024 effort to legalize abortion in the conservative state.

One of the plaintiffs, Protect AR Rights, called the decision an “important victory for the people of Arkansas and their constitutional right to direct democracy."

The decision, issued Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks, also rejected some challenges by the league and its fellow plaintiffs, while Brooks sent three other disputes to trial.

The defendant, Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester, a Republican who had defended the laws in court, said in a statement that his office plans to appeal Brooks' decision and “will fight tirelessly for common sense safeguards like voter ID.”

Among the laws Brooks struck down are 2025 measures requiring canvassers to verify a petition signers' identity through a photo ID and to read the ballot question aloud or require a petition signer to read the entire ballot question before signing it. The ballot questions are often hundreds of words long.

Requiring a petition signer to possess and present a photo ID “before engaging in core political speech” plainly violates free speech laws, Brooks wrote, and noted that the Arkansas secretary of state's office reviews every signature to confirm that the petition signer is a registered voter.

The ID requirement regulates what a registered voter “must do before signing a petition and what a canvasser must do before allowing them to,” Brooks wrote. “This impedes supporters of a measure from expressing their views by signing a petition.”

State officials had contended that requiring a reading of the ballot question before anyone can sign a petition was necessary to prevent a canvasser from misrepresenting the ballot question.

But Brooks wrote that the state had refused to prosecute reported cases of such canvasser misconduct, and that it should enforce its existing laws before it chose a more restrictive alternative of “imposing burdensome speech codes on good and bad actors alike.”

Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., allow citizen-initiated ballot measures, according to the nonprofit Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

In March, the center reported that it had found a “sharp escalation” by lawmakers in both the number and severity of anti-democratic attacks on the ballot measure process over the past several election cycles.

Sponsors of such efforts, it wrote, framed them as steps to improve election integrity, administrative efficiency or voter protection.

One of the most common methods is making it harder for initiatives to qualify for the ballot by placing restrictions on where, when and how signatures are collected, it wrote.

It singled out efforts in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma.

Another common method of restricting ballot initiatives, it said, is requiring a larger majority of voters, rather than a simple majority, to approve a referendum, thus making it harder to pass. It cited efforts in Arizona, Florida, Missouri, North Dakota and Ohio.

___

Follow Marc Levy at http://twitter.com/timelywriter

Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Florida, sent a letter to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Acting Director Russell Vought urging the bureau to investigate rent now, pay later companies and hold them accountable for potential violations of federal consumer financial protection laws. In the letter, obtained by The Associated Press, Frost also asked the bureau to explain what it is doing to protect renters and whether landlords are steering tenants toward rent-financing products.

“Rent now, pay later” companies allow renters to split their monthly rent into smaller payments over the course of a month. A renter with a $1,000 monthly rent bill might pay in four weekly payments of $250 or two payments of $500.

First elected to Congress in 2022 at the age of 25, Frost said he frequently used buy now, pay later services to furnish his first apartment in Washington, which put him heavily into debt. In an interview, Frost said it was only because he made a healthy salary as a member of Congress that he was recently able to pay those debts off. He said he believes his experience is likely the same as other young Americans.

“Americans should know they have rights when using these buy now, pay later products,” Frost said. “This is why the CFPB was created in the first place.”

Frost looked into using his credit card to pay rent, but “thank God that didn't happen,” he added.

Companies such as Flex and Livble say breaking rent into multiple payments can help renters manage cash flow. Some payment plans can come with fees and finance charges. In February, the AP reported on how users of these services were paying as much as $50 a month to split their rent.

Other companies, such as Affirm, are running limited experiments with splitting rent into multiple payments. Affirm's offering through a partner splits rent into bimonthly payments.

These RNPL companies differ from companies like Bilt, which allows some renters to pay rent through its credit card and rewards platform. Bilt says it has more than 5 million members, and its customers have historically used its service to earn rewards points on rent payments. RNPL companies are more focused on allowing customers to finance large rent payments across multiple payments.

Frost says there should be more disclosure to consumers around the products as they become more popular.

“While many of these companies market their loans as ‘innovative’ products that can help struggling cash-strapped renters, including by allegedly boosting their credit scores, many of these products more closely resemble repackaged payday loans,” Frost said in his letter.

A February report by Protect Borrowers and Toward Justice argued that some RNPL companies should comply with Truth in Lending Act requirements based on how they structure their products. The industry strongly disagreed with the groups’ findings at the time.

“In addition to structural reforms to drive down the cost of housing, lawmakers, policymakers, and law enforcement at every level of government need to wake up to the reality that a broad array of companies are cashing in, at working people’s expense, on the massive burden of rent in Americans’ lives,” the groups said in the report.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has sharply curtailed its work under the second Trump administration. Under Vought, the bureau has rolled back regulations and guidance, dropped enforcement actions and moved to rescind previous agency activity. Other calls by members of Congress for bureau investigations have largely gone unanswered. The bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Frost’s letter.

Vought’s tenure at the CFPB will end this summer. President Trump has nominated Brian Johnson, an executive formerly with Capital One, to be the next permanent director of the bureau. Johnson previously held a high-ranking position at the bureau during Trump’s first term in office.

Frost said that if the bureau does not act on buy now, pay later and rent now, pay later companies, he hopes to use information gathered from this letter and other resources to propose legislation next year if Democrats take control of Congress.

“I’m not holding my breath for the Trump administration to do the right thing, but this is the first step of many we can take to make sure these products are used correctly and Americans are protected,” he said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law Tuesday afternoon officially designating May 17 as Bruce Lee Day, according to the office of state Assemblymember Matt Haney, who represents San Francisco.

An 18-year-old Lee returned to San Francisco on May 17, 1959, after spending his childhood in Hong Kong.

Lee's daughter, Shannon, who is CEO of the Bruce Lee Foundation, said the honor is a testament to her father's enduring legacy as a bridge between cultures.

“From young people who found confidence and possibility in his philosophy, to families who finally saw themselves represented on screen, to athletes who still draw on his teachings of discipline and inner strength, his reach is profound," Shannon Lee said in a statement.

Haney called Lee the epitome of the best of California.

“At a time when Asian Americans were too often absent from or stereotyped on screen, Bruce Lee helped generations see themselves represented with strength and dignity,” he said in a statement.

The foundation and various Asian American organizations hope Lee will be celebrated every year with voluntary commemorative activities around the state such as cultural exhibits, public events and classroom lessons.

Born in 1940 to Chinese parents who were touring with an opera, Lee was allowed to have birthright citizenship. A few months later, the family returned to Hong Kong where Lee became a child actor and began learning Chinese kung fu. He moved back to the U.S. in 1959 and enrolled in the University of Washington in Seattle two years later. He dropped out and threw himself into practicing and teaching martial arts.

In the ‘60s, Lee found work in Hollywood, most notably as Kato in the TV series “The Green Hornet,” but studios wanted him to play racist stereotypes and paid him less than his white counterparts.

He pivoted back to Hong Kong and soon became a megastar of martial arts flicks, including “The Big Boss” and “Fist of Fury.” Lee died in 1973 at 32 after an allergic reaction to pain medication.

Lee's name and likeness remain popular. Fans gather on his birthday. A treatment for a proposed TV action series he wrote inspired the HBO Max show “Warrior.”

The outage shuttered businesses and left residents with no relief — inside or out.

John Fitzgerald was among those left sweating through the night. He said the temperature inside his Warren home matched the heat outside.

“Yeah, I’ve been sitting out here — it’s too hot,” Fitzgerald said. “Power’s been out since 8 p.m. They told me it would be on at 3 in the morning. No power coming. It was miserable.”

Repairs stretched into the afternoon

Fitzgerald said he resorted to putting wet rags on his head and did not sleep. Power was not restored to his home until noon the following day.

“DTE going around checking — it’s 12 o’clock in the afternoon and we’re just now getting power,” he said.

DTE Operations Manager Jerry Tullio acknowledged repairs can vary widely in length.

“Restoring power can take some time — varying length of time on the complexity of the repair,” Tullio said.

DTE says grid is holding up

Despite the scattered outages, Tullio said crews have responded quickly and the broader grid has held up under the heat.

“Overall, the grid is responding well to the heat so far. We’ve had a couple of scattered power outages due to the heat — our crews have been able to respond to that safely and immediately to restore power,” Tullio said.

DTE said it hardened its systems ahead of summer and is now monitoring the grid around the clock, redirecting power as needed to prevent future outages. The company added that crews are staged and ready to respond over the holiday weekend if additional outages occur.

A preliminary autopsy requested by the family of Kohen Wiley suggested the baby was shot from the side of the car, not the front, civil rights attorney Ben Crump said, disputing officers' claims that the car was heading toward them. Kohen's mother, who was holding her baby in the passenger seat, says her friend was driving away from the officers.

Kohen and his mother are Black, and the June 14 shooting has sparked protests and outrage in the small town of Senatobia. Residents point to a string of troubling encounters with police in recent years. Crump said the child was killed after police were called to a Walmart parking lot about diapers that may have been shoplifted.

“We’re going to try to continue to demand transparency,” Crump said. He spoke from the pulpit of Senatobia Church of Christ, surrounded by more than a dozen people including the baby's grandparents, some of them holding “Justice for Baby Kohen” signs.

However, Crump repeatedly emphasized that the pathologist did not have access to complete information. He said the family won't rest until authorities release the police body camera and dashcam video, as well as Walmart surveillance video.

A spokesperson for the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which is in charge of the ongoing inquiry, declined to comment Wednesday. Tate County Coroner Ernie Lentz said in an email the official autopsy report is not complete. An email was sent to Senatobia Police Chief Harold Vanderford seeking comment.

An email was also sent to a Walmart spokesperson seeking comment.

On display at the church were photos and diagrams of Kohen’s body and a photo of the car. The passenger window was shattered and an apparent bullet hole pierced the windshield on the passenger side. The other woman in the car was badly wounded, authorities said.

The broken passenger-side window indicates a bullet was fired into that side the car, Crump said.

The preliminary findings, Crump said, show the bullet entered the baby’s torso on his right side and exited on his left. Crump said that assessment is supported by the clusters of cuts on the right side of his chest and abdomen that would have been caused by the broken tempered glass.

“That’s very important as we try to solve a puzzle,” he explained, adding: “The reason that we’re having to try to solve the puzzle is because they won’t release the video.”

In an initial account of the shooting, state investigators said: “Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one. An officer then discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene.”

Investigators will try to figure out the vehicle’s position, how everyone was sitting inside, and where the officers were standing, said policing expert Ian Adams, who teaches criminal justice at the University of South Carolina. They will need to look at damage to the car as well as bullet wounds, because people can move around.

“We need to know a lot more before drawing firm conclusions based on bullet wounds alone,” Adams said.

The killing has drawn comparisons to other instances where Black people lost their life over accusations of petty criminal offenses, such as the murder of George Floyd. Kohen’s mom says she thought her friend had paid for the diapers.

Crump, who rose to prominence representing the families of Floyd and other Black people killed by police, emphasized that the officers' own report says they saw two women and a child get into the car. He questioned why the officer would shoot, knowing there was a kid inside.

“They want us to believe that it was a life-or-death situation,” he added. “They told us that, but they have not showed us that.”

“It was terrible,” said Amanda Stamper, 34. “It was just me trying to survive and trying to kind of block the most stressful parts out to protect my baby.”

“The fact that in modern day this would happen… it shocks the conscience,” said her attorney, Todd Perkins. “It makes you mad as hell.”

Stamper and her fiancé, Lamar Lyons, 40, are suing M. Shapiro Management Group LLC, M. Shapiro Development Company LLC, and M. Shapiro Real Estate Group, along with several managers and superiors, alleging pregnancy and race discrimination, retaliation, and illegal eavesdropping.

The other defendants include Emily Rathnaw, Jared Gorback, Erica Spencer, Rubin Chrisman, Mark Kassab, and Mia Reikensmeyer.

The complaint filed June 22, 2026, lists 10 counts, including discrimination and retaliation; violation of the Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act; violation of the federal Wiretap Act and Michigan’s eavesdropping act; invasion of privacy; FMLA interference and retaliation; violation of the PUMP Act; violation of the Whistleblower Protection Act; third-party retaliation claims as to Lyons; civil conspiracy; and a civil RICO violation.

What the lawsuit alleges

Stamper said she began working as a leasing agent for Waynewood Apartments in Westland in June 2024, and Lyons was hired as a janitor in September 2024. Both allegedly received positive reviews and “exceeded expectations.”

The suit said M. Shapiro began managing Westland and other residential community properties, including one in Livonia, in January 2025, and that Stamper continued under “the same corporate structure, management, and chain of command.”

Stamper said she told supervisors she was pregnant in February 2025. Not long after, however, she told Local 4 she began experiencing an overwhelmingly hostile work environment.

Rathnaw allegedly immediately asked her: “Why she wanted another baby when she already had eight children?”

The complaint said she later provided medical restrictions tied to a high-risk pregnancy but alleged they were ignored.

Stamper, who later had to wear a heart monitor, said her PTO was reduced, she only received the minimum 1% raise, and when she raised concerns, a supervisor told her he would replace her if she could not perform.

The lawsuit alleges that attempts to go through HR were blocked or redirected through management, and that one supervisor told her, “Let’s not forget that I hired your fiancé for you.”

In July 2025, the company allegedly brought in a new leasing agent who Stamper said told her she was only hired “to chase Stamper off.”

“One of those employees who disclosed to her (that ‘I’m here to replace you’), they fired her,” Perkins told Local 4.

Stamper said she was hospitalized again in September 2025 and said she was told to return to work.

During a Teams meeting, she was allegedly told doctor appointments were an “inconvenience” and that she was “stealing time.”

Stamper said she later went into labor-related distress and returned to the hospital. She was then approved for maternity leave beginning Sept. 17, 2025.

Stamper’s return to work

When Stamper returned early in November 2025, she was allegedly told her office and duties had been given to another employee.

The complaint also includes detailed allegations tied to lactation accommodations. In one instance, Stamper alleges Rathnaw handed her a note from another supervisor instructing her that “if you need to pump throughout the day, you can either take a 30-minute lunch and two 15-minute break periods, or a one-hour lunch and no break periods.”

Stamper was also allegedly told to use the cafeteria or kitchen areas to pump milk for her baby when at Westland.

According to the lawsuit, the kitchen was in the middle of the Westland office and was frequented by employees, vendors, contractors, and others throughout the day.

A portion of the kitchen had been fitted with “porous bifold doors” with openings, so “anyone outside the makeshift screen could see Stamper pumping milk.”

Stamper said she could not comfortably pump milk in front of an audience. Stamper said she went home to pump milk during her one-hour lunch break.

On Nov. 26, 2025, Stamper began working three days a week at Livonia and two days a week at Westland, the suit said.

Later, with no other options, Stamper said she pumped milk for her baby in a parking lot, with the car windows covered, during her break.

Alleged hidden microphone found

Things escalated further in early 2026 when Stamper said she discovered what appeared to be a hidden microphone near her desk.

The lawsuit said Stamper’s discovery was all caught on surveillance video and that she was “horrified.”

On Feb. 5, 2026, Stamper said she heard “a strange sound” in her office that sounded like “static.”

Stamper said she searched for the source of the sound and found a microphone “embedded in the floorboard plaster” on the side of her desk.

“My heart dropped,” Stamper said. “I immediately was scared. I felt like, you know, what more are they doing in here to me other than recording my conversations?”

The microphone, according to the suit, had been planted in her private office area and installed without her knowledge by an IT technician.

Erika Erickson: “How long did you keep quiet?”

Amanda Stamper: “All the way until they walked into my office on April 20 and tried to fire me for finding it.”

Erika Erickson: “How did they know you found it?”

Amanda Stamper: “From watching me on the cameras in my office.”

After Stamper reported the issue, management allegedly said she had consented under policy, a claim the lawsuit disputes.

“This type of mistreatment of human beings should just not be allowed,” Perkins said. “These are violations that extend and are so broad we can’t even comprehend right now.”

A confrontation allegedly followed, including accusations that Stamper had tampered with surveillance equipment, which she denies.

In another allegation, Lyons was accused of stealing a refrigerator after being told to dispose of it, which he denies, according to the complaint.

Stamper said she later filed a police report and an EEOC complaint.

Local 4 reached out to M. Shapiro Real Estate Group and was told “no comment” before someone quickly hung up.

Calls and emails to an attorney representing the management and real estate groups were not returned immediately.

Stamper and Lyons are still employed by the company.

“It’s a hard situation; you don’t know what they’re going to do next, so it’s basically going into work, looking over our shoulders every day. I walk through my office, turn on all the lights, check the closets, just to make sure no one is in there,” Stamper said. “I just kind of pray on it, hope that no one is hiding in my office, hope that they’re not trying to send anyone to scare me off. It’s a scary situation.”

“You want to protect this person, and whoever’s been subjected to it,” Perkins said. “Think about the other people who unwittingly were exposed to this type of bad behavior; they should step forward, too.”

CEO Aaron Johnson sent a letter to residents on Wednesday, July 1, outlining the progress so far on Priority Waste’s recovery plan after numerous communities across Metro Detroit experienced service delays and collection disruptions.

Previous coverage --> Priority Waste apologizes to Metro Detroit customers, outlines plan for improvements

“Our objective is not simply to restore service, but to build a stronger, more reliable company than the one that existed before,” said Johnson. “We will continue to communicate openly, share our progress, and hold ourselves accountable for delivering measurable results. Most importantly, we are committed to earning back your trust, not through words alone, but through sustained improvement and reliable performance which we have detailed for you.”

The letter sent out on Wednesday outlined a 30-day service recovery report.

You can view the full letter below:

Dear Residents:

One month ago, I was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Priority Waste after serving as a senior advisor behind the scenes. From my first day in this role, my focus has been clear: observe, assess, and correct. First and foremost, we want to acknowledge and sincerely apologize for the frustration and inconvenience many of you have experienced. We take full responsibility for the service failures that have occurred. While the challenges we face today were not created overnight, we are committed to addressing them with urgency, transparency, and accountability.

At Priority Waste, we are embracing a culture of continuous improvement. Every day, we are working to be better than we were the day before. Our objective is not simply to restore service, but to build a stronger, more reliable company than the one that existed before. We will continue to communicate openly, share our progress, and hold ourselves accountable for delivering measurable results. Most importantly, we are committed to earning back your trust, not through words alone, but through sustained improvement and reliable performance which we have detailed for you below.

Priority Waste’s 5 Point Recovery Plan

1. Fleet Expansion

To strengthen our operations, Priority Waste has purchased 198 trucks previously operating under rental agreements, as well as 91 new automated side-load collection vehicles equipped with upgraded technology to improve efficiency and reliability. To date, we have received 30 of the 91 new vehicles, with the remaining trucks expected to arrive by the end of August due to manufacturing and delivery timelines. Frequent vehicle breakdowns have been one of the primary causes of service interruptions. As these new trucks enter our fleet, they will improve route reliability and provide more consistent collection service for your household.

2. Staffing Enhancements

Over the past three weeks, we have hired 41 qualified drivers, and our recruitment efforts continue every day. Our goal is to maintain approximately 20 percent excess driver capacity, ensuring we can effectively respond to employee absences, seasonal demand, and unexpected operational challenges without disrupting customer service.

3. Container Reinvestment

Limited investment resulted in a significant backlog of container deliveries and repairs. During my first week as CEO, we invested more than $2 million to purchase 19,000 new containers to begin eliminating that backlog. In addition, we have expanded our container delivery operation from five crews to nine crews over the past 30 days. We anticipate completing all outstanding container requests within the next two weeks.

4. Customer Service Improvements

When service issues occur, our customers deserve timely answers and responsive support. Previously, our customer service operation was not adequately staffed to handle the volume of incoming calls. To address this, we quickly expanded our customer support capacity through a partnership with a Michigan-based contact center, allowing us to significantly improve responsiveness. As service performance has improved, customer call volume has declined by approximately 50 percent.

Ultimately, however, our goal is not simply to answer more calls, it’s to eliminate the need for them by consistently providing on-time service.

5. Recovery Operations

While our goal is always to provide on-time service, we recognize that issues can still occur. When they do, missed collections will be recovered the very next day.

We understand the burden these service disruptions have placed on you and your family, and we sincerely apologize. Over the coming weeks, we anticipate increased operational demands surrounding the Fourth of July holiday, which will provide another opportunity to further strengthen our operations and services. I look forward to providing another update in 30 days and sharing the measurable improvements we continue to achieve. Thank you for your patience, your feedback, and the opportunity to earn back your trust.

Sincerely,

Aaron Johnson

Chief Executive Officer

Priority Waste

The lawsuit says the records would shed light on the motivations of government officials who are investigating Brennan and would form the basis of defense efforts to dismiss any eventual indictment on grounds that the case constitutes a vindictive prosecution.

Such an argument, his lawyers said, would be supported by the more than 100 verbal or written statements that President Donald Trump has made since 2017 lambasting Brennan and by the Republican president's directives to his Justice Department to initiate investigations of Brennan “without regard to factual or legal justification.”

“To fully consider those motions, the reviewing judge would need to scrutinize the motivations of the Justice Department officials who directed, oversaw, or undertook those actions to determine whether they violated Director Brennan’s rights, and specifically whether they were motivated by a desire to vindictively prosecute him as an act of retribution,” Brennan's lawyers wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington.

Without an order, the lawsuit contends, the records are at risk of being lost or intentionally deleted.

The lawsuit amounts to a preemptive strike of sorts on months-long investigations into Brennan and other perceived adversaries of the president, and represents another effort by Brennan's legal team to sound the alarm on inquiries they believe are part of a pattern of politically motivated probes driven by the White House. It asserts that Brennan is being targeted in a vindictive and selective manner arising from Trump's "obsession with punishing him for his lawful conduct as CIA Director and for his constitutionally protected criticism of the President and the President’s policies.

“That is the reason he is being singled out for investigation of concocted theories of criminal activity, and that will be the dominant reason for any criminal charges resulting from that investigation. That is also why Director Brennan will have an extremely strong basis to challenge those charges as the product of vindictive and selective prosecution,” the lawsuit says.

Investigators based in Florida are examining whether Brennan made a false statement to Congress in 2023 related to an assessment by intelligence agencies documenting Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, when Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. The other investigation aims to determine whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump, including during the course of the Russian interference investigation.

Brennan has denied any wrongdoing.

The complaint seeks a court order requiring the preservation of all government records relevant to the investigations, including emails, calendar entries and communications — whether public or private — from Trump or other White House officials about the inquiries and efforts to advance them.

“Given these strong indicia of vindictiveness, Director Brennan expects that he will forcefully challenge any eventual indictment as the product of an unconstitutionally vindictive and selective prosecution,” the lawsuit says, adding that the judge presiding over any criminal case would look to those records for a glimpse of the government's motives.

The lawsuit says there's a “very real risk” that the requested communications will not be available by the time any indictment is brought, either because of technology changes that make deletion of records more routine or automatic or because of a Trump administration habit of “failing to observe their legal obligation to maintain such records.”

“Given the government’s questionable recent history with respect to its record preservation and other legal obligations, however, Director Brennan has a well-founded concern that those records and communications will not be preserved until such time as the court can review them for evidence of unconstitutional vindictiveness,” Brennan's lawyers wrote.

The lawsuit names as defendants Trump and other top officials from his administration, including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Other defendants include Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Joe diGenova, a Reagan administration prosecutor who returned to the Justice Department in April to serve as a special counselor to the attorney general and help oversee the investigations.

Brennan's lawyer, Ken Wainstein, wrote in December to the chief judge of the federal court in Florida asking that the Justice Department be prevented from steering investigations related to Brennan to a “favored” Trump administration judge, Aileen Cannon, who in 2024 dismissed the classified documents prosecution against Trump.

Asked about Brennan's lawsuit, Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Covington said in a statement, “While we cannot comment on the existence, or lack thereof, of an investigation, it is certainly rich that John Brennan is accusing anyone of a ‘retribution campaign.’”

____

Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.

Judge Christopher Wagner, who previously denied a temporary restraining order hours after the lawsuit was filed, said Wednesday during a hearing that his written order will be made on July 9.

The lawsuit was filed shortly after the NCAA Division I Cabinet approved a monumental change in eligibility rules last month.

“When each plaintiff completed their fourth season of competition during the 2025-26 academic year, they had every reason to know it was the end of the line and time to make way for the next generation of college athletes,” the NCAA wrote in a filing.

The plaintiffs are seeking to be eligible to play a fifth year during the upcoming season, representing athletes who graduated from high school in 2022 and began their college sports careers that fall and never redshirted.

“Each plaintiff was harmed each time he or she competed in a basketball game against a fifth or sixth-year player without being offered the same opportunity to compete in a fifth season themselves,” attorney Ryan Downton wrote in a filing.

The NCAA now allows athletes five seasons of competition over a five-year period that begins with their full-time enrollment or the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever occurs first.

The move will all but eliminate waivers or redshirt years for extended eligibility except for religious missions, pregnancy or active-duty military service. Extensions will no longer be considered for athletes who are injured.

Athletes whose eligibility expired by spring 2026 under the traditional model — four years of competition over five years — will not be allowed a fifth year of competition under the new rules that go into effect this fall.

Similar lawsuits are being filed in other states.

The Division I Cabinet has said in a statement posted on X that it was aware of legal action challenging its decision and that “we do not intend to change course.”

___

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

Below are several medication classes that are especially important to consider during hot, humid weather.

Do not stop any medication on your own. If you’re concerned, call your doctor or pharmacist and ask whether you need a “hot day plan.”

Why heat and medications can be a risky mix

Your body is always producing heat. In hot weather, it has to get rid of that heat by:

• Sweating (to cool the skin)
• Shifting blood flow to the skin
• Adjusting heart rate and blood pressure to keep circulation steady

Some medications can interfere with one or more of those processes.

Others can increase dehydration, making it harder to cool down and affecting kidney function.

Diuretics (“water pills”)

Diuretics are commonly used to control blood pressure or reduce swelling. A well-known example is Lasix.

In extreme heat, diuretics can:

• Increase urination, leading to dehydration
• Contribute to electrolyte imbalances
• Raise the risk of dizziness, fainting, and falls

Blood pressure and heart medications

Beta blockers

Beta blockers—such as Lopressor—can reduce your ability to increase your heart rate in response to heat stress.

They also lower blood pressure, which can make some people more prone to lightheadedness or fainting in the heat.

ACE inhibitors and ARBs

ACE inhibitors like Zestril and ARBs like Cozaar are also widely used to treat high blood pressure.

During a heat wave, these medications can:

• Contribute to dehydration, especially if you aren’t drinking enough fluids
• Affect kidney function
• Reduce thirst, so you may be less likely to hydrate

Risk can be higher when these drugs are combined with a diuretic.

Mental health medications

Some mental health medications can affect sweating and the body’s temperature control.

Antipsychotics

Antipsychotic medications like Seroquel can interfere with temperature regulation and sweating.

SSRIs

SSRIs—like Zoloft—may increase sweating, which can increase the risk of dehydration.

Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs)

TCAs—like Elavil—may decrease sweating, making it harder to cool down.

Stimulant medications used to treat ADHD

Stimulants, such as Ritalin, increase metabolic activity and can raise a person’s heat production.

That can make it easier to overheat during outdoor activity, especially if hydration and breaks aren’t adequate.

Allergy and “PM” sleep medicines

Over-the-counter medications can matter too, especially older antihistamines like diphenhydramine, best known by the trade name Benadryl.

These medications can:

• Reduce sweating
• Cause drowsiness, which can make it harder to recognize early heat illness symptoms
• Increase the risk of overheating

Diabetes and heat: extra risks for blood sugar control

Diabetes—and the medications used to treat it—deserve special attention during extreme heat.

In a heat wave:

• Dehydration and heavy sweating can raise blood glucose levels and make it harder for the kidneys to clear excess sugar.
• High temperatures can alter subcutaneous insulin absorption and the rate at which the body uses glucose, leading to unpredictable highs and lows.
• People with diabetic autonomic neuropathy may have impaired heat regulation, increasing the risk of heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

Some medications can add to the risk:

• SGLT2 inhibitors (example: Jardiance) may worsen dehydration.

Also, heat can affect devices and storage:

• Extreme heat can impair glucose monitoring devices.
• Insulin can lose potency if it’s left in heat or not stored according to directions.

GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and weight loss

GLP-1 drugs—like Ozempic—can increase the risk of heat problems for some people. That may be related to reduced thirst, slower digestion, which can contribute to dehydration, and changes in how the body regulates temperature.

Warning signs to watch for

Call a healthcare provider if you’re concerned, and seek emergency help if symptoms escalate.

Common warning signs of heat stress include:

• Dizziness or lightheadedness
• Fatigue or weakness
• Intense thirst
• Reduced urination
• Nausea

Emergency signs can include confusion, fainting, severe headache, or hot, dry skin. If you suspect heat stroke, call 911 immediately.

Quick safety tips during a heat wave

• Don’t stop medications without medical guidance.
• Ask your doctor or pharmacist about a “hot day plan.”
• Hydrate early and often (follow your provider’s guidance if you have fluid restrictions).
• Avoid peak heat; take frequent breaks in shade or air conditioning.
• Store medications properly—don’t leave them in a hot car, delivery box, or sunny window.

That’s why Vernest Spivey with the Detroit Area Agency on Aging is out in the heat, making sure seniors can stay cool in their homes by delivering bottled water and fans.

One of those stops was at the city’s west-side home of Ms. Gloria Chandler, who has never had air conditioning. Chandler said the heat doesn’t bother her much.

“I just stay focused on being thankful that the Lord has blessed me to see another day,” Chandler said.

But she admits it can be a challenge to sleep at night during the heat.

“You just toss and turn if you need to; certainly no covers,” Chandler said.

Even though she doesn’t mind the heat, Chandler accepted a fan from the agency.

“They are such a blessing,” Chandler said.

On Spivey’s next stop, Ms. Allena Cross said she needed bottled water to stay hydrated during the hot stretch.

“I drink more water doing this time than I would normally,” Cross said.

Spivey said the work is about helping Detroit seniors and residents with disabilities stay safe during dangerous conditions.

“It’s about serving the community, what we can do to improve the quality of life for our seniors and disabled population,” Spivey said.

The Detroit Area Agency on Aging says it is also providing transportation to cooling centers in Detroit.

Fans and bottled water are available while supplies last.

You can follow DAAA on Facebook to stay up to date on its services and programming.

The Korean War veteran is celebrating his 100th birthday surrounded by family and friends, and his daughters say his schedule hasn’t changed much with age -- in bed by 7 p.m. and up before 6 a.m. But Miller says the bigger key to his longevity has been staying grounded in faith, staying active, and treating people with love.

“Well, like I tell all of the young folks, number one, just keep on living and serving the Lord,” Miller said.

Miller was born in 1926 in a small town outside of Memphis, Tennessee, where he grew up working on a farm.

“They started me to work when I was 6 years old in the cotton fields,” he said.

In 1950, Miller moved to Detroit looking for opportunity.

“It was a lot of work going on here. So, I came here to better my living condition,” he said.

Not long after arriving in Michigan, Miller was called into military service, eventually serving on the front lines during the Korean War and earning three battle stars.

“Slept in bunkers. And from there the fox hole,” he recalled.

Those memories -- both difficult and defining -- are part of the life story Miller has been sharing as he marks a century of living.

Family members describe Miller as a faith-rooted father and great-grandfather who remains active. He continues to walk daily, volunteers through community service, and keeps up with friends through regular meet-ups at local restaurants.

“I really believe, if you give service and love and treat people right, and try to live according to God’s will He will keep you here for a reason,” Miller said.

Miller also enjoys singing and isn’t shy about making people laugh.

“I do a little clowning,” he said -- even breaking out a few signature dance moves to put smiles on faces.

And yes, he still drives -- just not every day.

“Maybe once or twice a week,” Miller said, adding that if he were taking someone along for a ride, he’d head to one of his favorite restaurants.

As he celebrates his 100th birthday, Miller said his philosophy is simple: keep running your personal race with faith, family and love.

“If you live so God can use you, I think it’s pleasing to Him. He’ll keep you on this earth a little longer,” he said.

Miller also had a message for anyone hoping to live a long, healthy life: don’t worry too much.

He said worrying “will poison you.”

And, he added, smile more -- because a smile can take you a long way.

Miller’s family and friends are hosting a large 100th birthday celebration Friday in his honor.

The park has since reopened with reduced hours and discounted ticket prices Wednesday and Thursday.

The decision to shorten operating hours may seem like the wrong choice, but it’s a deliberate safety strategy. Fewer hours on the clock means fewer opportunities for heat-related emergencies.

---> If you or someone you know needs help finding a cooling center, you can see our full list here.

Workers face unique risks in the heat

It’s easy to focus on guests when thinking about heat safety, but the people staffing the park face serious dangers, too. Unlike visitors, employees can’t simply jump in a pool or retreat to a shady spot when they start feeling the effects of the heat -- they’re on the job.

Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are real risks for outdoor workers, and those risks don’t go away just because they’re surrounded by water.

Being wet doesn’t mean being safe

One of the most confusing dangers of a water park on a hot day is that the water itself can mask how much heat stress a person’s body is under. When people are submerged or splashing around, they may not notice how much they’re sweating -- or that they’re sweating at all.

Being wet does not prevent heat stroke or heat exhaustion. The body’s core temperature can still rise to dangerous levels regardless of how much water a person has been in.

It’s better to drink water than to be in water.

Children are especially at risk

Kids are particularly vulnerable in extreme heat because they often don’t recognize the warning signs of overheating or dehydration.

Children may keep playing until they become seriously ill, making adult supervision and proactive hydration breaks critical.

Lines, concrete, reflected sun add to the danger

Waiting in line at a water park on a hot day may be one of the most hazardous parts of the experience. People standing in queues are often fully exposed to direct sunlight, with little to no shade.

Concrete surfaces in direct sunlight can reach temperatures of up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

Making matters worse, sunlight reflects off both concrete and water, meaning visitors can be hit with intense solar radiation from multiple directions at once.

Related: It’s dangerously hot in Metro Detroit. Here’s where to cool off

Mere startups when he took the oath of office, the new ventures have now eclipsed in revenue much of his vast property portfolio that took him decades to accumulate.

Also, the House leadership on Tuesday abruptly canceled votes and sent lawmakers home early for the holiday recess, Speaker Mike Johnson ’s majority once again ground to a standstill by a Republican revolt over their own party’s agenda. In this case, it’s a standoff blocking the annual defense bill as Republicans push to include Trump’s own priority, the SAVE America Act, a strict voter ID bill.

Here's the latest:

New Federal Reserve chair emphasizes political independence, signals focus on inflation

Kevin Warsh said the central bank would remain independent and seek to bring down inflation, likely foreclosing the rate cuts President Donald Trump has sought.

In remarks at a central bank conference in Sintra, Portugal, Warsh said that if businesses or households thought the Fed would accept inflation above 2%, “I guess they’d be disappointed. We’re going to deliver price stability.”

The Fed typically combats inflation by raising borrowing costs. When asked about Trump’s oft-repeated desire for lower rates, Warsh underscored the Fed’s independence from day-to-day politics.

“We’ve been an independent central bank for a very long time,” he said. “We’re going to be an independent central bank at this moment and you’re going to see no changes to that.”

Such comments suggest that Warsh has shifted his views since replacing Jerome Powell as chair May 22. He called for lower rates last year as he essentially campaigned for the job. Since becoming chair, however, Warsh has appeared to move away from that stance and instead has signaled a focus on getting inflation down.

▶ Read more

The US, Canada and Mexico begin bumpy negotiations to renew North American trade pact

Tourists from Chattanooga check into beach resorts in Cancun. Canadian auto parts feed factories in the American Midwest — and vice versa. Happy hour revelers raise glasses of Mexican tequila and mezcal at bars in Seattle.

It adds up. The United States trades $1.9 trillion a year — $5 billion a day — worth of goods and services with its neighbors. They have supplanted China to become America’s top two trading partners.

So the stakes are high when it comes to fiddling with the rules that govern trade between the three countries. And after a year of President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff policies, many U.S., Canadian and Mexican businesses would welcome the return of stability across North America.

They are not likely to get it.

The regional trade pact — the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA — that Trump negotiated and boasted about came up for renewal Wednesday, starting a process that is likely to last months, maybe longer.

And the path forward is lined with landmines.

▶ Read more

US hits Ecuadorian gang with sanctions for political assassinations

The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on a subgroup of an Ecuadorian gang that it accuses of involvement in political assassinations and narco-trafficking in the South American country.

Rubio announced Tuesday that he had designated the “Chone Killers” as a foreign terrorist organization.

The Chone Killers are an offshoot of Los Chineros, a gang the United States previously designated as an FTO in 2020.

The designation freezes any assets the group or its members may have in U.S. jurisdictions.

Chinese foreign minister speaks with Rubio about Taiwan

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged the U.S. side to handle the Taiwan issue with “utmost caution” in a phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Chinese foreign ministry said Wednesday.

The Tuesday call took place as the Trump administration is reviewing a $14 billion weapons sale proposal to Taiwan under a domestic law that obligates the U.S. to provide the self-governed island with sufficient hardware for self-defense. Beijing, which considers Taiwan part of Chinese territory, opposes it, suggesting the arms sale could negatively impact President Xi Jinping’s plans to visit the U.S. this fall.

“The Taiwan issue can implicate the entire China-U.S. relations, and we hope the U.S. side will handle Taiwan-related matters with utmost caution,” Wang said, according to the Chinese statement.

The U.S. State Department has yet to confirm the phone call.

Crypto, real estate, watches: How Trump made over $1 billion last year

The latest disclosure report listing Trump’s financial holdings shows he took in about $1.2 billion last year from crypto holdings, overshadowing a real estate business that first brought him fame.

It’s a stunning development, sped along by his own friendly policies toward the industry and help from billionaires and others with business before the presidency.

The report, which is over 900 pages, also shows Trump took in tens of millions from new properties in countries beholden to the U.S. for military support or seeking tariff relief. He got tens of millions more suing media companies.

The White House says the president has no financial conflicts with his government role and only acts in the public interest.

▶ Read more

Americans step out for their nation’s 250th in a proud moment sown with division and doubt

America has come to a landmark moment of pride and patriotism — and a time of division and doubt.

As the country turns 250 on Saturday, Americans are stepping out for celebrations in a big way. Thousands of events are unfolding from every corner of the country.

But tears in the national fabric are seen everywhere, too.

And belief in American exceptionalism has declined.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll shows more people in the U.S. think there are better countries than those who think the United States is the best.

Still, the party’s on.

▶ Read more

Trump talks Panama Canal with AI Teddy Roosevelt

Given a chance to talk with an artificial intelligence version of Roosevelt, Trump asked a pointed question: “Do you consider the Panama Canal your greatest achievement?”

A digital rendering of Roosevelt said the canal’s construction was one of his proudest feats, but he added that greatness is measured by lives improved. He rattled off other achievements involving parks, medicine and his Square Deal.

But with the canal, AI Roosevelt said he believed he had “left a mark that would last.”

“OK,” Trump said. “You did. Thank you.”

The exchange was shared in a video posted online by The White House as Trump toured the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. Trump has previously suggested the U.S. might seek to take back the waterway from Panama to curb China’s influence.

As the Pentagon stays quiet, AP reconstructs a US strike that killed over 100 Iranian children

The Feb. 28 attack on a primary school in southeastern Iran was the deadliest reported strike in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Most of the victims were children.

In almost any other conflict, these haunting truths would be seared into national memory. Yet more than 120 days since at least one U.S. missile struck the school in Minab, there remains no final accounting of what happened.

The rapid pace of U.S. bombing and chaotic death tolls have left families without resolution. President Donald Trump has denied U.S. involvement, while Iran blames the U.S. The Pentagon’s investigation remains incomplete.

The Associated Press has reconstructed the story of the attack, beginning in the schoolyard on the morning of Feb. 28, drawing from open-source information, video footage, human rights reports and interviews with researchers and civilians inside and outside Iran to reveal previously unreported details about the bombing in Minab, including the diversity of children killed.

▶ Read more

Navy helicopter makes emergency landing in Arabian Sea

A U.S. Navy helicopter made an emergency water landing in the Arabian Sea, leaving one sailor missing, the Navy’s 5th Fleet said in a statement Wednesday.

According to the Navy, an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to USS George H.W. Bush went into the water at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, but the statement noted that “there is no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.”

The statement went on to say that three of the helicopter’s four crew members were recovered, but one aircrewman was still missing.

The USS George H.W. Bush is one of two aircraft carriers deployed in the waters off Iran.

Ex-CIA Director John Brennan seeks court order requiring records from investigations be preserved

Former CIA Director John Brennan sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, demanding a court order that would require officials to preserve records from investigations that are targeting him.

Brennan said in the lawsuit that the records would be essential for him to defend himself against any eventual indictment and make the case that it was a vindictive prosecution by the Republican administration.

▶ Read more

Vance says Doha talks are focused on Strait of Hormuz, not yet on nuclear issues

The vice president told reporters as he was leaving Virginia Beach on Wednesday that it was still “pretty early” in talks that U.S. negotiators were having with Iranian and Qatari officials.

Vance said they were discussing details related to commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and “really just ensuring that we continue to make the progress on that, and that’s what they’re focused on.”

“Obviously, we’re worried about the nuclear issue. We’re going to start talking about that,” he said.

Trump highlights chipmaker Micron for plans to invest $250 million in ‘Trump Accounts’

The president has promoted his eponymous investment accounts for children, highlighting a planned $250 million contribution from Micron, a computer memory chip maker.

“This incredible gesture, made by Micron’s fantastic CEO, Sanjay Mehrotra, will make many children extremely happy some day in the not-too-distant future,” Trump posted on social media.

The accounts created by Trump’s 2025 tax cut extension include government seed stock index accounts for newborn children and allow private contributions to accounts for other children.

Micron will provide a $1,000-per-child matching benefit for employees and a one-time $250 deposit into accounts for children in the states where it operates: Idaho, New York, Virginia, California, Colorado, Minnesota and Texas

Micron estimates its commitments will benefit up to 1 million children.

Vance uses speech celebrating 250 years of ‘military excellence’ to slam Iran critics

The vice president visited Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia and began his speech joking that he reminded himself while taking the stage, “Don’t fall and bust your ass.”

The vice president noted former President Joe Biden having infamously tripped in the past, adding, “If I did it one time, it would be a major, major story.”

Vance also slammed critics who he said want the U.S. military “to just keep going and keep going” in Iran and “attack the president of the United States for using the leverage that you gave him to engage in negotiations.”

Vance said unnamed people had similarly suggested the U.S. do more during past wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Such critics, he said, “Encouraged us to just go a little bit further and just drop a few more bombs.”

Trump gives condolences after death of musician who co-wrote ‘Y.M.C.A.’

Victor Willis, who co-founded the Village People and helped write the disco group’s classic hits, has died at age 74.

The song “Y.M.C.A.” is a favorite of Trump’s and is often played at his events.

“We will think of Victor every time ‘Y.M.C.A.’ is played, like today, and all throughout this July Fourth Birthday week,” Trump wrote on social media Wednesday. “My condolences to his wonderful family and group, Victor Willis will be sorely missed.”

Nealy 1,000 US military personnel are helping with Venezuela earthquake relief

The U.S. military now has about 900 military personnel supporting relief efforts in Venezuela following a pair of powerful back-to-back earthquakes that struck the country June 24, Steven McCloud, a U.S. Southern Command spokesperson said.

The statement comes as U.S. Southern Command continues to utilize a host of military aircraft and ships to move supplies and equipment into the country and U.S. Marines have joined search and rescue teams. The Marine Corps has also brought military transport trucks, highly mobile off-road vehicles and military ambulances to “further accelerate the movement of critical supplies and equipment,” a Southern Command statement said Wednesday.

McCloud added that there are also about 100 people from the State Department supporting aid and relief work.

The Venezuelan government has reported more than 1,400 deaths from the quakes over the weekend as well as thousands more that have been reported missing.

Trump administration moves to deport Cubans legally living in the US for alleged espionage

It comes accusations they were working as spies for Cuba’s socialist government.

The State Department said Tuesday that it had revoked the legal status of Carlos Antonio Lloga Dominguez, his wife and son, all of whom are now in federal custody awaiting deportation. The department said Lloga Dominguez had worked for more than a decade in the U.S. as an agent of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People, which it said was an “influence and intelligence front group” for Cuba.

“Under the Trump Administration, America will never become home for Cuban Communist regime thugs who peddle propaganda, run foreign influence operations, or seek to wage revolution against American civilization,” the department said in a statement.

Trump visits Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota

The president is visiting North Dakota on Wednesday to see the newly built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, a massive facility exploring the life of America’s 26th president. The 96,000-square-foot library is in the rugged, lonely landscape where the young Easterner built his conservation values while ranching and hunting in the 1880s.

Saturday’s official opening coincides with July Fourth celebrations honoring the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Trump is coming early to see the $450 million project, a boost for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a former governor of North Dakota, while also bringing the nation’s birthday festivities to a region synonymous with its westward expansion.

▶ Read more

Retrofitted Qatari jet takes flight as Air Force One for Trump’s trip to North Dakota

President Trump is taking his maiden voyage on a new Air Force One — a retrofitted Boeing 747 worth $400 million gifted by Qatar that embeds his personality more deeply into the institution of the American presidency.

Gone is the trademark light blue hull that helped Air Force One blend into the sky. The refurbished jet is painted to Trump’s preferred color scheme of a navy belly and red and gold stripes. It has the luxury features the president believes a commander-in-chief’s entourage should have — plush carpets, lie-flat seats, wood paneling and a presidential seal on the seat belts, according to reported tours of the plane.

Trump told reporters he was proud of the luxurious plane. “You can do two things: You can low-key it, or you can show it,” he said.

▶ Read more

Trump says Pulte can declassify what he wants as acting director of national intelligence

The president said federal housing finance regulator Bill Pulte, who Trump named as the acting director of national intelligence, “can declassify whatever” he wants.

Pulte’s elevation to the position has been a source of tension because of his lack of national security credentials. But he’s been given free reign to force job cuts at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

“Bill is there just for a fairly short period of time, but while he’s there, I said, ‘You can declassify whatever you want,’” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One.

The president estimated that Pulte could hold the job for one or two months. There’s been a push inside Trump’s movement to release documents to back up Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, despite electoral results that show a clear loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump has nominated Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to be the permanent DNI.

The president said Clayton will have a Senate hearing on his nomination in two weeks, after having canceled Clayton’s initial hearing.

Trump claims stock market gains are behind his rising fortune

Financial disclosures show Trump made roughly $1.2 billion off his crypto currency ventures last year, but the president claimed he’s not directing his investments.

“We have funds that run my money,” Trump said. “I made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don’t talk to them. I never, I don’t even speak to them.”

Trump claimed his financial gains largely came from a rising stock market and that those profits help the country as a whole.

“We’re all profiting,” Trump said. “I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.”

But not all Americans have access to the stock market.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that 38% of Americans don’t have exposure to the stock market.

Trump boards new Air Force One, saying Boeing’s answers to questions led him to approach Qatar

Trump beamed with pride about the new Air Force One before its initial voyage, telling reporters pictures of the Boeing 747 given to him by Qatar would win the Pulitzer Prize.

The plane was given to the U.S. by Qatar and Trump relayed how the exchange happened. He said he asked Boeing — which is set to deliver new planes for the presidential jet in 2028 — if there were any counties that had potential substitutes in the interim.

“I said, ‘Who has the best one?’ They said, ‘Qatar. There’s no, there’s never been a plane like it.’ Frankly, we couldn’t build a plane like this because we wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollar,” Trump said.

The president said he went to Qatar and asked to use its plane for a period of time and the emir said he would instead give the plane to Trump. The president described the plane as “a gift from a country that has treated us very well.”

“You’re going to get a kick out of it,” Trump said to reporters about the plane. “There’s just nothing like it.”

How the Supreme Court became a pivotal force in Trump’s immigration agenda

President Trump’s administration looked to the Supreme Court to greenlight its sweeping hard-line immigration agenda and, by and large, it got the backing it was looking for with one key exception — birthright citizenship.

After lower courts repeatedly ruled against the Trump administration, the nation’s top court allowed it to terminate temporary protections for people fleeing war or strife. It gave immigration officers greater leeway in dealing with green card holders returning from abroad, and it allowed the government to limit the number of people who can apply for asylum.

In being asked to serve as an enabler of the Republican president’s contentious immigration crackdown, the Supreme Court showed deference to constitutional guardrails in the key case of birthright citizenship that would have redefined who can be an American. In ruling against the administration, the court upheld the idea that people who are born in the United States, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, are Americans.

▶ Read more

Trump’s actions signal a move toward institutionalizing people with disabilities, advocates warn

For decades, disabled people have fought for their rights to go to school and live alongside peers without disabilities — rights that some fear could be losing ground under the Trump administration.

Last month, the Education Department announced it would offload oversight of special education to the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose comments on the limits of disabilities such as autism have drawn sharp rebukes from advocates and lawmakers.

Meanwhile, following a White House push to police homelessness, the Department of Justice released guidance that lowered the barrier to institutionalizing any person with a disability.

Taken together, the actions signal a worrying return to a reality where people with disabilities are pushed to the margins of society, advocates said.

“It’s a direct, frontal assault on the rights of people with disabilities to live their lives the way that people who are nondisabled live their lives,” said Selene Almazan, legal director for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. “I can’t imagine that as a country, that would be something that we would agree we should go back to.”

▶ Read more

Writer E. Jean Carroll calls for Trump to pay $5.8M after high court appeal fails

Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll asked a judge Tuesday to require President Donald Trump to pay her $5 million from a jury verdict that concluded Trump sexually abused her in the 1990s and defamed her after she publicly described the attack in 2019.

Lawyers for Carroll filed papers in Manhattan federal court to say Trump is unjustly trying to further delay release of the money after the Supreme Court refused Monday to hear an appeal of the 2023 civil jury verdict.

The amount has grown to nearly $5.8 million with interest and should be required by the court to be disbursed, the lawyers wrote, saying Trump has resumed his defamatory attacks against Carroll as his lawyers considered asking the high court to reconsider its decision.

The jury reached its verdict in a trial that Trump did not attend after Carroll testified that she was sexually abused by Trump in spring 1996 in the dressing room of a midtown Manhattan luxury department store after a flirtatious and friendly chance encounter between them turned violent.

▶ Read more

The next meeting will be scheduled “at the earliest possible time” after the funeral of Iran’s previous supreme leader, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, said on X. The funeral is set to start Saturday in Tehran.

U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, were in Qatar for talks seeking a permanent end to the war, along with Iran’s top negotiator, Kazem Gharibabadi.

Negotiators aim to nail down specifics to pave the way for top leaders to seal an agreement, though differences over the Strait of Hormuz and Lebanon loom large.

A ship ran aground in the strait while using a route not approved by Iran, state television in Tehran reported Wednesday. The vessel was identified as a foreign container ship, with no other details.

The report appeared aimed at underlining Tehran’s claims to control the strait, which the world has long considered an international waterway. A fifth of all oil and natural gas passed through it in peacetime.

Since the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28, Iran has used its ability to choke off the waterway as a key source of leverage, disrupting global markets for energy and other critical goods.

The Strait of Hormuz is a key sticking point in talks

Iran and the United States agreed as part of an interim deal to allow ships to pass without paying charges for 60 days. But Tehran insisted it must control the routes of the vessels and later charge fees for passage, upending decades of practice in the waterway.

The U.S. and many Gulf Arab states say they won't agree to the charges. An effort by Oman and a U.N. agency to launch a new route near Oman's shore sparked attacks across the Mideast last weekend, highlighting the tensions.

Iranian state TV on Wednesday said the ship “ran aground with its cargo because of shallow waters along the route it had chosen and was unable to continue sailing.” It said shippers needed to follow the instructions of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in the strait.

The Guard’s navy has repeatedly warned that “any entry or exit through routes other than the ‘Route of Authority’ in the Persian Gulf could lead to irreparable incidents.”

The report did not mention the two ships Iran attacked in recent days for daring to head out through the strait without Tehran's permission, including one carrying crude oil from Qatar.

Qatar meets with both sides

Witkoff and Kushner met Wednesday with Qatar's ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and its foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, according to a statement by the Qatari government.

Discussions included details related to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters in the United States.

“Obviously, we’re worried about the nuclear issue,” Vance said. “We’re going to start talking about that.”

Sheikh Mohammed also met with Gharibabadi and other Iranian officials, with Pakistani mediators also on hand. Gharibabadi said the Iranian delegation had no direct talks with the American side, and its talks with mediators dealt with Lebanon and plans to return some of Iran’s frozen assets, Iranian state media reported.

Lebanon remains a thorny issue in the negotiations. Iran has insisted that all fighting end between the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah and Israeli military forces there.

Iran also has called for Israel to give up the land it now occupies in southern Lebanon. Israel insists it must hold the territory and have a free hand to attack Hezbollah, which has been launching attacks into northern Israel.

More ships get out of Strait of Hormuz

While ship traffic in the strait dropped after the weekend attacks, more countries say their vessels have gotten out.

The Thai Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that 10 out of 11 Thai-flagged vessels or vessels chartered by Thai operators have departed the strait safely. South Korean officials say all but two of the country’s 26 vessels that were stranded have left safely.

US Navy searches for helicopter crew member in the Arabian Sea

In other developments Wednesday, a U.S. Navy helicopter made an emergency water landing into the Arabian Sea, leaving one crew member missing, the Navy’s 5th fleet said in a statement.

The Navy said there was "no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.” It said the MH-60S Sea Hawk went into the water at 3:30 a.m.

Three of the helicopter’s four crew members were rescued, the statement said. The Navy was searching for the missing crew member.

The Navy statement did not say whether the aircraft sank or was recovered. The helicopter was assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush, one of two aircraft carriers deployed in the waters off Iran.

___

Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price and Konstantin Toropin in Washington; Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Samy Magdy and Fatma Khaled in Cairo; Najib Jobain in Doha, Qatar; Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok; Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad; Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea; and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.

“I’m extremely torn up about the way that things were perceived,” Cavalli said before the Nationals beat the Red Sox 10-2. “Obviously, there was no ill intention behind that.”

Cavalli shouted at Contreras after striking him out looking with a full-count pitch in the fourth inning of the Nationals’ 8-1 victory over the Red Sox.

The term “boy” has a racist history in the United States. Contreras, who is Venezuelan, demurred when asked after the game if he felt there was a racial component to Cavalli’s word choice.

“My teammates know me, my family knows me, this organization knows me,” Cavalli said. “I couldn’t sleep because of it. It hurt my heart, knowing that, if there’s a 13-year-old Black kid in D.C. that sees that — that looked up to me and thinks that he perceived it in a way that wasn’t intended the way that it came out, and then he’s not looking up to me anymore — that hurts my heart.”

When asked, he said he understands the meaning behind the word used.

“There’s a history behind that word, and that’s just something that as a competitor, like in football or basketball, playing wiffle ball with my brother, you don’t understand it,” Cavalli said. “And then it gets perceived in a way that was not my intention, and then you learn from that. It’ll never happen again.”

The 27-year-old right-hander said he didn’t realize the public outcry on social media until he got back to his hotel room.

“I looked at my phone, and I saw what people were saying about me. Saw how torn up my wife was. It hurt my heart,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t. Because I know that people know me, and they know my character, and that’s not me. So, it was hard. I truly didn’t sleep last night.”

Contreras was walking back to the dugout after striking out and yelled back at Cavalli: “Are you talking to me?” A few words were exchanged, and he charged the mound. He was stopped before he got to the pitcher. He tried to throw his helmet over a group of players at the righty.

Things settled down quickly after that, though the brief dustup ended with Contreras, Boston interim manager Chad Tracy, Red Sox outfielder Nate Eaton and Washington pitcher Miles Mikolas being ejected.

Cavalli said he hadn’t apologized to Contreras yet, but he hopes he hears his explanation.

“I have not reached out to him. I know that we’re both competitors, I hope that he hears this and he understands that was not what was intended at all,” Cavalli said. “I think he knows that. But if I see him, I want to make sure that he knows that.”

___

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

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) and Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) say they are actively investigating the potential source of the “large and growing outbreak” of cases confirmed in Monroe (70 cases), Lenawee (33), Washtenaw (21), Wayne (12), Shiawassee (7), Jackson (7) and Livingston counties.

Health officials also reported 24 cases across 11 other Michigan counties, including in the city of Detroit. Typically, Michigan only gets around 50 cases per year.

Cyclospora cayetanensis, or Cyclospora, is an intestinal illness caused by a microscopic parasite, which spreads by food or water that has been contaminated with feces.

The parasite is commonly found in developing countries, officials said, and an infection can cause moderate to severe gastrointestinal symptoms such as frequent diarrhea, loss of appetite, abdominal cramps and nausea, and low-grade fever.

Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive for the State of Michigan, says an uptick in cyclosporiasis cases have been reported across the country, not just in Michigan.

According to the Monroe County Health Department, recent outbreaks in the U.S. were caused by consumption of contaminated fresh produce, especially during the summer months. The illness is not known to be spread from person to person.

“Based on the unusual number of cases we have identified in a little over a week, we anticipate additional cases of illness being reported,” she said. “We recommend Michiganders contact their health care provider if they experience sudden, ongoing diarrhea and reach out to their local health department if additional members of their family are suffering from the same symptoms.”

The age range of individuals who were diagnosed with the illness range from 8 years old to 84 years old, with a median age of 41, according to MDHHS.

Symptoms of cyclosporiasis can occur anywhere from two to 14 days after exposure. If the illness is not treated, it can last for a few days to over a month, however with antibiotics symptoms can be significantly improved.

Though the common exposure of the outbreak in Michigan hasn’t been identified, state health officials are urging Michiganders to follow all essential food safety guidelines, such as washing your hands before and after preparing food, and washing all produce before consumption.

Read more about cyclosporiasis here.

Gone is the trademark light blue hull that helped Air Force One blend into the sky. The refurbished jet is painted in Trump’s preferred color scheme: a navy-blue belly with red and gold stripes. It has the luxury features that the president believes a commander-in-chief’s entourage should have — plush carpets, lie-flat seats, wood paneling and a presidential seal on the seat belts, according to reported tours of the plane.

Trump told reporters that he was proud of the luxurious plane. “You can do two things: You can low-key it, or you can show it,” he said.

The retrofitted Qatari jet is intended to serve as a “bridge” between the aging Boeing jets that have served as Air Force One for the last 36 years and two new aircraft, which are years behind schedule and expected to be delivered in 2028 at the earliest. Trump toured the new jet just weeks after returning to the White House last year and directed that it be prepared for his use for the bulk of his remaining time in office.

The compressed timetable set by the president limited the modifications to the plane. Images of the jet captured since its unveiling and analyzed by the Associated Press show that it is not equipped with at least some of the same missile detection and countermeasure systems as the outgoing Cold War-era jets.

The Air Force has said that it did little to change the cabin layout of the plane and that it spent less than $400 million on security upgrades.

Jeremiah Gertler, a senior analyst for Teal Group, an aviation and defense consulting firm, said that this absence, as well as a seemingly smaller number of communications antennas, suggested that the Qatari jet is better suited to only work as a domestic aircraft.

“If you’re going on a long trip, you take the big fancy car, but if you’re just buzzing around town, you’ll settle for something less. Right? And this looks like it’s a domestic-only model,” Gertler said, speaking of the new jet.

“If the idea was to do it as quickly and inexpensively as possible, it would seem to lead to the notion that there’s less content” in the jet’s modifications, Gertler said.

Trump has said he plans to use the new plane next week when he travels to attend the NATO summit in Turkey.

The Air Force argued that the rapid conversion of the jet was done “without accepting any risk regarding security, safety, or secure communications,” but added that “several highly complex engineering modifications required for the final (Air Force One aircraft) were intentionally excluded from the Bridge aircraft.” The service acknowledged that it did not widen the doors leading out of the aircraft or include multiple stairs built into the hull of the plane.

Reporters are generally not permitted to take photos inside the plane unless Trump is present. But on Wednesday, Trump administration staffers shared images of the plane's interior on social media.

White House communications director Steven Cheung posted a photo of aides gathered around a circular table that had off-white place mats and leather captain's chairs. Monica Crowley, the chief of U.S. protocol, posted a picture of herself perched on a leather couch between a pair of Air Force One throw pillows. Mounted on the wall behind her was a framed photo of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.

The jet carried Trump to North Dakota to see the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, its first official visitor ahead of its opening on the nation’s 250th anniversary.

The gift from the Middle Eastern power raised ethical concerns, but Trump saw the plane as a necessary replacement for the older planes that had previously ferried him as president.

“This is a gift from a country that has treated us very well,” Trump said. Trump has said in the past that the Qatar plane would end up in a presidential library.

Andrew Boutros, the U.S attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said the massive review will include all pending grand jury proceedings in his district as well as other presentations by prosecutors going back almost 20 years. It was sparked by revelations of grand jury misconduct that forced prosecutors to abandon a closely watched case against four activists who protested outside a federal building during last year’s immigration crackdown in the city.

“It’s going to be a massive review, a comprehensive review and it is underway,” said Boutros, who was in Washington for an unrelated news conference. Boutros said the process is meant to ensure that his prosecutors have “acted ethically” and to provide “assurances and confidence" that other pending cases have not been tainted by similar issues.

The Justice Department dropped charges against the activists in May after a judge scrutinized allegations of misconduct, which included a prosecutor meeting with a grand juror outside proceedings and other jurors who disagreed with the case being dismissed from participating.

When the case was dismissed, Boutros told a judge that the conduct was upsetting, adding that: “No one acted with the intent to mislead, your honor.”

The judge overseeing the case took the extraordinary step last month of releasing the transcripts of the presentation made by prosecutors, who were seeking to secure an indictment against the activists in the most high-profile cases to come out of the crackdown that rippled across the nation’s third-largest city and its suburbs last year.

The transcripts showed that one of the grand jurors called the case a “crock of (expletive)." The grand juror was subsequently excused from the proceedings.

The incident occurred around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday (June 30) at the Southridge Park Apartments on Warwick Court.

Police said the toddler was shot in the stomach and taken to C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor.

The child’s condition is not known at this time.

Police say the shooting was accidental, and a 25-year-old Jackson man has been arrested for violating Michigan’s Safe Storage Law and is expected to be arraigned soon.

Alibaba operates some of the world's largest e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba.com and AliExpress.com.

The U.S. alleges that Alibaba’s U.S.-based payment processor, AUS Merchant Services, violated federal law by failing to prevent merchants from selling and importing illegal products into the U.S. through Alibaba.com and AliExpress.com.

Alibaba acknowledges in an agreement with the Justice Department that between January 2016 and December 2024, it failed to stop roughly 80,000 product sales involving unlawful imports that violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and other federal laws.

A news release on the settlement resolution says that Alibaba employees raised concerns that the company’s compliance controls were inadequate and failed to prevent the sale of illegal products — and, in some instances, merchants used Alibaba’s messaging service to direct buyers to third-party messaging platforms to facilitate illegal sales.

In a statement, Alibaba said the firm and the U.S. government reached a mutually satisfactory resolution to bring stricter compliance to the sale of products in the U.S. by third-party merchants on its e-commerce platforms.

Law enforcement officers across the FDA, FDIC, IRS-CI, and other agencies conducted more than 40 undercover purchases of pharmaceuticals and equipment that were illegal to import into the U.S., according to the news release. A non-prosecution agreement was crafted between Alibaba and the Justice Department.

IRS Criminal Investigations' Chief Jarod Koopman said the resolution "underscores IRS Criminal Investigation’s commitment to following the money and ensuring that companies operating in the United States comply fully with federal law.”

It adds up. The United States trades $1.9 trillion a year — $5 billion a day — worth of goods and services with its neighbors, Canada and Mexico. They have supplanted China to become America's top two trading partners.

So the stakes are high when it comes to fiddling with the rules that govern trade between the three countries. And after a year of President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff policies, many U.S., Canadian and Mexican businesses would welcome the return of stability across North America.

They are not likely to get it.

The regional trade pact — the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA — that Trump negotiated and boasted about came up for renewal Wednesday, starting a process that is likely to last months, maybe longer.

And the path forward is lined with landmines.

"There’s going to be a lot of drama this summer," Diego Marroquín Bitar, a fellow in the America’s program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said last week at a USMCA forum sponsored by the Cato Institute.

A bumpy road ahead for North American trade

The U.S. is making demands that could effectively force Canada and Mexico to surrender some automaking production to the United States. That might bring more auto factory jobs to the United States. But it would also upend established supply chains and would push up U.S. prices for new cars that now average nearly $50,000 at a time when American consumers are already frustrated about the high cost of living.

Trump, characteristically, has added to the tension by threatening to pull out of his own agreement altogether.

In 2020, the USMCA replaced the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which tore down most trade barriers between the three North American countries.

Trump and other critics had called NAFTA a job killer because it encouraged U.S. companies to move factories south of the border to take advantage of low-wage Mexican labor, then ship goods back to the United States duty free.

His USMCA ended up being similar to NAFTA — though it pressured factories to pay higher wages and make sure that more of what they made originated in North America in an effort to prevent Chinese products from slipping across regional borders duty free.

To renew or not to renew?

The USMCA included a novel provision requiring the pact to be renewed every six years. That deadline was Wednesday.

The three countries met virtually Wednesday, but U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement that the United States was not ready to renew the pact as it is for another 16 years — which would have been until 2042. The U.S. wants changes to the agreement to reduce its trade deficits with Canada and Mexico and to resolve specific disputes over issues such as Canada's protection of its dairy industry.

The USMCA remains in effect while the three countries continue to work on ways to resolve their differences; they have until the current term ends in 2036 to reach an agreement. Otherwise, the pact expires.

Mexican Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said in a video posted on his social media accounts that he was confident the review of the treaty could be concluded “within a reasonable time frame.”

“We’re in no rush, but we also don’t want there to be any uncertainty, which is why we need to try to reach an agreement on many issues,” he said. “Our goal is for that review to have fewer outstanding issues each year.”

Meantime, any USMCA country can pull out of the pact provided it gives its two partners six months’ notice — a red buzzer that Canada and Mexico, dependent on trade with the United States, fear Trump just might push.

Trump, after all, said in June that he was “not looking to renew’’ the trade pact with Canada and Mexico. "We don’t need anything that they have,” he said.

Canada is out in the cold — so far

The United States and Mexico have held talks on renewing the trade agreement. But Canada has so far been stuck on the sidelines.

Patrick Childress, a partner at the Holland & Knight law firm and a former U.S. trade negotiator, said: "The danger for Canada is this: that the U.S. government and the Mexican government reach agreement on changes to core provisions of the treaty and then show up in Ottawa and say: ‘Here’s what we’ve agreed to. You can take it or leave it.’’’

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the three trading partners plan to meet virtually on Wednesday, adding: “I’m not looking for my pen.”

Carney later said in French his priority is to update the USMCA and that it is impossible for the U.S. to have a new agreement without the approval of Congress.

Pushing production to the United States

The U.S. wants a refreshed trade pact to do more to make sure that Chinese goods don’t get in through the back door. But the most contentious issue is a U.S. push to require that more products are made in North America — and specifically the United States.

The USMCA included a requirement that automotive products must be 75% made in North America — up from 62.5% under NAFTA — to qualify for duty-free treatment.

The U.S. wants to push the 75% threshold even higher but it won’t be easy. Automakers already "have been fine-tuning their supply chains for years to be able to hit that 75% mark," Childress said. They would need time to meet the higher standard.

The U.S. is also seeking a brand-new requirement: that 50% of cars be made in the United States, Carney confirmed in early June. Currently, none of the USMCA countries gets a guaranteed share of production. "It’s a red line for both Mexico and Canada, and it goes against the spirit and the letter of regional integration," said Oscar Ocampo, director of economic development at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness.

Marcos Carias, an economist at the credit insurer Coface, said only 1 in 5 Mexican and Canadian cars imported into the United States would currently meet the 50% standard.

Vehicle models likely to be hit with higher costs under the plan, he said, include Ford’s Maverick compact pickup truck, Chevrolet’s mid-size Equinox SUV and some Nissan sedans — all made in Mexico. Carias’ "back of the envelope" calculations suggest that prices could increase 5% to 7% on the most-affected models.

Businesses want stability

A lot of companies just want relief from Trump’s ever-changing tariffs. “My interest in this USMCA renewal is just consistency, right?" said Shawn Miller, co-founder of PKGD Group, which imports agave spirits (tequila, mezcal and raicilla) from family producers in Mexico. “If the rules change, the rules change. But we’d really like to know (what they're going to be) and we’d like them to stay that way for a while."

Business is booming for PKGD. Sales at the Holland, Michigan-based firm are up 62% so far this year after surging 100% in 2025 and 300% in 2024.

But last year was chaotic.

Trump hit Mexican and Canadian goods with a 25% import tax in February only to turn around a month later and exempt products that were eligible for preferential USMCA treatment. The USMCA allows the Mexican spirits into the United States duty free.

Amid the tumult, three truckloads of Mexican spirits imported by PKGD crossed the border into the United States and got hit with the 25% tariff. The cost came to $105,000. "For us, it was one unfortunate day!'' Miller said.

Not knowing what tariffs Trump might conjure up next, PKGD huddled with its Mexican producers to figure out how to respond. “What can we absorb? What can they absorb?" Miller said. “How can we mitigate this?"

Miller said he and his Mexican suppliers “are not large multinational corporations with dedicated trade departments, teams of lawyers, or lobbyists focused on trade policy."

Kerry Mellin can sympathize.

In 2014, the veteran Hollywood costume designer started a business in Ventura County, California, selling silicone grips that enable people with disabilities (such as cerebral palsy and Parkinson’s) to hold things — spoons, cups, pens, toothbrushes.

But sales floundered when she introduced her EazyHold grips in Canada, where she has dual citizenship. She thinks it’s because the silicone she imports from Asia kept her grips from having enough North American content to qualify for USMCA’s duty-free treatment when they crossed the border from the United States.

Mellin suspects EazyHold could meet the USMCA standards, “but the rules are complex and unpredictable enough that I genuinely can’t be sure without hiring a trade attorney."

Mellin believes the USMCA’s rules of origin should be loosened, not tightened, to help small businesses that can’t afford costlier raw materials from North America.

“I do understand why the rule exists -- to stop companies from routing Chinese goods through Mexico," she said. “I just wish it could tell the difference between that and a small family business in California making grip aids for people who can’t hold a fork. I’m not the problem they were trying to solve."

____

AP Writers Maria Verza in Mexico City and Rob Gilles in Toronto contributed to this story.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% for its eighth loss in 11 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 13 points, or less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.7%.

General Mills helped lead the market and climbed 8.5% after the company behind the Cheerios and Progresso brands reported better results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also announced a plan to cut $3 billion in costs over four years.

Three out of every five stocks within the S&P 500 likewise climbed, and the index trimmed an early drop of 0.7% after a report said U.S. manufacturing grew last month at a slightly slower speed than economists expected. The survey from the Institute for Supply Management also said prices were increasing at a slower pace.

The data could take some upward pressure off inflation, which in turn could make the Federal Reserve less likely to raise interest rates multiple times this year. Following the report, the yield on the 10-year Treasury pulled back from a peak near 4.50% in the morning and fell to 4.47%.

That offered some relief because higher yields make it more expensive for businesses and households to borrow money and in turn can slow the economy. Higher yields also tend to undercut prices for stocks and other investments. Yields have been on the rise since the war with Iran began because of worries about high inflation caused by expensive oil.

The heaviest weights on the market were stocks that had soared earlier in the euphoria around artificial-intelligence technology, including drops of 10.6% for Micron Technology, 6.9% for for Advanced Micro Devices and 1.3% for Nvidia.

Such stocks have been zigzagging in recent weeks because of worries that they had become too expensive. They also have big influence on the S&P 500 and other indexes because they’ve grown so huge in size.

Kroger swung from an early loss to a gain of 1.3% after the grocer said it agreed to buy Giant Eagle for $1.25 billion in cash. It will also take on $400 million in liabilities to buy the food and pharmacy retailer with stores stretching from Indiana to Maryland.

Nike also flipped an initial loss and rose 4.9% after reporting stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The athletic-gear giant is in the midst of a turnaround attempt by CEO Elliott Hill, and he said it’s still facing headwinds dragging on its revenue.

All told, the S&P 500 slipped 16.13 points to 7,483.23. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 13.96 to 52,305.24, and the Nasdaq composite fell 173.69 to 26,040.03.

Gold’s price recovered from an early to rise. It briefly sank below $3,980 per ounce overnight, down from more than $5,300 per ounce early this year. When Treasurys pay more in interest, investors become less willing to pay high prices for investments. That includes gold, which pays its holders nothing.

But the weaker-than-expected manufacturing report and ensuing easing of Treasury yields sent gold back up 1.1% to settle at $4,082.40 per ounce.

In the oil market, prices sank as hope remains that the United States and Iran may ultimately end their war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers delivering crude. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 1.9% to $71.57.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe and Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi fell 2% for one of the world’s biggest moves. It’s been one of the world’s brightest stars thanks to euphoria around SK Hynix and other AI stocks, and the index is still up 97% for the year so far.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 rose 0.6% after the Japanese yen fell to a 40-year low against the U.S. dollar.

___

AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report.

Powell has agreed to a two-year deal that could be worth up to $45 million with the Chicago Bulls, a person with knowledge of the talks said Wednesday. Powell also had received some interest from the Detroit Pistons, said the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the contract cannot be finalized until July 6 at the earliest.

ESPN and Chicago Sports Network were among those who first reported the agreement between Powell and the Bulls, who will hold a team option for 2027-28. Powell spent this past season in Miami, where he became an All-Star for the first time and averaged 21.7 points in 58 games with the Heat.

Miami will have a very different look this coming season, after the acquisition of Giannis Antetokounmpo in a trade that sent Tyler Herro and others to Milwaukee. Powell will be joining his fifth team, after past stints with Portland, the Los Angeles Clippers, Toronto and the Heat.

All-Stars on the move

Powell is among five — and there likely will be more — All-Star selections from 2026 alone to be on the move this offseason.

He joins Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee to Miami), Kawhi Leonard and Brandon Ingram (the headliners of a trade that brings Leonard back to Toronto and sends Ingram to the Los Angeles Clippers), and LeBron James (who is leaving the Los Angeles Lakers for a yet-to-be-decided team).

Of the 62 players with at least one All-Star selection in the last five years, just over half — 32 of them — have changed teams at least once in that span.

Nikola Vucevic returns to Orlando

Nikola Vucevic is headed back to the Orlando Magic, agreeing on a one-year deal for just under $4 million, a person with knowledge of those talks confirmed.

Vucevic is second all-time on the Magic list in rebounds, third in points and fourth in games played. The 35-year-old center has been in the league for 15 seasons, nine of those with Orlando — and now joins a young core led by Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner.

Orlando needed another post option after losing Moritz Wagner in free agency to Brooklyn — and Vucevic, who still has a home in central Florida, was the natural fit.

Moritz Wagner, the brother of Franz Wagner, is signing a two-year deal with the Nets.

Vucevic averaged 15.1 points this past season for Chicago and Boston.

Also Wednesday, the Magic re-signed forward Jonathan Isaac. He was waived last week in a procedural move, only to be brought back as expected for what will be his 10th season with the club (including two he missed with injury).

Mitchell Robinson, Mike Conley Jr. to Boston

Mitchell Robinson just won a title with New York, and now the center will chase another in Boston.

The Celtics agreed to a $47.4 million, three-year deal with Robinson, a person with knowledge of that agreement told the AP. And veteran guard Mike Conley Jr. also is headed to the Celtics on a one-year deal, a second person with knowledge of that agreement said.

Robinson's deal includes a third-year option. Conley is set to play a milestone 20th season in the NBA.

Marcus Smart to Houston

Marcus Smart, the NBA's defensive player of the year in 2022, is about to join his fourth team in a span of 17 months after agreeing with the Houston Rockets on a two-year deal worth about $12.7 million, a person with knowledge of those talks told the AP.

Smart was with Memphis as recently as February 2025, then was sent to Washington to complete that season and spent this past season with the Lakers.

He averaged 9.3 points and started 54 games for the Lakers in 2025-26.

Tobias Harris to San Antonio

The Western Conference champion Spurs got another veteran, adding Tobias Harris on a two-year deal worth about $15 million this coming season and about $16 million in 2027-28, a person with knowledge of the agreement told the AP.

Including playoff games, Harris has played in 466 victories over the last decade — the sixth most of any player in the league over that span. Harris, who turns 34 later this month, averaged 13.3 points this past season for Detroit.

John Collins to Detroit

Forward John Collins is changing teams again, after agreeing to a three-year contract with the Pistons, a person with knowledge of those negotiations told the AP.

ESPN reported the deal is worth $51 million.

The Pistons will be Collins' third team in as many seasons. He started his career in Atlanta, then spent two seasons in Utah (until 2024-25) and played for the Clippers last season.

Lakers reload

The Lakers are thoroughly retooling their roster following James’ decision and Smart’s departure. After agreeing to a major trade to acquire center Walker Kessler from Utah, they added forward Sandro Mamukelashvili and guards Quentin Grimes and Collin Sexton in free agency, a person with knowledge of those talks told the AP.

Mamukelashvili, a bulky power forward with an outside shooting touch, played his way into a multiyear deal with the Lakers by scoring a career-high 11.2 points per game and hitting 38.9% of his 3-point attempts for Toronto last season and then opting out of his contract.

Grimes is a former Dallas teammate of Luka Doncic who provides strong on-ball defense and versatile offensive skills. Grimes posted a photo of himself as a child wearing Lakers gear on social media Wednesday.

Sexton has been a consistent scorer throughout his first eight NBA seasons with four teams. He averaged 15.4 points and 3.3 assists per game last season for Charlotte and Chicago.

Kelly Oubre Jr. to Indiana

The Indiana Pacers, who played in the NBA Finals in 2025 and expect to be a playoff contender again this coming season, have agreed to terms with Kelly Oubre Jr. on a two-year deal. ESPN and The Indianapolis Star reported it to be worth around $17 million.

Oubre averaged 14.1 points for Philadelphia this past season.

___

AP Sports Writers Kyle Hightower in Boston and Greg Beacham in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

___

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

Krejcikova earned her biggest victory on Centre Court since winning the 2024 Wimbledon title by knocking out French Open champion Mirra Andreeva 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 in the second round Wednesday.

It didn't come easy, though.

Andreeva faced six match points when Krejcikova served for the match at 5-3 and saved them all before finally converting her fourth break point in a marathon game.

The fifth-seeded Russian teenager handed her opponent a seventh match point when she sliced a backhand wide in the next game, and this time Krejcikova converted with a bit of luck. Her shot hit the net cord and bounced in and Andreeva could only return it long.

Andreeva, coming off her first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros, threw her racket in disgust and later smashed it into her bag before leaving Centre Court.

“What a match,” Krejcikova said, trying to sum it all up. “What a match.”

Earlier, No. 1 ranked Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner both advanced in straight sets, with Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka also reaching the third round. Novak Djokovic finished off Day 3 by beating Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 on Centre Court to continue his quest for a 25th major title.

Krejcikova is a two-time Grand Slam winner, also taking the 2021 French Open title, but has struggled with back and knee injuries and has fallen to No. 38 in the rankings.

Andreeva had shown signs of frustration throughout the third set — including when her bead bracelet broke during a point at 1-1 and she had to spend a few moments picking beads out of the grass along the baseline and throwing them toward the back of the court.

Two ball kids and the chair umpire joined her in cleaning up before play resumed.

There was also some loud cheers during the third set that had nothing to do with tennis. Some in the Centre Court crowd had half an eye on England's World Cup match against Congo and celebrated both of Harry Kane's goals and the final whistle.

Gauff came from a break down in the third set and then won the last six points of the tiebreaker to beat Solana Sierra 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7).

Gauff was two points away from losing the match when Sierra served at 5-4 in the third set but won three straight points to break back.

“When she had to serve for the match I just reminded myself that I’m a great returner as well,” Gauff said. “I was just trying to be positive and I think that showed.”

Gauff had her breakthrough at Wimbledon in 2019 when she reached the fourth round as a 15-year-old, beating Venus Williams in the first round. As it happens, that win over Williams also came on July 1 on No. 1 Court.

“It was kind of my breakout moment, and playing against one of my idols was insane,” Gauff said. “Every time I walk down this hallway I get deja vu and I just remind myself, like, if I could do that (seven) years ago, I'm definitely a better player since then. So I definitely can do it now.”

Osaka showed off a new look again before winning her second-round match.

Osaka, whose fashion reveals have become an event of their own at Grand Slam tournaments, wore a less elaborate outfit for her walk-on than the “Kill Bill” inspired kimono she sported for her opening-round match on Monday.

It still drew plenty of attention as she made the walk from the locker room to No. 2 Court, trailed by photographers and fans wanting to take their own photos.

This all-white outfit featured a wide belt and a long train that trailed behind her, which the four-time major winner took off as she began warming up for her match against qualifier Anastasia Gasanova.

She went on to quickly dispatch Gasanova 6-3, 6-2.

“I'm just trying to mix it up a little bit,” Osaka said about her outfit, adding she had been worried that a loss might have ruined her daughter Shai's third birthday on Thursday.

“I just wanted to be here for longer, I didn't want to make her get on a plane on her birthday,” Osaka said.

Sabalenka soon followed her into the third round, beating McCartney Kessler 6-1, 7-6 (9) on No. 1 Court.

Sinner, the defending champion who came from a set down twice to win in five sets in the first round, had a more comfortable victory Wednesday. Sinner beat Nuno Borges 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-4 in the first match on Centre Court.

It wasn't entirely straightforward for the Italian, though, as he had to break back for 5-5 when Borges served for the second set, before winning in just over 2 1/2 hours.

“Second set was very, very tough,” Sinner said.

Other winners included French Open runner-up Flavio Cobolli, No. 8 Daniil Medvedev, No. 17 Frances Tiafoe and No. 21 Tommy Paul.

On Tuesday, Serena Williams returned to Centre Court but lost in three sets to Maya Joint in her first singles match in nearly four years. Williams, who tweaked her knee in the match, still hopes to play doubles with sister Venus later in the week.

___

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

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Wednesday that there are no known specific or credible threats to this year’s celebrations, which will include parades of sailing ships and naval vessels on the Hudson and East rivers, jet flyovers and a massive fireworks show — all happening during a heat wave that could also tax emergency medical personnel.

Plus, police will be dealing with another event that will bring a lot of attention to the city — the wedding of pop star Taylor Swift and football player Travis Kelce.

“In a briefing about major events happening this weekend in New York City, I would be remiss not to mention an event that we are tracking at Madison Square Garden on Friday night," Tisch said in a winking reference to the nuptials. "The NYPD will, of course, have a detail in place, but I am not going to go into more specifics on that at this time."

A law enforcement official briefed on security plans told The Associated Press that the celebrity wedding will be held Friday, with a smaller rehearsal dinner Thursday night. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the events publicly.

Uniformed officers, K-9 units and heavy weapons teams will be out in force along the city's waterfronts for the Sail 250 festivities, which will bring around 100 vessels and about 27,000 sailors, crew members and dignitaries to the city for events Friday, Saturday and beyond.

Attendees will be required to go through security checkpoints as they head to waterfront viewing areas Saturday, officials said.

In the evening, the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks show will draw thousands of eyes upward as 85,000 shells are launched from six barges and a laser show beams up from the Brooklyn Bridge.

Also in the sky: the police department's aviation unit and drone teams, which will be monitoring the city and looking out for illegal drones hovering in the restricted flight area around the show.

“The message is clear: If there is any illegal drone activity that violates our temporary flight restrictions, your drone will be seized," Tisch said.

The department will also deploy counterterrorism resources, explosive detection K-9s, bomb squad personnel and heavy weapons teams, along with plain clothes officers and a harbor unit for the waterways.

Meanwhile, the city will again have special security restrictions in place at its busiest rail hub, Penn Station, on Sunday to accommodate thousands of fans headed across the Hudson to see Brazil take on Norway in the World Cup. Only people with a ticket to the match will be allowed into some parts of the station.

Police have already been setting up crowd-control barriers and hanging “no parking” signs near Madison Square Garden, which sits atop Penn Station, in anticipation of crowds of Swift fans and other gawkers hoping to catch a glimpse of wedding-related events.

___

Associated Press reporter Jake Offenhartz contributed to this story.

Avi Loeb, a cosmologist who studied black holes and served as head of Harvard’s astronomy department until 2020, was recently appointed to helm a new scientific advisory council tasked with investigating the origins of mysterious orbs and other objects reported by military personnel in recent years.

Loeb’s team will report to a new panel focused on UFOs, now often referred to as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP. The panel was established by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It’s part of the push announced by President Donald Trump in February to declassify more information about the issue.

“It’s like a detective story,” Loeb said in an interview. “It’s a lot of fun, as long as you don’t pay too much attention to the critics.”

For the last decade, Loeb has been scanning the skies and seas for evidence of intelligent alien life. He began the quest in 2017 as scientists puzzled over an interstellar object soaring by Earth. While others proposed it was a comet or ice chunk, Loeb said it could be a thin “light sail” detached from an alien spacecraft.

His theories have won praise in UFO circles but often put him in conflict with academic peers. Other astronomers accuse him of making exotic claims with little evidence. Some chafe at his habit of skipping the peer review process and bringing claims directly to the public.

Steve Desch, an Arizona State University astrophysicist who has challenged some of Loeb’s theories, said Loeb uses flawed methods to reach wild conclusions about alien life — all while shunning a more established branch of science searching for life beyond Earth.

Loeb’s role on the administration’s new panel casts doubt on the entire endeavor, Desch said.

“I don’t know what’s going to come of this, but we’re not going to get any closer to answering these questions with him in charge,” Desch said.

The team includes scientists, UFO activists and a billionaire

Loeb brushes his critics aside, saying they lack the imagination to consider new ideas. He’s promising a grounded approach to his work for the Trump administration. As he analyzes UAP, he’s starting with the assumption that they’re the work of humans, he said, approaching it from a national security perspective.

Nonetheless, he envisions an outcome where his work could lead to something bigger. If the government invests in better data collection on UAPs, Loeb said, it could settle the alien debate once and for all.

His hand-picked team includes more than a dozen scientists and UFO activists. Among them is Timothy Gallaudet, a retired rear admiral who has warned about UAP controlled by “nonhuman intelligence,” claiming the United States has recovered crashed aircraft. Also on the team is Ben Lamm, a billionaire working to revive extinct species.

After its first meeting last month, the team sent a request to the Pentagon asking for more than 50 videos, images and other documents related to known UAP incidents. Loeb’s group meets behind closed doors, but he has vowed to brief the public and create a website to share findings.

“At a time when science is not so much celebrated, this is an opportunity to actually do good for all sides involved,” Loeb said.

New UAP board created in response to Trump’s order for transparency

Earlier this year, Trump directed his administration to provide more transparency on questions of UFOs and alien life. So far, the Pentagon has released three batches of files ranging from decades-old FBI reports to more recent military videos showing orbs darting or soaring through the sky.

Trump’s directive led to the creation of a UAP Governance Board overseen by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The board met for the first time in June, and is supported by Loeb’s team and several other advisory groups, the office said.

It comes as a bipartisan group in Congress pushes the White House to go further, with some Republicans amplifying claims the U.S. is hiding evidence of alien encounters. The White House has encouraged anyone with information to come forward. A Pentagon office that investigates UAP says it has seen no evidence of alien life.

Loeb said he doesn’t buy into cover-up theories. “My impression is the government is baffled by not being able to infer the nature of some of these objects,” he said.

Before looking for aliens, Loeb studied black holes and galaxies

Before he became known for his alien theories, Loeb was a respected cosmologist who authored hundreds of papers, specializing in black holes and the birth of galaxies. He served as chair of Harvard’s astronomy department for nearly a decade.

Loeb’s career took a turn with his “light sail” theory in 2017, which he presented in a paper and later a book. He went on to found the Galileo Project at Harvard, with a stated mission to search for artifacts from alien civilizations.

His team drew attention in 2023 when they used magnets to retrieve hundreds of small spheres from the floor of the Pacific Ocean, near the possible site of a 2014 meteor crash. After analyzing the metallic “spherules,” Loeb suggested they came from a distant planet or, alternately, from alien technology.

Other scholars challenged the claim, saying it was probably volcanic rock or coal ash.

Sean Kirkpatrick, a physicist who previously investigated UAP at the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, said Loeb is “not viewed favorably” in the scientific community and lacks national security experience. He said the makeup of Loeb’s team suggests the Trump administration is more interested in fringe theories than hard science.

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

Loeb, meanwhile, said he aims to follow the science without distraction. “Let’s keep our eyes on the orbs,” he said, “not the social media.”

__

This story was first published June 30, 2026. It was updated July 1, 2026, to correct that the panel was established by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to President Donald Trump’s February directive on the issue, not by the White House itself.

“Hershey to me is everything -- it’s where my family is from, it’s where I grew up,” Pulisic recently said on his Instagram account as he promoted limited-edition Pulisic’s Milk Chocolate Bars by the Hershey Company that feature custom wrappers with his signature. “It’s where I learned how to play. It’s just home.”

Pulisic grew up in this south-central Pennsylvania community surrounded by farms and rolling countryside, where even the streetlights along Chocolate Avenue are shaped like Hershey’s Kisses. The community was founded in 1903 by Milton S. Hershey, the American businessman and philanthropist who also built homes for workers, a hotel and a theme park that Pulisic often visited with family.

More than 120 years later, the Hershey Company is still the economic engine of Chocolatetown, USA. But the “Man Behind the Chocolate Bar” now shares the hometown hero honor with the soccer player nicknamed “Captain America.”

Pulisic inspires young soccer players in Hershey

Pulisic’s hometown roots run deep, and during the World Cup, his community has rallied around him as the U.S. plays some of its most exciting soccer ever.

“It’s pretty amazing that he came from Hershey and played for my club,” said Hershey High School rising freshman Cecelia Stefanelli who, on a recent afternoon, kicked a ball to score a goal on her father at a field where Pulisic played.

The Americans will attempt to win their first World Cup elimination game in 24 years on Wednesday evening, when they face Bosnia-Herzegovina in the round of 32 in Santa Clara, California. They should have a healthy Pulisic after the star missed the second group-stage game with a calf injury and played only 33 minutes as a sub in the final group match against Turkey.

“I’d love if USA won the World Cup; it’d make me happy,” said Stefanelli, a center back who also plays for the Pennsylvania Classics soccer club. Pulisic often credits the structure and coaches at PA Classics, where he played for eight years, with helping develop his skills. In 2021, he returned to the club for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for new fields that he financed and helped design. It's now known as the Pulisic Stomping Grounds.

The club is located in Lancaster County, surrounded by chicken and dairy farms that give off a pungent odor of fermenting feed and manure.

On a recent day, Liam Gustafson and Moussa Oumarou juggled a soccer ball and passed it back and forth as they warmed up for training in front of a huge collage of photos of Pulisic that trace from his childhood training to starring for the U.S. at the World Cup.

“It’s really special to see someone from around here, where we live, playing in the World Cup,” said Gustafson, a 17-year-old forward who dreams of playing pro soccer and calls Pulisic his role model. “It’s really inspiring to see someone who paved the way, so that we can do that someday.”

Pulisic's path to USMNT stardom ran through Hershey

The road to soccer was paved early as Pulisic followed in the footsteps of his parents. He was born in Hershey on Sept. 18, 1998, to Kelley and Mark Pulisic, both former collegiate soccer players at George Mason University. His father went on to play pro indoor soccer for the Harrisburg Heat. The family moved to England for a year while Pulisic’s mother completed a Fulbright Program teacher exchange and their 7-year-old rising star played for the Brackley Town youth team.

“Mark and Kelley could write a playbook on how to raise a humble, smart, kind superstar, while maintaining family relationships,” said Tara Seymour, a family friend and retired health and physical education teacher at Hershey Middle School. She met the family at a soccer camp and became close friends with Pulisic’s mother.

“She just quietly said to me one time, ‘We have never seen anything like this.’ This is a kid who could juggle the soccer ball hundreds of times when he was in elementary school,” Seymour said. Pulisic, she said, would practice in his backyard for hours, trying to emulate the moves of pros he saw on TV.

“He has an intensity that couldn’t be taught,” she recalled. “I think he had the opportunity to go pro earlier or go to Europe earlier and they held back just to make sure emotionally and maturity-wise he was ready.”

When the family returned to Hershey, Pulisic joined PA Classics at the age of 10. The club's president and co-founder Doug Harris said Pulisic's talent allowed him to play with older age groups, and he was often the smallest player on the field.

“I think if you were to pull kids in the world who want to achieve the level of Christian Pulisic, you’d have millions that would step up, raise their hand. They’re all gifted; they all can play,” Harris said. “But there’s something fundamental about what Christian has been able to do and I’d credit Mark and Kelley Pulisic with a lot of that.”

Looking forward to the future of American soccer

The Americans' only World Cup knockout win came on June 17, 2002, when they defeated Mexico 2-0 in the round of 16 in South Korea. Pulisic has said the team's approach won't change in this round and the mood remains light despite the high stakes.

“It’s just special to be here,” he said. “You just don’t want it to end.”

Ahead of the game against Bosnia-Herzegovina, PA Classics coaches Brittney Jakobson and Nick Jakobson took their children, Declan and Camden, to kick a ball at Pulisic’s former club. The Americans, they said, have a shot at winning the tournament. But their legacy goes beyond the trophy.

“Their goal is to inspire a generation and it’s really fun to see that happening in real time … to hear people going out and watching the games, to see people buying the jerseys,” Brittney Jakobson said.

“Pulisic, obviously, in the short term is a great kind of figure to follow,” said Nick Jakobson. “But he does very much encourage that it’s not just about him. It’s not about just these four years. It’s about the next eight, 12, 16. It’s forward-thinking, and they’re laying a good foundation for what we can build on.”

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Harry Kane ensured England avoided an early exit from the inaugural 48-team World Cup by scoring two second-half goals in a come-from-behind 2-1 win over Congo in the round of 32 on Wednesday.

The late victory, England's second ever at the World Cup after conceding the first goal, earned the 1966 champions a spot in the round of 16 and a match against co-host Mexico.

“It was just about pounding the rock, keep pounding the rock and our moment would come,” Kane said after scoring his fourth and fifth goals of the tournament. “We spoke about people having hero moments. It can be anyone in the team … Whoever it is, we have hero moments, and for me it was the day.”

That team's next match will be played at the Azteca Stadium, the site of Argentina great Diego Maradona’s infamous “Hand of God” goal that eliminated England from the 1986 World Cup quarterfinals.

Getting there didn’t come easy against a Congo team that nearly pulled off one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history.

England's only other World Cup victory after trailing 1-0 came in the 1966 final against West Germany at Wembley Stadium.

“That’s a good sign. It just shows you the level of determination and the level of belief and also the level of focus," England coach Thomas Tuchel said. “I didn’t feel the weight on their shoulders and I found that we played it with the exactly right attitude and we trusted our spirit.

“The goalkeeper kept on saving incredible saves ... but this team today did not accept a defeat as an outcome.”

Kane made sure the early deficit wasn't a problem Wednesday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium by extending his record as his country’s leading scorer in tournament history to 13. He has a record 84 goals for the national team in total.

His first goal came in the 75th minute. Substitute Anthony Gordon lifted a cross from the left and despite Congo goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi getting a hand to Kane’s header, he didn't stop it from nestling into the bottom corner.

Eleven minutes later, Kane sent his shot into the top corner to put the thoughts of an upset to rest.

“When you get to the knockouts, the pressure and the risks are so much higher. But from an attacking point of view, that was easily our best game of the tournament,” Kane said. “Sometimes you just have to grind wins out and we did exactly that today. I told the boys to enjoy it. We’re through, and we go again in four days.”

Brian Cipenga had put Congo in the lead in the seventh minute after collecting a cross on the left of the box and shooting low past England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford at the near post.

Mpasi did his best to keep that 1-0 lead alive. He denied Jude Bellingham on three occasions — blocking two close-range headers before halftime and then clawing away another deflected effort after the break.

Kane nearly made a breakthrough late in the first half, but Mpasi blocked a powerful shot at the near post. And the keeper was also caught up in a collision with Kane in the box. England thought it should have been awarded a penalty, but referee Adham Makhadmeh waved away appeals.

Congo had a chance to double its lead when Yoane Wissa hit the post in the first half.

“We’re disappointed because we really believed we could do it,” Congo coach Sébastien Desabre said. “We played well. Towards the end of the match, we conceded two chances and one of the world’s best players scored two goals against us. It’s a shame.”

England’s only major soccer title came in that 1966 tournament at home. But the team has been getting closer to another in recent years, reaching back-to-back European Championship finals and the semifinals of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Tuchel has been hired to end that winless run. As a German, his appointment was a controversial choice given England’s long-standing rivalry with his country. So anything other than a deep run in this year's tournament would likely reignite questions over the wisdom of that decision.

Despite winning Group L with two wins and a draw at this year's World Cup, there has been a mixed response to England’s performances.

And in a tournament that has seen traditional powers like Germany and the Netherlands eliminated early, the fear was that England could follow that trend against a Congo team that already held Portugal to a 1-1 draw in the group stage.

The 46th-ranked Congo team had already made history with its first goal, point and win at a World Cup, 52 years after its only previous appearance when competing as Zaire at the 1974 tournament in West Germany.

___

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

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that it had confirmed at least 48 cases — 38 of them severe — as of June 30. Since 2004, the average number of cases reported to the CDC by the end of June is around 10. Federal health officials said 23 states have reported finding West Nile virus, the most in 10 years.

“These findings serve as an important reminder that mosquito season is well underway,” said Dr. Erin Staples, a CDC expert on insect-borne diseases. “As families gather outdoors to celebrate Independence Day, we encourage everyone to enjoy their holiday while taking simple steps to protect themselves and their loved ones from mosquito bites.”

Most of the cases have been in Arizona. Of the state's 32 total cases, 29 are in Maricopa County. The county, which includes Phoenix, has also recorded four deaths from the virus so far this year.

Officials there asked people to wear bug spray containing DEET, patch up broken window screens and get rid of standing water, where mosquitoes often breed.

“Even an overturned bottle cap can hold enough water for mosquitoes to breed,” said Melissa Kretschmer, a county health department official. “It’s important that we remove these breeding sources that can form after rain or watering plants.”

The CDC also recommends people wear long, loose-fitting clothes when outside to make it harder for mosquitoes to bite them. Experts also suggest people avoid being outdoors around dusk and dawn, when the mosquitoes that carry the virus are most active.

West Nile virus was first reported in the United States in 1999 in New York, and then gradually spread across the country. It peaked in 2003, when nearly 10,000 cases were reported.

Scientists say many people — perhaps tens of thousands each year — are infected but don’t know it because they have no symptoms, or only mild ones such as headaches, body aches, joint pain, vomiting, diarrhea and rashes.

In severe cases, damage to the central nervous system causes potentially deadly inflammation of the brain or spinal cord. Adults older than 60 and people with underlying medical conditions or weakened immune systems face the highest risk of such complications.

In the last decade, health officials have fielded reports of 2,000 cases annually on average, including 1,200 life-threatening neurological illnesses and about 100 deaths.

___

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

Two women and one man were found unconscious on streets near the iconic Angel of Independence monument, where thousands had gathered Tuesday night to celebrate, Mexico City's Health Secretariat said on the social platform X. The victims, who authorities said died of asphyxiation, were 48, 44 and 19 years old. Authorities did not provide additional details about the circumstances of the deaths.

Later Wednesday, Mexico City Health Secretary Nadine Gasman, told a news conference that another man, about 30, was treated by emergency personnel after suffering an epileptic seizure, convulsions, and gastrointestinal bleeding. He died shortly afterward at a hospital of cardiorespiratory arrest.

Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada said on social media that emergency crews responded immediately after receiving reports of the three unconscious people, but they had already died.

Brugada also urged the public to celebrate “responsibly, carefully and with empathy.”

Fireworks lit up the sky around the Independence Monument — popularly known as “El Ángel” — on Tuesday night as thousands of Mexicans celebrated along the 5-kilometer (3-mile) Paseo de la Reforma, which links the capital’s main square, the Zócalo, with Chapultepec Park.

In a video posted Tuesday on social media, Brugada said about 1.4 million people were celebrating in the streets and urged the public to stop heading to the city center to ease overcrowding. Instead, she encouraged people to attend a concert by a popular cumbia band in the eastern part of the city.

All of Mexico City seemed overwhelmed Tuesday night. Improvised bands sprang up on street corners, while carts loaded with rockets known as “toritos” inched through streets so packed that people could barely move.

Bottles of alcohol were passed from hand to hand among young revelers as hundreds more tried to push closer to the city center, some succeeding, many others turned back by the crush of the crowd.

___

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

Bending Spoons priced 58 million shares at $29 apiece. The company is getting $1 billion in proceeds, while the rest is going to shareholders. The stock surged 39.7% in its first day of trading under the symbol “BSP” on the Nasdaq, giving it a market value of $25.2 billion.

Among the company's well-known holdings are the event creation and ticketing company Eventbrite, and the video hosting service Vimeo. AOL, formerly America Online, is a more recent acquisition for the company. The email and search engine service dates back to the dawn of the internet age.

AOL itself went public in 1992 and was a vanguard of technology and communication. It reached a market value of $164 billion in 2000 shortly before merging with Time Warner. It then crashed along with the rest of the industry following the bursting of the dot-com bubble. It has been bought and sold several times over the last two decades.

Bending Spoons' key focus is acquiring troubled tech companies and overhauling them. The company takes its name from the fictional concept of bending spoons with the mind, as portrayed in the dystopian AI-focused “The Matrix” films. The company's founders say the name is meant to evoke focus and dedication, as well as some humor.

“We were about to attempt to create a world-class company with $40,000, a team of five, and a track record that read 0 for 1," the company wrote in its prospectus. “A touch of irony seemed appropriate.”

The Italy-based company was founded by three friends in 2013 following the failure of their first attempt at building a technology startup. It has since grown by buying more than 50 companies.

The acquired companies are reorganized, and AI technology is often a key tool in the redesign. The focus remains on subscription-based revenue from the portfolio of businesses.

The company said it had net income of $27.5 million on revenue of $601 million during the first three months of 2026. It had more than 500 million monthly active users and 9 million monthly paying customers as of March.

The company has debt of just under $4.4 billion. It plans to use proceeds from the offering to invest in new acquisitions.

The Bending Spoons offering comes amid a resurgence in the IPO market this year, highlighted by the record-setting market debut of SpaceX last month.

All but one of those sentenced in Fort Worth on Wednesday had pleaded guilty to charges related to the July 4 shooting outside the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas. The sentences ranged from nearly two to 15 years in prison.

Eight others who were convicted at trial last week were handed lengthy sentences, including a former Marine reservist who received a 100-year prison term.

Prosecutors said the group’s actions — including bringing firearms, first aid kits and wearing body armor — signaled nefarious intent, and U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman — one of two justices presiding over the sentencings — noted Wednesday that the center is located in a residential neighborhood.

“This could have been an absolute slaughter,” Pittman said.

The U.S. Justice Department alleges the shooting was carried out by members of antifa — a claim attorneys for the defendants have denied. Antifa is an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

The protesters’ attorneys insisted their clients did not plan an ambush and that those who took firearms to the demonstration did so for their own protection. They argued the gathering was planned as a late-night demonstration with fireworks to show support for immigrants detained inside the facility.

Benjamin Song, the former U.S. Marine reservist who was convicted of attempted murder and other charges in the shooting, was sentenced to 100 years in prison, and seven others received prison terms ranging from 30 to 70 years. Some of them, including Song, have filed notices of appeal.

Those convicted at trial had faced various charges, with all but one charged with providing material support to terrorists.

The six defendants sentenced Wednesday who did not stand trial had pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists. Some of them were at the protest that night while others were accused of helping Song avoid arrest after the shooting.

Nathan Baumann was sentenced to almost two years in prison Wednesday after apologizing in court for vandalizing vehicles at Prairieland.

“There is no justification for what I did,” Baumann said.

John Thomas, who was sentenced to nine years in prison, was not at the July 4 protest but was among those accused of helping Song evade arrest by moving him from location to location and providing him with clothes, according to a court document.

“I am so very sorry I ever got involved,” Thomas told the judge

Another person who was convicted at trial was among those sentenced Wednesday. Ines Soto was sentenced to 50 years in prison for providing material support to terrorists, riot and explosives charges.

The case has been closely watched by critics who say the prosecution could have serious implications for protesters nationwide and First Amendment free-speech rights.

One remaining person who pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists is set to be sentenced on Monday. According to a court document, she was among those who helped Song evade arrest.

Serena Williams won plenty of praise about her game from her fellow players at Wimbledon a day after her first singles match in nearly four years.

The 44-year-old Williams was beaten 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3 by 20-year-old Maya Joint of Australia in the first round on Tuesday but showed she could be competitive after being away for so long.

Coco Gauff ended her dinner early to find somewhere to watch Williams.

“I think Serena’s level was insane," Gauff said Wednesday. "It proves even more how she’s the GOAT despite age and all that. I don’t know how she can play that level not playing for four years. I was already nervous not playing two weeks before this tournament. I couldn’t imagine four years.

“I just love her. I love her fight. And the serve is unbelievable,” Gauff added after her second-round win. “You just look at her and you think, ’This is like 10 years ago.' It’s really insane. I think it was cool for the sport.”

The 87th-ranked Joint was in the top 30 earlier this year.

“Maya played top-10, top-5 tennis. Obviously she’s a great player,” Gauff said. “She seems like an even, chill girl. I do think if anyone was ready for the moment, it would be her.”

Williams announced on Wednesday that she tweaked her right knee toward the end of the first set but said she still hopes to play doubles with sister Venus later in the week.

Serena, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion who won seven of her titles at Wimbledon, did not ask for medical treatment during the match and did not meet with media afterward.

“Serena tweaked her right knee at the end of the first set and was therefore excused from her media obligations by the Wimbledon and WTA medical teams,” said Jill Smoller, Williams’ agent. “She left site that night unaided and is doing everything she can to be ready for her doubles match later this week.”

Williams confirmed the injury on Instagram and added, “It felt so good to be back on the grass (at) Wimbledon. I’m incredibly thankful for the wild card — and even more grateful my daughters got to see that it’s never too late to chase something you love.

“Congratulations to Maya Joint on a great match, and thank you to everyone who showed up and showed me so much love. That feeling will never get old,” Williams added.

Serena received wild card invitations from Wimbledon organizers to play both singles and doubles with Venus.

Serena has said that having her two daughters off from school inspired her comeback and it marked the first time that her youngest daughter, Adira, who is almost 3, saw her play singles. Adira sat next to her 8-year-old sister, Olympia in the front row of Serena’s players’ box.

Alexis Ohanian, Williams' husband, wrote on social media: “Our little family is so proud of you (at)serenawilliams — even though it wasn’t the outcome you wanted, you’re an inspiration. We love you” He added that the kids “are also happy they got to stay up a bit past their bedtime.”

Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka also paid tribute on social media: “I really wonder if Serena and Venus know how much they mean to us,” Osaka posted.

Then after winning her second-round match, Osaka discussed watching Serena play.

“The montages that they had before the match started made me really emotional because I feel like I’ve watched her growing up,” Osaka said. “Now I feel like I’m grown up and I get the privilege of watching her again. So it was really cool.”

Fellow American Tommy Paul watched, too.

“It’s pretty impressive at her age,” Paul said. “She was striking the ball pretty well, returning pretty well. I thought she was going to go after it a little bit more. ... I think it would have helped her a lot to have maybe a match of singles before coming out to Wimbledon. But she’s Serena. She can do whatever she wants.”

___

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

Kausen, a chef and cooking teacher in Irvine, California, is more discerning and often uses her sense of smell before deciding what to do with the milk.

“I’ll put some thought into it, and if we’re talking about meat and poultry, I’m very cautious about that and for sure will do the smell test and the touch test,” she said.

The debate playing out in Kausen’s kitchen is repeated in homes across California and the country, where varying phrases on food packaging have long left shoppers unsure whether food is simply past its peak quality or unsafe to eat. The state is aiming to cut down on confusion — and the food waste it creates when people throw away food early — with a new food labeling law starting Wednesday.

It bans the use of “sell by” labels on food packaging, which experts say act as a guide for retailers on how long to display products on the shelves but are not an indicator of whether they are still safe to consume. Now, manufacturers selling food in California must use two standardized labels — a “Best if Used By” label for peak quality and “Use By” label for product safety.

Food manufacturers can choose to use either label or both, said Democratic Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, the author of the bill.

California became the first state in the U.S. to standardize food labels when it approved the law in 2024 that seeks to reduce food waste and the state’s climate-warming emissions. New York state lawmakers recently approved a similar law that is awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature.

Legislation addressing food labeling also has been proposed in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and South Carolina, though it has not passed in those states.

Nick Lapis, director of advocacy at Californians Against Waste, which co-sponsored the bill, said food labels are the leading cause of household food waste. The “sell by” date labels have also been a problem for food banks in California because people consider those dates as meaning the food has expired, he said.

“We don’t need to build some kind of huge infrastructure and invest tons of money to solve this. We just need companies to use the same words across brands,” he said.

There are more than 50 different date labels on packaged food sold in stores, according to a 2022 report on food waste published by the University of Maryland. The information in the labels is largely unregulated and often does not relate to food safety.

“Consumers get confused and they just default to assuming that whatever date is on the package means ‘don’t eat it and throw it away’,” said Kumar Chandran, policy director at ReFED, a nonprofit focused on reducing food waste.

Chandran said California and New York’s approval of food-labeling laws has added momentum to the push for a national standard. A bipartisan bill that would establish uniform food labels is pending in Congress. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommended a decade ago that food sellers should switch to “Best if Used By” labeling.

Currently, the only product that is regulated federally with date labels is infant formula.

With no federal regulations dictating what information labels should include, the stamps have led to consumer confusion — and nearly 20% of the nation’s food waste, according to the Food and Drug Administration. In California, that’s about 6 million tons of unexpired food that’s tossed in the trash each year.

Nate Rose, a spokesperson for the California Grocers Association, said some grocers have had to overhaul their labeling systems, but as a whole, the association has been supportive of the change.

The new labels will result in “a win-win where we can reduce food waste and consumers will find these decisions a little bit simpler,” he said, adding that shoppers will still find old labels in stores for months to come as grocers sell through the products that already have them.

President Donald Trump's latest financial disclosure report showed he took in about $1.2 billion last year from various crypto holdings, overshadowing a real estate business that brought him fame and helped propel him to the nation's top office.

Whereas it took decades for Trump to amass his various properties, the rise of crypto in his portfolio was done in just over a year, a stunning development sped along by his own friendly policies toward the industry and help from billionaires and other actors with important business before the presidency.

Running over 900 pages, the mandatory annual report showed Trump struck several other new veins of wealth last year, raising questions about whether he is profiting from his high office.

He took in tens of millions from new property holdings in foreign countries eager to please a man with power over where to deploy the U.S. military and how much to charge in tariffs. And he got tens of million more suing media companies worried they could lose their broadcast licenses or not get deals approved by his regulators.

Ever the salesman, Trump even made big money off the smallest of things, pulling in millions by slapping his name on Bibles, guitars and watches — the latter alone bringing in $4.7 million.

Hail the new crypto king

Trump got more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling “governance tokens" and “stablecoins” and other crypto assets. Another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face.

Both the tokens and the meme coins have plunged in value since his sales, partly because they are so difficult to value. Governance tokens, for instance, confer to holders only the power to vote on certain management policies at a company, not equity stakes, and so typical valuation measures don't apply.

Buyers pounced on Trump crypto anyway, including a Chinese billionaire who spent $75 million on the tokens and $200 million on the souvenir coins. In February 2025, a federal lawsuit charging the billionaire, Justin Sun, with duping investors was paused before being settled for a $10 million fine.

Sun has denied his spending on Trump businesses had anything to do with his federal case, while World Liberty has dismissed the notion of a conflict of interest.

Separately, a company linked to the United Arab Emirates government bought a stake in World Liberty for $500 million shortly before Trump's inauguration. The disclosure says nothing about the deal explicitly, but notes Trump received his share of a “capital contribution” amounting to nearly $200 million.

Subsequently, the UAE got access to advanced U.S. chips that it had been previously banned from importing because of national security concerns.

The White House has repeatedly said that Trump has acted only in the public interest, never gets involved in a family business run by his two oldest sons and has zero conflicts of interest.

His real estate business is booming, too

Trump took in tens of millions in fees from a flurry of new hotel, resort and condo deals overseas, amounting to the biggest property expansion ever in the century since the family business was founded.

Many of those countries were negotiating with the U.S. over tariffs, military aid and other important matters while the family business was striking the deals.

A property in the UAE generated $10.4 million for the Trump business last year. One in Saudi Arabia being built by a real estate developer close to the ruling family sent the president’s company $9 million. And one in Bucharest, Romania, and another in Qatar sent him $5 million each.

Trump's Winter White House is hot

A big winner last year was Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, generating $77 million as heads of state and business people flocked to what Trump has dubbed his Winter White House. That's up 50% from a year earlier when Trump was just another citizen.

His golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, also is doing well from the glow of the presidency. Trump got $38 million from his so-called Summer White House, up nearly 20%.

In total his 16 golf courses and clubs around the world brought in more than $470 million in fees and licensing income.

The president's MAGA book sold more than the Bible

Trump took in millions last year from selling Trump books and various other Trump-branded goods in another unprecedented move for the presidency.

Trump Bibles made $208,486, but the word of God didn't sell as well as a trio of other literary offerings. His “Save America” book took in $1,893,965, “Letters to Trump” generated $590,730, and “A MAGA Journey,” $552,685.

His brand of guitars generated $35,920. Trump sneakers and fragrances took in $67,634.

Trump sued a lot, and made a lot of money

It's anyone's guess why exactly various media companies decided to settle Trump lawsuits alleging fraud and defamation, but settle they did — and paid up.

Lawsuits against ABC, CBS, Meta, and others took in more than $80 million, much of which went to Trump's planned Miami library.

Where Trump hasn't prevailed so far is with E. Jean Carroll, the advice columnist who won millions accusing Trump of sexual abuse and defamation. The disclosure says Trump owes her $50 million, pending appeal.

The states and federal government accused Cal-Maine Foods, Versova and Hickman’s Egg Ranch of a behind-the-scenes arrangement to “artificially inflate the daily price quotations for eggs" between June 2022 and March 2025. In particular, their investigation found that the companies coordinated on what bids they would submit to Urner Barry Publications, a company that runs an index key to determining how much grocery stores, restaurants and others pay for billions of eggs each year.

In turn, that meant “higher prices for eggs sold to consumers,” alleged the complaint, which was filed in Iowa on Monday, the day the settlement terms were announced.

“When powerful corporations collude behind the scenes to raise prices, working families suffer the costs,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who helped lead the investigation, said in a statement. “These egg producers manipulated the market to squeeze even more profit out of consumers and businesses."

None of the companies admitted wrongdoing under the settlements. But to settle the states' claims, Cal-Maine, Versova and Hickman's will collectively be on the hook for $3.3 million and 53 million eggs, James and others said. Those eggs would be donated by the companies and make their ways to food banks and nonprofits. The money will be distributed to the states.

The Justice Department and the states also outlined actions the companies will need to take, including adopting antitrust compliance programs and banning communicating with competitors on pricing and bidding strategies.

The settlements would still need court approval. The Justice Department's Omeed A. Assefi said Tuesday that the proposed settlements “resolve years of conduct that dragged on Americans’ finances and their everyday lives.”

Average U.S. egg prices soared to a record high of about $6.23 per dozen in March 2025, amid a bird flu epidemic that forced farmers to slaughter millions of egg-laying chickens. Egg producers blamed price spike on the outbreak, but critics accused big companies of taking advantage of their market dominance and the government began its investigation.

Monday’s complaint notes that price quotations “dropped significantly” after Cal-Maine, Versova and Hickman’s learned of the Justice Department’s investigation and were instructed to preserve documents in March 2025. Consumer egg prices also later tumbled — to under $2.20 per dozen as of May 2026 — as replenished flocks caught up despite the ongoing outbreak.

Cal-Maine maintained Monday that allegations of price manipulation were “baseless” and that it believes its conduct has been legal. It also noted that while it was part of a cooperative with the other egg producers, it left the group in May 2024.

Still, Cal-Maine CEO Sherman Miller said the company's settlement agreement “enables us to move forward so we can devote our full attention to what matters most: delivering affordable, high-quality eggs and egg-based prepared foods to consumers nationwide.”

Miller added the period the Justice Department reviewed “was a particularly challenging time” — noting that, beyond avian flu, the COVID-19 pandemic, weather and other market conditions have contributed to temporary supply shocks and high prices in recent years. He said Cal-Maine “took numerous steps to protect and grow its hen flock” in that time.

Versova echoed a similar sentiment, particularly pointing to the toll the bird flu has had on its farmers, who it noted “don’t set the wholesale price of eggs.” Instead, Versova said the price of most of its eggs depends on cost fluctuations of grain used in hen feeds.

Meanwhile, Hickman's owner Mantiqueira USA, which acquired the egg producer in November, said the “conduct referenced in the complaint predates our acquisition," noting that it is committed to complying with the law.

Some advocacy groups say the proposed settlements aren't enough.

“Consumers paid record prices while dominant egg producers reported extraordinary profits, yet the result is another settlement that corporations can treat as the cost of doing business rather than meaningful accountability,” said Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action.

Cal-Maine — the only of the three companies that is public and reports quarterly financials — reported a profit of $1.22 billion for the 2025 fiscal year. Under its settlement agreement with the states, the company would pay $1.5 million and donate 30 million eggs.

Meanwhile, per court documents, Versova would provide 20 million eggs and $800,000, and Hickman's would be on the hook for 3.25 million eggs and $1 million.

In addition to New York, these states were party to the settlement agreements: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

The 51-year-old Genesee County man chose to remain anonymous.

“I play the lottery a lot and have won smaller prizes such as $100, $200, and even $5,000 a few times,” said the man. “When I scratched this ticket, I thought I won $50,000 and I couldn’t believe it. I was so excited, later that day, I looked the ticket over again and my heart started pounding when I realized it was actually a $500,000 winner. It was unreal.”

The player bought his winning ticket at Northend Market, located at G5272 North Saginaw Street in Flint.

He recently visited Lottery headquarters to claim the big prize.

He plans to save his winnings.

7 Practical Safety tips

1. Stay hydrated and drink water, don’t wait until thirsty to hydrate.
2. Cool off your body: take cool showers or baths, place a cool damp washcloth on neck, wrists or forehead.
3. Keep out of the sun: close blinds or curtains during the hottest part of the day to help keep your home cooler.
4. Let cool air in, open windows when temperatures cool down in the evening or early morning to let fresh air circulate
5. Dress for Comfort: wear lightweight, loose-fitting, light-colored clothing to help your body stay cool.
6. Check in on others: Check on family, friends and neighbors, put extra focus on older adults, young children and anyone with chronic medical conditions.
7. Outdoors avoid physical activities, like running.

More you can do for comfort

• Stay cool with frozen food, frozen peas can be used as an icepack.
• Place a mist spray bottle in the fridge to use later.
• Unplug all unneeded electronics.
• Avoid cooling indoors if possible.
• Spray clothing with water, place in bag and let sit in freezer for 15-20 minutes before wearing
• Place bowl of ice cubes in front of fans.
• Place bed sheets in a plastic bag and in the freezer and hour before bed.
• Use a cooling pillow.
• Go to bed with damp hair.
• Place a wet and cold sheet in front of the window.
• Use cooling gel mattress topper/ cooling bed system.
• Wear linen/ cotton clothing instead of syntenic items.
• Wear baggy clothing for comfort.
• Use an umbrella outdoors.
• Wear sunglasses.
• Purchase cooling items.
• Make popsicles.

Places to go with AC

--> Click here for a list of cooling centers by county in Metro Detroit.

• Cooling centers (Linked above)
• Supermarkets (Frozen/chilled aisles).
• Shopping malls.
• Movie theaters.
• Museums.
• Public libraries.
• Coffee shops.
• Restaurants.

Adam Mazur-Baker, 37, was charged with using a computer to commit a crime and malicious use of a telecommunication service. Both charges are misdemeanors.

Mazur-Baker is accused of sending unsolicited and “concerning” messages on Snapchat to an 18-year-old. The Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office said the messages continued until the victim blocked him.

The prosecutor’s office said the result of the charges stemmed from the “totality of the circumstances and the nature of the messages.”

He was arraigned in court on June 30 and was given a $5,000 personal bond. He was ordered to have no contact with the victim.

Mazur-Baker served as a trustee on the Warren Consolidated Schools Board of Education. He has since resigned.

Arrest warrants say Nateal Campbell’s throat was cut and Ciarre Campbell was found with a knife. Officers found her unresponsive when they arrived at around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to a police statement.

Ciarre Campbell, 41, was booked into the Fulton County Jail, where he was being held without bond, and waived his initial court hearing Wednesday on charges including aggravated assault and murder. A lawyer listed for him in online court records did not immediately return an email and voicemail seeking comment on the charges.

In a 911 call released by police, an unidentified man can be heard asking for a wellness check. He tells the dispatcher that he is trying to get inside his mother's house with his brother and sister-in-law. He says they can see another brother, who is “mentally ill” and lives with their mom, inside the home. The caller says the brother inside had said their mother left, but a neighbor's camera footage shows she didn't.

Police records show that before Tuesday, officers had received at least nine calls for service to that address since September for a variety of reasons, including a fight in progress, a suspicious person and an earlier welfare check.

According to a police incident report, a sister of Ciarre Campbell called police on April 24 and said her brother was inside the home and had “started a fire to rid the house of the demons.” The sister told an officer that her mother lived there but had not been at the house for a week because Ciarre Campbell “has overtaken the home.”

Neighbors called the police on multiple occasions to report disturbances, and Nateal Campbell told an officer in mid-April that her son had not been taking medication prescribed to treat schizophrenia, reports show.

The Campbell family issued a statement asking for privacy while they deal with “overwhelming grief.”

“We are devastated to share that the Campbell Family has lost its matriarch, Mrs. Nateal Campbell,” the family statement said. “While the details of her passing are still being investigated, we take comfort in knowing she is reunited with our father, her beloved Chuck, and in the arms of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

A defensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens, Calais Campbell is entering his 19th NFL season after signing a one-year, $5.5 million contract in April. He is the oldest active defensive player in the NFL going into the 2026 season. He will be 40 on Sept. 1.

The 2017 first-team AP All-Pro selection has been voted to the Pro Bowl six times in a career that started as a second-round pick in 2008 with the Arizona Cardinals.

The former Miami Hurricane spent 10 seasons with the Cardinals and also played in Jacksonville, Atlanta and Miami.

Campbell has 117 career sacks in 278 games, including 259 starts.

The man matched the Fantasy 5 numbers in the June 3 drawing to win the prize (05-10-21-34-37).

The 66-year-old player chose to remain anonymous.

The man says he plays every now and then and expected the email to be a much smaller prize.

“I saw an email about a prize and just assumed I’d won a few dollars again.” said the man. “Later that day when I logged on to my account to do my Daily Spin to Win, I couldn’t believe it when a pop-up came up saying I won $358,122.”

He bought his ticket online at MichiganLottery.com.

The man recently visited Lottery headquarters to claim his prize.

With his winnings, he plans to pay bills, buy a new car, and share with his kids.

Highs today will be in the mid to upper 90s under mostly sunny skies.

When you factor in the humidity, it will feel closer to at least 105°.

There is the chance for storms further north today, and the Storm Prediction Center has issued a Marginal Risk (level 1/5) for severe weather for areas near I-69 and northward.

We don’t cool off a whole lot tonight with overnight low temperatures only falling into the mid 70s. Keep in mind, our normal high temperature this time of year is 83°.

Thursday across Southeast Michigan will be another day with plenty of sun. Highs will be in the mid to upper 90s before we once again only drop to the mid 70s at night.

Thursday evening and overnight brings the chance for scattered rain and thunderstorms, particularly in the thumb region.

The chance for rain will carry into Friday, when a few isolated strong storms are possible. The Storm Prediction Center has issued a Marginal Risk for Severe Weather for almost all of Southeast Michigan Thursday, and for the entire Lower Peninsula Friday.

Rain and thunderstorms look to be scattered with isolated strong storms being a possibility.

Scattered rain chances will linger into the holiday weekend but temperatures start to fall a bit.

Friday’s highs will be closer to 95°. We’ll see more upper 80s Saturday and Sunday afternoons with overnight lows closer to 70°.

Gracie, who is about 3 years old, has been missing for nearly two weeks after escaping her enclosure at Cedar Hollow Ranch in the Texas Hill Country, said Vick Jones, who owns the remote property about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of San Antonio. He said Wednesday that Gracie had wandered into a part of the privately owned preserve that other giraffes previously avoided.

Jones said he has sent up helicopters to look for Gracie, a few sightings have trickled in, and a $5,000 reward is on the table.

But the giraffe, which stands roughly the height of a tree, hasn't turned up.

“She wound up going up and feeding in an area on the hillside and the rocky ledges that none of the other giraffes had ever gone on before,” Jones said. “And when she came down off of there, she came down on the wrong side of the gate.”

The ranch is in rural Real County, where its roughly 2,700 residents were put on alert to be on the lookout for a missing giraffe. Jones said the search area is extremely remote, and the likelihood of Gracie encountering any humans is low.

“People are not in danger of her because she’s not around people,” Jones said. 'She’s out in very, very rough, heavily wooded lands.”

The Texas Hill Country has one of the largest concentrations of exotic captive animals in the country. Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson said the mild climate and rugged terrain seems to serve as a good stand-in for most of the animals' native African environments.

He rattled off a list of animals that have gone missing over the years, especially after floods, but said this was his first giraffe.

“I’ve had wildebeests, I've had water buffalo, I've had monkeys, I’ve had zebras, all go missing,” Johnson said. “Sometimes we recover them, and sometimes we don’t.”

While the middle of Texas is not a giraffe's native environment, Jones said Gracie should be able to find plenty of leaves and other vegetation to eat. He said other animals were not likely to bother her.

Jones said he initially had helicopters searching an area of about 7,500 acres (3,000 hectares) with no luck. A few days later, there was a report that Gracie was spotted to the south.

But by the time they could search the area, Jones said, she was already gone.

“We're always two three days late for where the information is coming from, so that makes it tough,” Jones said.

____

This story corrects the spelling of the first name of the giraffe’s owner. His name is Vick Jones, not Vic Jones.

It adds up. The United States trades $1.9 trillion a year — $5 billion a day — worth of goods and services with its neighbors, Canada and Mexico. They have supplanted China as America's top two trading partners.

So the stakes are high when it comes to fiddling with the rules that govern trade between the three countries. And after a year of President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff policies, many U.S., Canadian and Mexican businesses would welcome the return of stability across North America.

They are not likely to get it.

The regional trade pact — the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA — that Trump negotiated and boasted about in his first term came up for renewal Wednesday, starting a process that is likely to last months, maybe longer.

And the path forward is lined with landmines.

“There’s going to be a lot of drama this summer," Diego Marroquín Bitar, a fellow in the America’s program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said last week at a USMCA forum sponsored by the Cato Institute.

A bumpy road ahead for North American trade

The U.S. is making demands that could effectively force Canada and Mexico to surrender some automaking production to the United States. That might bring more auto factory jobs to the United States. But it would also upend established supply chains and would push up U.S. prices for new cars that now average nearly $50,000 at a time when American consumers are already furious about the high cost of living.

Trump, characteristically, has added to the tension by threatening to pull out of his own agreement altogether.

In 2020, the USMCA replaced the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which tore down most trade barriers between the three North American countries.

Trump and other critics had called NAFTA a job killer because it encouraged U.S. companies to move factories south of the border to take advantage of low-wage Mexican labor, then ship goods back to the United States duty free.

His USMCA ended up being similar to NAFTA — though it pressured factories to pay higher wages and make sure that more of what they made originated in North America in an effort to prevent Chinese products from slipping across regional borders duty free.

North America trade deal is up for renewal

The USMCA included a novel provision requiring the pact to be renewed every six years. That deadline was Wednesday, and the three countries met virtually. But U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement that the United States was not ready to renew the pact as it is for another 16 years — which would have been until 2042. The United States wants changes to the agreement to reduce its trade deficits with Canada and Mexico and to resolve specific disputes over issues such as Canada’s protection of its dairy industry.

The USMCA remains in effect while the three countries continue to work on ways to resolve their differences; they have until the current term ends in 2036 to reach an agreement. Otherwise, the pact expires.

Meantime, any USMCA country can pull out of the pact provided it gives its two partners six months’ notice — a red buzzer that Canada and Mexico, dependent on trade with the United States, fear Trump just might push.

Trump, after all, said in June that he was “not looking to renew" the trade pact with Canada and Mexico. "We don’t need anything that they have,” he said.

Canada is out in the cold

The United States and Mexico have held talks on renewing the trade agreement. But Canada has so far been stuck on the sidelines.

Patrick Childress, a partner at the Holland & Knight law firm and a former U.S. trade negotiator, said: “The danger for Canada is this: that the U.S. government and the Mexican government reach agreement on changes to core provisions of the treaty and then show up in Ottawa and say: ‘Here’s what we’ve agreed to. You can take it or leave it."’

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the three trading partners plan to meet virtually on Wednesday, adding: “I’m not looking for my pen.”

Carney later said in French his priority is to update the USMCA.

Pushing production to the United States

The U.S. wants a refreshed trade pact to do more to make sure that Chinese goods don’t get in through the back door.

But the most contentious issue is that the U.S. is also seeking a brand-new requirement: that 50% of cars be made in the United States, Carney confirmed in early June. Currently, none of the USMCA countries gets a guaranteed share of production. “It’s a red line for both Mexico and Canada, and it goes against the spirit and the letter of regional integration,” Ocampo said.

Marcos Carias, economist at the credit insurer Coface, said only 1 in 5 Mexican and Canadian cars imported into the United States would currently meet the 50% standard.

Vehicle models likely to be hit with higher costs under the plan, he said, include Ford’s Maverick compact pickup truck, Chevrolet’s mid-size Equinox SUV and some Nissan sedans — all made in Mexico. Carias’ “back of the envelope" calculations suggest that prices could increase 5% to 7% on the most-affected models.

____

AP Writers Maria Verza in Mexico City and Rob Gilles in Toronto contributed to this story.

Tyara McDonald, 14, left her home in the 100 block of Carr Street during the evening hours of Monday, June 29. The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said her family has not heard from her since she left the home.

Tyara is 5′3″ inches tall, weighs around 100 pounds, and has brown eyes and black hair.

According to the sheriff’s office, she does not have a phone and is believed to still be in the city of Pontiac, although her exact whereabouts are unknown.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office at (248) 858-4950.

In remarks at a central bank conference in Sintra, Portugal, Warsh said that if businesses or households thought the Fed would accept inflation above 2%, “I guess they'd be disappointed. We're going to deliver price stability.”

The Fed typically combats inflation by raising borrowing costs. When asked about Trump's oft-repeated desire for lower rates, Warsh underscored the Fed's independence from day-to-day politics.

“We’ve been an independent central bank for a very long time," he said. "We’re going to be an independent central bank at this moment and you’re going to see no changes to that.”

Such comments suggest that Warsh has shifted his views since replacing Jerome Powell as chair May 22. He called for lower rates last year as he essentially campaigned for the job. Since becoming chair, however, Warsh has appeared to move away from that stance and instead has signaled a focus on getting inflation down.

But on Wednesday he declined to say what steps the Fed would take to achieve that goal, consistent with his opposition to so-called “forward guidance,” in which central bank leaders foreshadow their next policy moves.

“I'm not going to make a judgment now," he said during the panel discussion with other central bankers. "The tactics, the strategy, and the rest, that's still to come,” he later added.

At his first news conference last month, Warsh also emphasized his goal of getting inflation back down to target. Wall Street investors expect the Fed could hike its key interest rate as soon as in September, from its current level of about 3.6% to roughly 3.9%.

When the Fed last met June 16-17, nearly half of the 19 policymakers signaled that they supported higher rates this year, while eight supported no change and one penciled in a cut. Warsh did not submit a forecast because of his opposition to providing guidance.

The economy has shifted since Trump first nominated Warsh in January, with inflation rising to a three-year high of 4.2% in May, pushed higher by the Iran war's impact on gas prices. Yet as a peace agreement has been reached, gas prices have declined, suggesting inflation may have peaked. Fed officials may very well wait to see where inflation settles if oil and gas prices continue to fall back to prewar levels.

On Wednesday, Warsh also said there are signs that the threat of persistent inflation has moderated. He specifically cited inflation expectations, or where the public and financial markets think inflation will head next, as measured by surveys and bond prices. Both have showed declining expectations in the past month.

Yet a key question facing Warsh is whether he will have to raise rates in the next few meetings to underscore his commitment to fighting inflation. If gas prices keep falling and inflation declines, he may be try to avoid doing so.

At the same time, hiring has picked up in recent months and economists forecast the government will issue a solid jobs report on Thursday that will likely show the unemployment rate remains a low 4.3%. Such a report would reduce pressure on the Fed to lower borrowing costs.

Warsh also reiterated his view that over time, artificial intelligence will expand the economy's ability to produce goods and services and reduce inflationary pressures. Yet many economists think it could take an extended period of time for those trends to take hold.

In the short term, economists say, the breakneck investment in AI infrastructure is pushing up prices for semiconductor and computing equipment, fueling inflation.

Warsh declined to comment specifically on whether AI spending is inflationary, and often noted that he has set up five task forces at the Fed to study a range of issues, including AI and its impact on productivity.

“This is as exciting a time and also as consequential a time to be a central banker that I can think of at any point, maybe outside of a crisis, in my adult lifetime,” he said.

Giant Eagle, which is privately held, has 197 supermarkets and 11 standalone pharmacies across northern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Indiana. They would continue to operate under the Giant Eagle name under the terms of the deal.

Kroger, which is the largest U.S. supermarket chain, has 2,685 stores in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Its stores operate under various brand names, including Ralphs, King Soopers, Smith’s and Fred Meyer.

The transaction includes $1.25 billion in cash and the assumption of approximately $400 million in outstanding liabilities, the companies said Wednesday.

“Giant Eagle is a well-run, high-quality regional grocer with a strong reputation for fresh products, pharmacy, private label and customer loyalty,” Kroger CEO Greg Foran said in a statement. “We evaluated the opportunity carefully and the strategic fit is clear."

Foran, a former Walmart executive, was named Kroger's CEO in February.

Kroger and other traditional grocers have been squeezed in recent years as consumers do more of their food shopping at big retailers like Walmart, Costco and Amazon and discount chains like Aldi.

In 2022, Kroger announced a plan to merge with rival Albertsons, arguing that a larger chain would be better able to compete against rivals. But the Federal Trade Commission and two states — Washington and Colorado — sued to block the merger in 2024, saying it would raise prices and lower workers’ wages by eliminating competition. The proposed merger was scrapped in late 2024 after judges overseeing two separate cases both halted the deal.

Burt Flickinger, a longtime grocery industry analyst and managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a market research company, called Kroger's acquisition of Giant Eagle “a master stroke” that gives Kroger a gateway to the mid-Atlantic, the Northeast and New England.

“There should be no antitrust concerns because Kroger consistently lowers prices when it makes acquisitions," Flickinger said.

The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close next year. Kroger and Giant Eagle said they anticipate having to divest a limited number of Giant Eagle stores in order to receive the necessary regulatory clearance.

Kroger's shares were flat in afternoon trading Wednesday.

Here are this year’s finalists:

• Davis Miller Law
• Fieger Law
• Flood Law
• Kajy Law Firm
• Mike Morse Law Firm

We received more than 16,700 nominations across our 80 Vote 4 The Best categories this year. Each category was then narrowed down to five finalists.

Click here to view the full list of finalists.

Now that nominations are over, voting on finalists can begin. Voting is open from June 22 through July 20, and you can vote for each category once per day during that time.

Click here to vote for finalists in all 80 categories.

So have other Venezuelan earthquake survivors.

They, like others across the northern state of La Guaira, have the same question: Who is in charge? Venezuela's self-described socialist government, which long prided itself on being protector and provider, has been neither when it mattered most, many said.

The powerful back-to-back earthquakes on June 24 have brought to the forefront t he inability of the party that has ruled the country for 27 years — now with acting President Delcy Rodríguez at the helm — to carry out basic governmental functions.

“We’ve been abandoned,” Mundrain said, sitting in a chair on the street Tuesday in front of what remained of the 11-story building she once called home. “We feel helpless. What we have seen is a lack of organization, a lack of empathy, a lack of everything.”

In the critical 72 hours after residential buildings, food joints, pharmacies, hotels and convenience stores imploded in La Guaira state, Caracas and surrounding regions, the on-the-ground response was primarily focused on directing traffic, with police officers, intelligence agents and members of the armed forces manning intersections.

Residents take on rescue and recovery amid government failure

Civilians, mostly alone and some with the help of foreign rescuers, searched for loved ones among piles of rubble. Ambulances were stuck in miles-long (kilometers-long) traffic jams. Hospitals were undersupplied and understaffed. Emergency personnel responded with little to no equipment.

A week later, many residents in coastal communities of La Guaira were attributing most rescues and recoveries to fellow Venezuelans and foreign teams with know-how and equipment like thermal cameras and sound detectors as well as trained dogs. They also pointed out that while civilians and foreign rescuers worked, men and women in Venezuelan uniforms stood watching and state workers took selfies.

Tulane University professor David Smilde, who has studied Venezuela for three decades, said the tragedy has made clear that the stunning Jan. 3 capture of then-President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces was not a one-off “in which the Venezuelan state was not able to defend itself at all.”

“It also can’t do anything like get started with digging people out," he said, adding that it should be a worrying concern for Rodríguez, who was sworn in after Maduro was deposed and taken to New York to face drug trafficking charges.

Smilde said the dismal response is linked to the huge numbers of people who have left the public sector because of extremely low pay as well as corruption, such as the many people who are included in the government’s payroll but who have not worked in months or years. In a functioning government, he added, people have specific duties to design protocols spelling out procedures in case of emergencies, including earthquakes.

“It’s like trying to have a baseball team with three people on the field. You’re not sure who’s going to be the pitcher, who’s going to be catching, and who’s going to be outfielder,” he said of the government's lack of organization.

Wealth and government connections mean some get help

Wealth and government connections also influenced the government’s response, with some sites given preferential treatment.

When one collapsed building was teeming with police and military school students, people accurately guessed that officials or politically connected individuals must have lived there. The police officers from a neighboring state were indeed searching for a captain, while the students and a few members of the national guard were hoping to locate a major general.

A telescopic crane, like the one Mundrain needs for the recovery of her family, was parked for several hours in what was that building’s entrance. The relatives of the well-off families who lived in the building were able to rent it. Mundrain cannot.

“I think that if there were someone in a position of authority in each of these apartments, there would be a well-oiled machine working like they have in other residences,” Mundrain said pointing to her building.

People's anger over the response has also led to altercations between residents and machine operators. In one instance, when a government-provided excavator tried to leave the site of a flattened public housing building, people blocked traffic to keep it in place and even pulled the operator from the cab.

The government reported Wednesday that 2,295 died and more than 11,200 were injured in the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes that struck June 24. Thousands more have been reported missing.

“We continue to support the affected families and directly oversee the care and recovery efforts in La Guaira,” Rodríguez posted on X Wednesday. “I know that many Venezuelans feel pain and frustration; I deeply share those feelings.”

Rescuers on Tuesday continued to free some survivors from mountains of debris, offering anguished families a sliver of hope even as the likelihood of finding people alive diminished with each passing hour. The desperation led two women to fight late at night, one dragging the other to the mud right next to a flattened building after one of them refused to be quiet while rescuers tried to listen for signs of life among the rubble.

The first 48 to 72 hours after a natural disaster are crucial to rescue efforts, though survival can be extended if people have access to food and water.

Electrician Daniel Castillo was able to pull his mother and son alive from their second-floor apartment in a collapsed public housing building in La Guaira just hours after the earthquake struck. The body of his brother remained inside for another day until he could reach him.

On Tuesday, he decried the government’s response while he waited in line to get a free bag of hygiene products, including toilet paper and soap, from a tent staffed by the Venezuelan armed forces.

“You see the guards, and their uniforms are spotless, not dirty at all,” Castillo said, contrasting members of Venezuela's National Guard with dust-covered civilians and foreign rescuers who have dug through rubble for days. “The government did nothing.”

___

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

“Our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete,” Twain wrote in 1905. “The modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.”

In these rabidly partisan times, those who think President Donald Trump deserves their support and those who don’t are joining in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Whether all the partying to come gives the nation a breather from disunity or aggravates it is an open question.

It's a proud and loud moment, sown with division and doubt.

Love of country comes in different flavors, of course. Some love it as is. Some love what it could become and press on with their activism and protest in pursuit of history's call for a “more perfect union." Some love what it used to be and might be once more — the underpinning of MAGA.

But overall, belief in American exceptionalism has waned. More people in the U.S. think there are better countries in the world than those who think the United States is the best. That’s according to an April poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that found 44% endorsing the United States as just one of the best.

This is not the America of, say, Teddy Roosevelt, whose presidential library Trump is visiting in North Dakota on Wednesday. Roosevelt mirrored the brashness and ambition of a country surging in innovation, industry, influence, military muscle and spirit.

In its place is a country where the president is his own brand of brash, but millions of the people he leads wonder if it's all coming apart.

Who’s in charge here?

For the 250th, the division starts at the top, with two organizations claiming to be the one leading the commemoration and all but ignoring the other.

A decade ago, Congress created the bipartisan America250 group and charged it by law with planning the country’s local, national and international events for the 250th. Trump stepped on that with an executive order making his Freedom 250 group “the” national organization in charge.

Marquee events like the Fourth of July fireworks at the National Mall, the parade of tall ships in New York and the Great American State Fair along the National Mall are the province of Trump's Freedom 250. Musical stars who had been lined up for the splashy opener of the fair last week withdrew, concerned Trump, a Republican, would make the festivities political and very much about him.

He stepped forward to fill the void, declaring himself the “No. 1 attraction," and he delivered a speech there June 24 on American glory and his achievements. He'll headline the official July Fourth events in the capital as well, for what he called “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all."

Poems, art and a message in a bottle go underground for 250 years

America250, meantime, put together America's Block Party — a series scheduled simultaneously around the country anchored by a Fourth of July benefit concert in Los Angeles hosted by Queen Latifah, with Chris Stapleton and the Smashing Pumpkins among the acts.

By congressional mandate, America250 is also sinking a 900-pound (400-kilogram) time capsule in Philadelphia with items from all states and branches of government, to be pried open in 250 years.

The people of 2276 will then see a major league baseball lineup from 2026, poems from Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky and more, postcards from Colorado and Maine, beaded artwork from Montana, an Oklahoma belt buckle, a message in a vintage Coca-Cola bottle, a pocket Constitution signed by the U.S. justices, a George Washington Lord’s Prayer gold medal from Utah given out at the Wedding of the Rails event celebrating completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, and more.

In Philadelphia, where the founders signed the declaration and birthed the nation, 250 people will form the contours of the Liberty Bell in a parade with 50 marching bands and Miss America delegates, formerly called contestants, representing every state.

Ain't that America: Celebrations sprout from the grassroots, too

Though there are official events galore, it's not as if Americans, of all people, need the government to show them a good time.

In one of thousands of gatherings under the national radar, Evans, Pennsylvania, will hear the Circle of Friends Choir perform patriotic songs a cappella in an event also featuring a patriotic trivia contest and a barbershop quartet.

In Pocatello, Idaho, drag queens organized a reading of patriotic picture books for young people, including the story of Katharine Lee Bates. Bates returned from the Colorado Rockies, where the spacious skies, purple mountain majesties and fruited plains inspired her to write the poem that became “America the Beautiful.”

Twain, the scold and satirist of American government and of imperialism, shared Bates' love of his country's natural beauty. He loved the nature of its people, too — sometimes. “We glorious Americans will occasionally astonish the God that created us,” he wrote.

But a century before Make America Great Again grabbed the political zeitgeist by the lapels, he was speaking of good old days lost.

“We are called the nation of inventors," he said. “And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we ever invented, which was human liberty.” ___

This story has been corrected to show the benefit concert host’s name is Latifah, not Latifa.

For Dr. Darria Long, a board-certified emergency physician and mother of three, prevention is key. After years of treating injured children in the ER, she says many accidents could have been avoided with a little preparation and awareness.

One of the biggest summer safety concerns is water. Dr. Long recommends using multiple layers of protection whenever children are near a pool, lake, or other body of water. That starts with assigning one adult to actively watch children in the water at all times. The designated watcher should avoid distractions, including phones and other screens.

Parents should also be cautious about relying on inflatable floaties. Children who are not strong swimmers should wear a U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jacket instead. And while many people focus on swim time, experts say some of the most dangerous moments happen when no one expects a child to be near the water. Nearly 70 percent of drownings involving young children occur during non-swim times, when supervision may be relaxed.

To reduce risk, Consumer Reports recommends that pools be surrounded by a fence with a self-closing, self-latching gate to help prevent unsupervised access.

Summer also means more bikes, scooters, and tricycles. Experts stress that any child riding something with wheels should wear a properly fitted helmet. Because children grow quickly, parents should check helmet fit regularly. The helmet should sit level on the head, and the straps should be snug enough to keep it securely in place.

Consumer Reports also encourages parents, grandparents, babysitters, and other caregivers to refresh their CPR and choking-response skills. Being prepared for an emergency can make a critical difference when every second counts.

Another summer hazard that often goes overlooked is open windows. Child safety experts warn that standard window screens are designed to keep bugs out—not children in. Families with young children should consider installing window guards or window stops to help prevent falls.

Dr. Long says the goal isn’t to worry about every possible danger. Instead, it’s about focusing on the biggest risks that parents can control. Taking a few preventive steps now can help families spend less time worrying and more time enjoying everything summer has to offer.

Nutrition expert Jody Trierweiler shared delicious, nutritious dish ideas that could be perfect for your holiday table, along with simple tips to make your favorite recipes a little lighter without sacrificing flavor.

Watch the segment above to see more.

Carroll's lawyers said in papers filed in Manhattan federal court that Trump is unjustly trying to delay releasing the money from an escrow fund after the Supreme Court refused Monday to hear an appeal of the 2023 civil verdict.

The amount has grown to nearly $5.8 million with interest and should be required by the court to be disbursed, the lawyers wrote, saying Trump has resumed his defamatory attacks against Carroll as his lawyers consider asking the high court to reconsider its decision.

On Wednesday, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan agreed to let Carroll's request for the payout to be addressed on an expedited basis, with a response from Trump's lawyers due by July 7.

The jury reached its verdict in a trial that Trump did not attend after Carroll testified that she was sexually abused by Trump in spring 1996 in the dressing room of a midtown Manhattan luxury department store after a flirtatious and friendly chance encounter between them turned violent.

Carroll, 82, first talked about the attack publicly in 2019 in a memoir while Trump was president. He repeatedly insisted that he never knew Carroll. He also accused her of trying to sell books at his expense and having political motives.

Trump promised on social media Monday to keep fighting what he called a “Weaponization and Lawfare Case” after the Supreme Court's rejection became known.

Carroll's court filing said lawyers for Trump contacted her attorneys minutes after Trump published a response to the high court's action, asking that the payout be delayed while the Supreme Court is asked to reconsider its decision.

But Carroll's lawyers — Roberta Kaplan, D. Brandon Trice and Maximilian T. Crema — said in their court filing that there was no reason to delay the payment, especially since the Supreme Court expressed no disagreement in deciding not to hear the case.

“To date, Carroll has agreed to each of Defendant’s many requests to delay the payment he owes her. Given the extraordinary lengths he has taken to avoid such payments and that each of those efforts has been denied in full, that cooperation ends today. It is time for him to pay Carroll,” they wrote.

Lawyers for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump is also appealing $83 million in defamation compensation granted to Carroll by a separate Manhattan jury after a January 2024 trial at which Trump briefly testified.

At that trial, Judge Kaplan, who is unrelated to Carroll's attorney, required that jury to accept the findings of the previous jury and only determine how much money, if any, Trump owed Carroll for comments he made about her as president.

Founder and CEO of LittleGuide Detroit, Kerry Doman, appeared on “Live in the D” to share local activities and family-friendly adventures to help make the most of summer break.

Watch the segment above to learn more.

In almost any other conflict, these haunting truths would be seared into national memory. Yet more than 120 days since at least one U.S. missile struck an Iranian primary school, there remains no final accounting of what happened.

The Trump administration has yet to directly accept the blame or formally release findings of a Pentagon investigation into the bombing, even though the military possessed evidence almost immediately that the site of the school had been struck, a U.S. official with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss an ongoing investigation, told The Associated Press.

The AP has reconstructed the story of the attack, beginning in the schoolyard on the morning of Feb. 28, drawing from open-source information, video footage, human rights reports and interviews with researchers and civilians inside and outside Iran to reveal previously unreported details about the bombing in Minab, including the diversity of children killed.

Still, many details about the blast remain elusive, as a lack of information from the Pentagon and politicization of the attack by Iran’s theocracy have complicated independent reporting efforts. That has created an accountability vacuum, leaving the families of the victims without resolution. Among the mysteries remaining are the number of munitions that hit the school and a complete list of the dead.

When asked last week about the incident, President Donald Trump said he hadn't read the Pentagon's report and had seen nothing to make him believe the U.S. had carried out the attack.

“I don’t know that they’re ever going to solve that problem in terms of whose fault was it, because there were missiles flying all over the place,” he said. “I don’t think it was us."

Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment from the AP.

Video evidence, interviews and other sources yield a fuller picture

The reconstruction draws from interviews with U.S. officials, Iranian human rights workers, a resident of Minab, an international representative of the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Union and researchers from major international rights groups.

Several people who spoke to the AP were in direct contact with the families of victims and rescuers who rushed to the scene. Most requested anonymity for fear of retribution against them and those with whom they spoke.

Teachers called parents to pick up their kids. Then the bomb fell

Skies over the city of Minab, located in southeastern Iran about 16 miles (25 km) from the Strait of Hormuz, were clear and bright on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 28, a school day in Iran. It was Ramadan.

Students of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school, Farsi for “Good Tree,” jostled past the colorful murals lining the schoolyard and into the building. Boys and girls filtered into separate spaces with brightly painted desks.

The school they entered was one of over 30 with the same name established to serve children from families closely tied to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard or other state institutions, said Shiva Amelirad, the international union representative who also worked as a teacher in Iran for 18 years and has been in contact with people in Minab.

Though most schools in Iran operate within guidelines proscribed by the Islamic Republic, the Shejareh Tayyebeh schools were more explicitly oriented toward reproducing and reinforcing the Guard’s worldview, she said, adding that children are civilians regardless of their family backgrounds, and "any attack targeting a school is unequivocally condemnable."

The school lay within the same walled compound as a Guard base, according to an AP assessment of satellite imagery and open-source mapping. It was once part of that neighboring base, before it was fenced off and converted over a decade ago.

Though some of its pupils were the children of Guard officers working on the nearby base, others were local children from Minab, which is populated predominantly by people of the majority-Sunni Baluch ethnic minority who often face repression from the Iranian government, said the Balochistan Human Rights Group.

Hundreds of students are believed to have been inside the building by the time teachers and administrators received the news that bombs had begun falling on Tehran around 9:40 a.m.

Teachers and administrators thought it prudent to send the children home. They called parents on landline phones, summoning them for an early pickup, two people told the AP. A recently released report by Airwars, a London-based independent group that tracks recent conflicts, also found that parents were called to pick up their children.

At 10:15 a.m., Iran’s state media sent out an advisory, closing schools across the country.

One father, who lived a short distance away, went immediately to pick up his 10-year-old son, said a resident of Minab, who relayed the stories of several families to the AP. The AP verified details of the residents’ stories against available lists of the dead and rights groups' chronologies of the day’s events.

The father noticed his 6- and 7-year-old relatives among the students waiting for their parents, said the resident. He asked them if they’d like a ride home and they said no, that their own father was on the way.

He left with his child and headed to the supermarket. Ten minutes later, he heard the explosions.

Multiple munitions pummeled the compound, striking at least five buildings, according to an AP analysis of satellite imagery. Hundreds of pounds of explosives collapsed the school.

A tiny arm, suspended in the rubble

The father raced back to a scene of chaos, where onlookers gathered, screaming, as men pawed through smoking rubble to dig out bodies, according to video of the aftermath circulated by Iranian state media.

Eventually, the father made out two burned figures he believes were those of his relatives, but he couldn’t be sure.

People kept coming. One man from a nearby Sunni village arrived to search for his nephew after receiving a panicked call from the boy's mother. In the rubble, he found her dead son.

Rescuers found small backpacks and children’s drawings, colored pencils and worksheets. Gently suspended, a tiny arm lay in the wreckage.

Men carried disfigured limbs and torsos to the local hospital, said the Balochistan Human Rights Group, whose staff spoke with two families of those killed. The AP has not been able to verify how many munitions specifically hit the school, but the attack had left flesh so mutilated that many body parts were unrecognizable.

By the end of the day, doctors at the hospital estimated they had at least 108 bodies, but cautioned that it was likely an undercount, said the resident of Minab.

By the next day, state media was saying around 150 had been killed. Soon, it was reporting a death toll of 168.

‘They called the kids martyrs’

Three days after the bombing, state TV showed thousands of Iranians packing a Minab roundabout, where the crowds faced a podium and a large portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic.

The gathering might have been mistaken for a demonstration, if it were not a funeral. All the parents of victims, regardless of ethnicity or religion, had to participate, said the Minab resident. Most women in the crowd donned the black chador garment customary to the Islamic Republic, even though it’s not typically worn by Baluch people at funerals.

Parents were told they'd be permitted to take their children’s bodies back to their villages and conduct their own observances, said the resident. In the end, though, many decided to bury their children together.

In footage captured by drone cameras and circulated by state media, workers broke ground on an earthen lot, creating a grid of tiny, identical, unmarked graves.

“The state media advocated a narrative based on IRGC interest,” said Amelirad. “You can tell because they called the kids martyrs.”

The story grows harder to tell

Strikes continued to ravage Iran, targeting more sites in its opening days than the start of recent U.S. or Israeli military campaigns, including in Gaza, an Airwars analysis found.

Racing to document the ongoing bombardment, journalists and rights groups struggled to verify details from Minab. They had no access to the target site. Government restrictions in Iran prevented most foreign journalists from entering the country. The opening day of the war, Iran shut down the internet, making it nearly impossible to hear from ordinary civilians.

As the war progressed and the Strait of Hormuz became a major battlefield, the situation in the province grew more tense, said the resident. All branches of the military were deployed heavily in the area. Families of the victims feared retribution for speaking out. People were reportedly being detained for trying to communicate with foreign media.

That left Iran's government in control of the messaging around the strike.

Iran’s soccer team wore golden “#168” pins on their jackets upon their arrival at the FIFA World Cup.

The Iranian team negotiating for a pause to the war with the U.S. named itself “Minab 168.”

The children were depicted as animated Lego figures in viral videos made by pro-Iran groups trolling the U.S.

“In the aftermath of the attack, Iranian authorities ... exploited the suffering of victims’ families and surviving children for propaganda purposes,” wrote Amnesty International in a March report investigating the deaths.

Through it all, there remained no public list of the names of the dead.

The Pentagon finds clues in archive

Locked out of Iran, researchers focused on the question of responsibility.

Iran blamed the U.S. Trump cast doubt on American culpability and pointed the finger at Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said only that the Pentagon was investigating.

Internally, the U.S. military knew more than it initially let on. The clues were buried in their archives.

When the news first surfaced, the U.S. military knew they had conducted strikes in the vicinity — though it took the military time to verify the Iranian claims that a school was struck and begin a formal investigation, said a U.S. official with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing inquiry.

It appears that while the building housing the school was identified as such by one analyst as early as seven years ago, that discovery was not sufficiently made known across different intelligence and military staffs and agencies, the U.S. official said.

Ultimately, the building was not known among target developers as a school, revealing potential systematic shortfalls in the target analysis and review process, they said.

One former Pentagon official, similarly speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bombing came as a natural result of changes made by the Trump administration to reduce staff to mitigate civilian harm and Hegseth’s emphasis on lethality.

When Hegseth took charge, he slashed the size of an office called the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, created at the direction of Congress in late 2022. That stopped the office’s work on updating “no-strike lists,” which are lists of protected sites such as hospitals, schools, churches and mosques, that the Pentagon keeps, said Wes Bryant, who began working at the office in 2024 as the Branch Chief of Civil Harm Assessments.

When he was working at the Pentagon, it was well known that the list was out-of-date, he said.

The search for more answers from Minab

In the last weeks, researchers have made some progress. Airwars, the conflict research group, spent months combing through open-source information to verify the identity of victims. The group determined the names and identities of 157 of the dead, including 123 children, all 13 or younger, and 34 adults. Among the adults are 26 school staff members (one of whom was pregnant) and five parents — each of whom lost at least one child.

The group puts the death toll between 157 and 168 and says between 95 and 111 people were injured.

It’s unclear when the formal results of the military’s Minab investigation will be published. Much of the investigative work has been completed, but the U.S. military’s Central Command, which commissioned the investigation, is currently reviewing the findings.

Hegseth said last week the report would be divulged “when the appropriate time is right.”

Findings from similar past investigations have been more timely. When a Hellfire missile killed 10 civilians in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 29, 2021, the Defense Department claimed responsibility and gave details on its operations in less than a month.

Some members of Congress still push for transparency.

In a recent interview, Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota and a member of the Armed Services and Intelligence committees, said Congress has not gotten enough information on the bombing and expected a full report.

The issue “has not gone away,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin, Mary Clare Jalonick and Lisa Mascaro in Washington, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Amir Hussein Rajdy in Cairo and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

“It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much,” Breyer said, dissenting in a school integration case.

The moment was instructive to me as a new reporter on the Supreme Court beat. It encapsulated a term in which a new conservative majority had prevailed in one 5-4 case after another. But more than that, it was a very human reaction from a frustrated justice whose black robe was meant to convey a certain dull sobriety.

I would be on the lookout for such departures for the rest of my 20 years at the court.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE: Mark Sherman has covered the Supreme Court for The Associated Press for 20 years during some of the most momentous decisions in history. He retired on Tuesday, the last day of the court term, and reflects on his experience. He has witnessed how by both happenstance and design the court has moved to the ideological right.

___

In that time, almost by happenstance more than design, the court has marched to the ideological right. Unexpected vacancies, brute force political maneuvers and the rise of Donald Trump all combined to give the court a conservative supermajority, and with that change the direction of the country.

The Supreme Court has marched to the right

When I started covering the Supreme Court in 2006, the center of gravity had just shifted slightly to the right, from Sandra Day O’Connor to Anthony Kennedy.

Together they had helped preserve abortion rights in 1992, then been part of a five-justice majority to insure George W. Bush’s election in 2000 in Bush v. Gore.

Kennedy is lionized in some quarters for his opinions in favor of gay rights, including the landmark decision that declared same-sex marriage a constitutional right. In different settings, it’s his majority opinion in Citizens United that comes in for high praise, which enabled a flood of independent spending in political campaigns.

Scalia’s unexpected death presented Democrats with an opportunity. Republicans blocked them

But a larger change was afoot. It started when Antonin Scalia died suddenly of a heart attack, in February 2016.

Liberals salivated at the prospect of a court that might pivot left, rolling back gun rights and reimposing campaign finance limits that had recently been overturned.

Certainly abortion and affirmative action would be safe, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg assured me when we spoke that summer.

Sitting across from me in her court office filled with modern art and mementos, Ginsburg seemed confident that the next occupant of the White House would be a woman, Democrat Hillary Clinton. The next president, “whoever she may be,” Ginsburg said, might get to fill three vacancies, not just Scalia’s seat. At least two other justices in their 80s or nearing that milestone might retire, herself included.

I broke the spell. What if Clinton were to lose, I asked. “I don’t want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs,” she said.

Ginsburg was more right than wrong. She was incorrect about the outcome. Clinton lost the election, in part because of conservative voters’ worries about the future of the Supreme Court.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Majority Leader at the time, had maneuvered to keep Scalia’s seat open until after the election, even after Obama nominated the well-respected federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland, who had previously won broad bipartisan support.

But she nailed just about everything else. The next president, Donald Trump, did appoint three justices. And everything was on the table, including abortion and affirmative action.

Instead of writing about a new liberal court majority, one on which more moderate justices like Breyer and Elena Kagan would play decisive roles, I have reported on the triumph of the conservative legal project, decades in the making, and to the great satisfaction of Republicans who wanted to reverse liberal rulings from previous decades.

Lifetime tenure gives justices a say in who succeeds them

It has become commonplace for justices to time their retirements so that they can be replaced by someone with the same judicial philosophy.

Ginsburg, having decided to remain on the court, died less than two months before the 2020 election and her deathbed wish that her seat not be filled before then was ignored.

The last two justices who retired, Anthony Kennedy, appointed by Ronald Reagan and Stephen Breyer, appointed by Bill Clinton, were replaced by people who once served as their law clerks.

It’s not a criticism of Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson, each with a sterling legal resume. Instead, it’s telling that the effort to coax a justice into retirement might be more likely to succeed if a former clerk is in the running for the seat.

The country accepts that the direction of the court turns not just on who the president is, but the late-in-life decisions of the justices themselves.

Justices object to being described as political

There are no Trump judges or Obama judges, only an independent judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts told me several years ago after I asked whether he’d have any comment on President Donald Trump’s criticism of an “Obama judge.”

Roberts was right in one respect. Judges, justices included, don’t vote robotically in favor of the president who appointed them. In just one example, two Trump-appointed justices voted against the president’s unilateral, global tariffs, for which Trump criticized them in harsh, personal terms.

But Trump clearly was right, too. In this era, presidents nominate justices because their records show they can be counted on.

Since 2010, the conservative justices all have been appointed by Republican presidents. The liberals, by Democrats. The consistent message from both sides is that too much is at stake to risk a selection mistake.

Would you mind snapping a photo, a tourist in front of the Supreme Court once asked Justice Anthony Kennedy?

One of the advantages of zealously keeping cameras from the courtroom is how little known most justices are. Some of that has changed as seven of the nine justices have written or are writing books which they then go on tour to promote. They have collectively earned millions of dollars.

It’s remarkable how unobtrusively justices used to move around town. It was not uncommon to run into Ginsburg and her family at a movie or a play, see Thomas making his way to and from Mass most mornings, bump into Kagan at a supermarket or get in line behind Sotomayor at a weekend farmer’s market on Capitol Hill.

The justices drove themselves to work most days. Scalia once got a traffic ticket for a minor fender-bender on his way into work.

Early in my time in Washington, I recall walking past the court and seeing a Volkswagen with New Hampshire plates parked on Maryland Avenue. The dry cleaning lying in the back erased any doubt about whose car it was. “Souter,” the label said, as in Justice David Souter of New Hampshire.

Security concerns have grown exponentially over the years. By the time Kavanaugh joined the court, security was much tighter. Federal agents were stationed outside Kavanaugh's house in suburban Maryland when a would-be attacker armed with a pistol, knife and zip ties showed up there late one night in 2022 and eventually pleaded guilty to trying to assassinate the justice.

Covering the court has changed dramatically

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, I felt strongly that the world, as it were, was waiting for my assessment of what had happened in the courtroom on any given morning. I was among a handful of reporters who hurried downstairs after arguments ended to bat out a first take on where the court appeared to be headed in its biggest cases.

News organizations regularly asked for live access to big arguments and the response was always, No. Then the pandemic shut down the world and institutions scrambled to figure out how to cope. For the court, that meant remote argument sessions, with no choice but to allow the public to listen in, live.

That experiment produced the occasional embarrassing moment, including an audible and unexplained toilet flush. But mostly it worked, and Americans could hear the court in action. Even when the justices returned to the courtroom in 2021, the livestream remained.

Selfishly, my coverage feels less vital because anyone who cares can listen and assess what is being said. Decisions post quickly to the court's website. No one is hanging on my words.

The growth of emergency appeals also has changed covering the court, and not for the better. In years past, I could know from a glance at the calendar when I’d be very busy. But emergency appeals can pop up any time (and did with alarming frequency during Trump’s second term) and decisions on those appeals also could come at any time, during the regular workday or even after midnight.

Consumer Reports conducted blind taste tests on 10 of the most popular store-bought rotisserie chickens, evaluating flavor, nutrition and plastic packaging for potentially harmful compounds. The findings are largely reassuring, with a few notable exceptions.

Sam’s Club tops the rankings - Costco fans, take note

Costco’s rotisserie chicken enjoys a near-cult following, but it didn’t claim the top spot. Sam’s Club did.

“The chickens from Sam’s Club were just so moist and tender with a really deep roasted flavor, hints of onion and garlic, and a beautiful paprika rub that gave it such a nice golden color,” said Jessica Waller, Baby & Health Writer & Editor for Consumer Reports. “It just won over our tasters.”

Costco, Whole Foods and Wegmans rounded out the top tier.

Watch the sodium - and read the label

While rotisserie chicken can be a nutritious, protein-packed meal, Waller cautioned shoppers to treat it like any other prepared food.

“Some brands use what we call brines or sodium solutions that they inject into the bird to keep the meat moist and juicy while you’re heating it up later at home,” she said. “And those brines can contain not only salt or sodium, but also sugar and other additives.”

Her advice: check the nutrition label for sodium content and scan the ingredient list. “Fewer ingredients is generally the better,” Waller said.

Chemicals in the packaging: Mostly good news

Consumer Reports also tested the plastic containers and chicken meat for PFAS, bisphenols and phthalates - chemicals that can leach into hot foods.

“When we checked for PFAS, the forever chemicals, we didn’t find any evidence of those in the packaging or the meat itself,” Waller said. Bisphenols turned up in some packaging but not in the chicken itself.

Phthalates were detected in all packaging tested and in the meat from nearly every brand, but most levels fell well below Consumer Reports’ threshold of concern. Two exceptions stood out: Costco and Walmart, which had the highest levels of DEHP, a phthalate linked to negative health effects at elevated exposure.

“For those chickens, CR experts recommend adults limit their intake to no more than 6 ounces per day,” Waller said. “We don’t want to panic about this. It’s just a good reminder to try to reduce your risk or your exposure where you can.”

Storage tips that matter

Once you get the bird home, don’t just toss it in the fridge in its plastic container. Waller recommends transferring the chicken immediately to a glass, ceramic or other non-plastic covered dish to minimize any potential chemical migration.

Two numbers to remember: 2 and 4. “You want to use or eat the chicken within 2 hours of purchasing, or use it all up or freeze it within 4 days of purchasing,” she said.

The full rankings and shopping guidance are available at consumerreports.org.

The Society of St. Pius X, which opposes modernizing reforms in the Catholic Church, went ahead with the five-hour ceremony at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland, despite a last-ditch appeal by Leo to call it off. The American pope warned in a letter Tuesday that consecrating bishops without his approval amounted to a “sin of extreme gravity” that will actually harm their faithful.

Leo's secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, went further and said the act “is a schismatic act” that incurs excommunications, although he said he didn't know how or when they would be confirmed by the Holy See.

The consecrations amounted to a crisis for Leo, who has prioritized church unity and healing tensions with traditionalists that worsened during the Pope Francis pontificate.

The SSPX, as the society is known, is a threat to the Holy See because it represents a parallel, ultra-Catholic faith. It now has six bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians training in five seminaries, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities, according to SSPX statistics.

Bells tolled through the misty Alpine mountain valley as hundreds of priests walked two-by-two to the altar under a tent to start the service and then again at the end. An estimated 16,500 faithful who prefer the traditional Latin Mass over modern liturgies attended, sitting in a field through a downpour alongside their children who were too numerous for organizers to count.

The Mass, rich in velvet and gold-trimmed vestments, chanting and incense, was livestreamed on the society's YouTube channel, with simultaneous explanations in several languages. The highly organized religious extravaganza underscored the society's international reach, despite its schismatic outsider status, and appeal to conservative, traditionalist Catholics wary of the modern, secular world.

At the start of the Mass, a priest read aloud a statement justifying the consecrations as a necessary “sacred duty” and dismissing the resulting penalties. “We consider every punishment and censure brought to bear against this step will have no validity,” he said.

In the consecration rite, Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, who himself was excommunicated after being consecrated without papal consent in 1988, placed his hands on the head of each of the four new bishops. The ritual confers the Holy Spirit from one bishop to another and recalls Christ’s gesture to his apostles. After they received their miter hats, gloves and pastoral staffs, the four made a procession through the crowd, blessing the faithful as bishops.

According to church law, consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate incurs the harshest penalty in the Catholic Church: automatic excommunication for the four new bishops and the bishop administering the rite. It also amounts to a schismatic act, an intentional rupture of church unity.

The society was founded in opposition to Vatican II

French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the SSPX in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the 1960s meetings known as Vatican II revolutionized the church’s relations with other Christians, Jews and people of other faiths, and allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.

In 1988, Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal consent. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four bishops and declared the consecrations a “schismatic act.” Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 lifted the excommunications, but the SSPX today has no legal standing in the church.

The SSPX has accused the church of being rife with heresies and errors, and that only it is upholding the true faith of Christ. It has justified the consecrations, citing a “state of necessity” to minister to its faithful.

It identified the new bishops as Pascal Schreiber of Switzerland, Michael Goldade of the United States, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry of France and Marc Hanappier, also of France.

The Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the SSPX superior, said in his homily that the consecrations were necessary for the salvation of souls, but he also insisted they served Leo and the church.

“We are accused of not respecting the pope," he said. "But it is precisely because we love the pope as the vicar of Christ, as the head of the church, that we don't want to see the pope humiliated anymore, on the side of false shepherds representing false religions.”

Catholic faithful don't incur penalties for attending SSPX services, but they also can attend Latin Masses celebrated by priests in communion with the Vatican.

The Vatican didn't immediately comment on the consecrations and it wasn't clear how or if it would declare the excommunications or any other penalties. The SSPX acknowledged in a statement late Wednesday that the consecrations did not have papal approval.

The ritual had a joyous air

And yet everything about Wednesday’s ceremony had the air of a joyous celebration. The SSPX website has had a countdown clock running for days ahead of the consecration. Participants received a baseball cap with the “Econe2026” seal on it.

And in perhaps the most obvious sign of a celebration, registered participants could buy a souvenir set of wine to commemorate the “historic” event for 75 Swiss francs ($92.50). The “Cuvee des Sacres” gift box featured pinot noir, syrah, Petit Arvine and Fendant, each bottle with a label depicting a bishop’s miter, his ring, a cross or crozier staff.

The field, located under giant power lines, was awash in smiling nuns, priests posing for photos, youths handing out bottled water, black-clad security guards with earpieces and orange-vested volunteers who occasionally cut short journalists' interviews with the faithful. During the downpour, priests administered Communion under yellow and white umbrellas, the colors of the Holy See.

Arlina Onglao, a 71-year-old travel agent from the Philippines, said she wanted to be on hand for the “historic event” and didn't care about the prospect of excommunications of the bishops. She said the Vatican had “lost credibility.”

“I don’t think it’s going to scare any of us. Me, I’m not scared,” she said. “I feel like I’m on a safer road to heaven.”

Medical researcher Wulfran Lindzondzo, 42, a native of Gabon who lives in France, said he wanted to “rediscover tradition” through the society, noting its presence in the African country.

“The Holy Father doesn’t really agree with it, but I hand over –- I will pray to the Good Lord that the authorities in Rome can one day accept coming back to the church’s traditions,” he said before the Mass.

Eduardo Limón of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, lamented that Leo had asked the SSPX to halt the consecrations at the last minute. He prayed that "God illuminate him so he sees that the fraternity is an institution that has defended the faith,” he said.

“I’m both sad and content at the same time," he added. "Sad because again Rome closes itself in accepting that the tradition is the only hope for faith. And happy because the father superior (Pagliarani) has said courageously we are going to go ahead with the consecrations.”

But many Catholics not in Econe, including conservative and traditional ones, opposed the consecrations as an act of severe disobedience that hurts the church.

“You can’t serve tradition while disobeying the church and her authority,” said the Rev. Robert Gahl, an ethics expert at the Catholic University of America.

___

Winfield contributed from Rome.

___

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

Some were mixed in with washed up kelp. Others were under rocks.

Each month, scientists and volunteers conduct surveys of dead seabirds and find what Russell describes as a grim assessment of the impact of a massive marine heat wave that has lingered for months off parts of the California coast.

The surveys that have been carried out by various organizations for decades help build a baseline of information on beached sea life to detect threats and their impact.

Many seabirds, including California brown pelicans, loons and grebes, starved to death in recent months as record-setting ocean temperatures decreased the band of cold, nutrient-rich surface water where krill, anchovies and sardines thrive near the shore, said Russell, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

“We’ve been seeing cormorants walk to shore and then just die within the hour. I mean one time it happened within 15 minutes, and I’ve never seen that before,” Russell said. “That has been heartbreaking for me and we’re seeing this happening across the whole coast.”

Scientists fear the die-off could worsen with the recently formed El Nino, the natural warming of parts of the central Pacific that alters weather worldwide and spikes global temperatures.

Die-offs of seabirds is happening more with warming oceans

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in June confirmed an El Nino formed and it is expected to grow to historic strength.

Die-offs of seabirds occur periodically, and not all the seabird deaths off California this year are tied to the marine heat wave, scientists and wildlife officials say.

But such die-offs are becoming more frequent as the planet warms and oceans heat up.

‘We don't know how bad this is going to get'

Already a marine heat wave has persisted off parts of the West Coast for the past year, marking only the third time on record that such a large section of coastal waters stayed warm for so long, according to NOAA.

Scripps measures daily ocean temperatures at 10 coastal stations along the California coast, where their records stretch back over a century. This year, saw three stations break records for 40 days or more, said the director Melissa Carter, who runs the program. The samples are taken in a variety of ways, including off piers by dropping an insulated bucket, or by lifeguards in the early morning surf or researchers off rocky shorelines.

Robotic underwater gliders with sensors operating out at sea also recorded high temperatures offshore and at depth during the spring. Dan Rudnick, who runs the Scripps glider program, said the warm temperature anomaly off Southern California this spring was comparable to that during the last El Nino in 2023.

And that was before the formation of this year's El Nino, which could stretch into 2027.

As cold-water species move deeper and farther north, the marine heat wave coupled with El Nino could further disrupt food webs for sea life from gray whales to seabirds. A similar pattern happened a decade ago.

“We don’t know how bad this is going to get,” said Russell, who has written about five species of Booby that are now common off California because of warming ocean temperatures.

Seabirds are seeking food in unusual places

Wildlife rehabilitation facilities treated hundreds of emaciated birds this spring when the marine heat wave intensified.

“It’s not abnormal to see dead birds on the beach, but the quantity of dead birds is unusual,” J.D. Bergeron, the CEO of ⁠International Bird Rescue, a global wildlife conservation organization that runs two aquatic bird rehabilitation centers in California, said in an interview in May.

Brown pelicans are turning up in inland lakes, Bergeron said.

“When birds starve, especially the pelicans, they start to look in unusual places for food,” he said. “They will chase fishing boats, they will go to piers and you end up with birds with fishing line and fish hook injuries.”

Many dead or debilitated seabirds examined this year have been young and emaciated, and most have tested negative for avian flu, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Some had opportunistic infections linked to malnourishment.

Krysta Rogers, a senior state environmental scientist, said there may be factors besides warm ocean temperatures. High mortality rates among young Brandt’s cormorants and common murres began after a robust 2025 breeding season, peaking post-winter, and appeared to coincide with the marine heat wave. Those deaths may be mostly due to chicks simply not surviving on their own, she said.

But she does not discount the marine heat wave affecting some seabirds, considering an increase this spring in reported deaths from other species and not just young ones.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which collects data from the dead seabird surveys and others, said they do not have a comprehensive report ready yet.

Only a fraction of birds that die at sea wash ashore

In 2013, a warm water mass nicknamed “the blob” developed off Alaska and stretched south, lingering for years as it wreaked havoc on marine ecosystems all the way to Mexico’s Baja California peninsula. One of the strongest El Ninos on record overlapped with it in 2015.

Carcasses of emaciated common murres showed up on beaches in what biologists say was the largest seabird die-off recorded in the world’s oceans.

Common murres look like thin penguins. They can fly miles in search of schools of finger-length fish and can dive and swim nearly 600 feet (183 meters) deep to capture them. However, the birds’ high metabolism means they have to eat a lot. If they don’t eat prey matching 10% to 30% of their body mass daily, they can use up fat reserves and drop to a critical threshold for starvation within three days.

Studies show that only a fraction of birds that die at sea wash ashore. It took years for scientists to confirm that more than half of Alaska’s population of common murres, an estimated 4 million birds, died during “the blob,” according to a 2024 study in the journal Science.

The species is still struggling to recover.

___

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

The four-time Emmy Award nominee, who turns 80 on July 22, told “Today” and People magazine that he was diagnosed with the progressive, memory-destroying disease three years ago.

“I’m still not accepting in my mind all parts of it,” he told People magazine. “There are the moments that you keep remembering that validate the fact that you can remember stuff. And there are moments I’ll never forget.”

More than 6 million people in the United States and millions more around the world have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia.

Glover earned four Emmy Award nominations and an honorary Oscar in 2022. Other awards came from the NAACP and Black Entertainment Television, and he received nominations from the Screen Actors Guild.

Glover also served as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Program from 1998 to 2004. It focuses on poverty, disease and economic development in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

A statement from the Mediterranean principality’s prosecutor general said the person is a foreign national and was detained in Monaco in the morning.

They were held in police custody “as further checks were deemed necessary” before being released in the afternoon, it said, giving no further information about the person or why they aroused suspicion.

The explosion at an apartment building entrance in Monaco occurred late Monday. Monaco authorities haven’t identified any of the injured but said they were a family and that they appeared to have been specifically targeted.

Media reports identified Ukrainian construction tycoon Vadym Yermolaiev as being among the injured. He has said he renounced his Ukrainian citizenship nearly a decade ago, and he was targeted by Ukrainian sanctions in 2023 for ties to Russia. A woman and a child were also hurt.

The prosecutor’s statement said the child has been interviewed in neighboring France but that the other two victims are still not in a condition to be questioned. One of them is critically injured and their life remains in danger, it said.

It described the blast as an attempted assassination and said French authorities are assisting the investigation. Analysis of the explosive device and work to identify the bomber is ongoing, it said.

It was not clear why the family was targeted or by whom.

Russia has a long history of targeting its enemies abroad, and Western intelligence officials have recently said that a campaign of targeted killings has ramped up since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine is also believed to have carried out attacks and targeted killings of Russian figures in the course of the war, although those attacks have largely been confined to Ukrainian or Russian territory.

The attack shocked the country on the Mediterranean coast, one of the world’s smallest sovereign states known for its high concentration of wealthy residents. Monaco’s Prince Albert II described it as “an odious act” and said all public services were mobilized to ensure security.

Nicholas Alexander Lee-Nathan, 29, was charged with two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of operating while intoxicated causing death and two counts of reckless driving causing death.

At around 2 a.m. on June 28, police responded to the area of W McNichols and Ardmore Street for a report of a car crash involving pedestrians.

When officers arrived, they found two people, Dawad Helton, 51, and Erica Smith, 43, lying on the roadway. They were taken to a local hospital, where they died from their injuries.

Lee-Nathan is accused of driving westbound on W McNichols at a high rate of speed when he struck Helton and Smith while they were crossing the street. He was also taken to a local hospital for treatment.

On July 1, he was arraigned in court and was remanded without bond.

Lee-Nathan is expected to return to court on July 9 for a probable cause conference.

Last month, the Department of Education announced it would shift oversight of special education to the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose comments on the limits of disabilities such as autism have drawn sharp rebukes from advocates and lawmakers.

Meanwhile, after a White House push to police homelessness, the Department of Justice released guidance that lowered the barrier to institutionalizing any person with a disability.

Taken together, the actions signal a worrying return to a reality where people with disabilities are pushed to the margins of society, advocates said.

“It’s a direct, frontal assault on the rights of people with disabilities to live their lives the way that people who are nondisabled live their lives,” said Selene Almazan, legal director for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. “I can't imagine that as a country, that would be something that we would agree we should go back to.”

The move away from confining people with disabilities

Since the 1960s, legislation and court decisions have expanded supports and protections for people with disabilities to go to school with nondisabled peers and to live and work in their communities. Before that, people with mental illnesses or developmental and intellectual disabilities were largely confined to institutions.

Advocates have pushed back on what is known as the “medical model,” where an individual's disability is viewed as a defect to be cured. Instead, under a “social model” of disability, differences can be accommodated and supported, as people with and without disabilities learn and work alongside each other.

Families and advocates have warned that moving special education to a health department marks a return to the medical model. They also have been angered by Kennedy's attempts to link vaccines to autism, going against decades of research that show no such link, and his framing of autism as a debilitating disease.

Kennedy's comments last year, where he said children with autism would never write a poem, pay taxes or hold a job, raised questions about how he would oversee an agency meant to help students develop those skills. Kennedy later said he was referring to people with " severe autism ″ or those who are nonverbal.

“Many of the things he said autistic people will never do, (special education) is in charge of making sure students with disabilities have the opportunity to do,” said Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. “Will he execute that faithfully, or does he consider disabled students a lost cause until we find some medical cure?”

The Supreme Court weighs in on disabilities

In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that segregating disabled people who are otherwise able to live in their community with proper supports was a form of discrimination. The Olmstead v. L.C. decision led to requirements that government agencies provide disability services in the most integrated setting possible — in mainstream schools, homes and workplaces.

But in a memo issued in June, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel upended that guidance. It argued that neither the Americans with Disabilities Act nor Section 504, two major disability rights laws, requires states to provide services in the most mainstream setting. While the memo does not change the law, it signals how federal agencies may interpret and enforce civil rights issues related to the topic. It could embolden states or school districts to decline to support people with disabilities in mainstream environments.

The White House has already acted on a similar philosophy. Last year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order on homelessness that endorsed civil commitment, where a court orders individuals into involuntary hospitalization or treatment programs. Trump directed HHS to reduce barriers to institutionalizing people with mental illnesses.

In its memo, the Justice Department acknowledged its interpretation of the Supreme Court's Olmstead decision is “out of step" with the common understanding. If a state starts to provide services in institutional settings, legal challenges likely would follow, the department said.

The Republican administration's steps fit a worldview in which the government has no obligation to support people with disabilities, said Claudia Center, legal director at Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

“It's dark, and it's awful,” Center said. “And I think it's contrary to the majority view in our country. ... It's out of touch with where our society is."

Families say their kids thrive in mainstream classes

The moves have created a deep sense of uncertainty for students with disabilities.

Lindsey Althaus says home and community-based services in northwest Ohio have been instrumental to her family. Her 12-year-old son, Whitman, has autism and a neurological disorder called apraxia, in which the brain struggles to tell muscles how to move to form words or perform other motor skills. For some of his school career, with proper support services, Whitman was able to spend much of his school day in a classroom that included kids without disabilities.

Through a Medicaid waiver program, Althaus pays her mother to care for Whitman in her absence. That allows him to spend time out in the community with his grandmother while Althaus and her husband are working or away with their daughter.

Under the Justice Department's new interpretation of Olmsted, states would have fewer obligations to fund and support those programs. Kennedy, in testimony to lawmakers on Capitol Hill earlier this year, criticized similar programs as subject to fraud.

“We want to be able to have him in the community,” said Althaus, who works as a disability rights advocate. “It's just starting to feel like Whitman's not going to be welcome anymore. We're going back to this: You're either perfect, or you're not in the light.”

For many students with disabilities, schools are where they receive the majority of support services and where they are integrated among their peers. Before Magda Nakassis's 8-year-old son, who is autistic and nonverbal, started public school in Maryland, his preschool experience had largely been defined by being kicked out of things, she said.

In school, Nakassis said, she found teachers and staff members who understood her son's needs and told her to stop apologizing for them. A program at his school called Fantastic Friends teaches mainstream fifth graders about autism and they spend recesses with children in the autism program. Every year, Nakassis said, there is a waitlist to be a Fantastic Friend.

Nakassis said that it has been difficult to see the ways autism in particular has become politicized. Every child is entitled to a public education in this country, Nakassis said, and special education is a response to the fact that some children have differences that require additional support.

Regardless of his diagnosis, his right to an education is not a medical issue, she said, but rather a question of equity and access in a society that often pushes disabled people to the margins.

“There are lots of kids like him out there, and I sometimes wonder, ‘what did we use to do?’” Nakassis said. “I can't believe it was better.”

___

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

At around 9:41 a.m. on July 1, deputies from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office responded to the area of Squirrel Road and Silverbell Road for a report of a worker trapped in a trench collapse.

According to the sheriff’s office, a subcontractor excavation company was excavating for the installation of a sanitary sewer within the new residential development. During the excavation, a 25-year-old worker from Clarkston was inside a trench box when the surrounding ground gave way, trapping him below the waist.

The man was freed by first responders and was taken to a local hospital. He is expected to be okay.

This is the second trench collapse within 24 hours in northern Oakland County. On June 30, a 35-year-old Ira Township man was rescued after he was buried during a trench collapse at a construction site in Oxford Township.

Read more --> Worker rescued after trench collapse in Oxford Township

The investigation into the trench collapse in Orion Township was turned over to MIOSHA.

“We are profoundly sad to announce the death of Victor Willis, lead singer of Village People," the group posted on its official Facebook page. The cause was identified as “a short but aggressive illness.”

Willis was a musician-actor who, among other things, had appeared on Broadway in “The Wiz” when he decided to cash in on the disco craze in 1977 by joining a group made up of beefy, macho-looking guys dressed as a biker, a construction worker, a cop, a cowboy and a Native American chief.

With producer Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, Morali’s business partner, Willis founded the six-member Village People. The idea came to them while partying at an after-hours gay nightclub in the West Village of Manhattan. The group’s self-titled debut album was released in 1977.

In 1978, the group released two albums, “Macho Man” and “Cruisin’” — which featured the international hit “Y.M.C.A.,” a song that peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard chart. A year later, Village People released the album “Go West,” which included “In the Navy,” a song that peaked at No. 3 on the chart. “Macho Man” peaked at No. 25 in 1978.

In 2020, Congress described “Y.M.C.A.” — with its infectious chorus of “It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.” and an accompanying dance spelling out the letters — as “an American phenomenon” and added the song to the National Recording Registry. In 2021, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Willis also starred in the 1980 movie “Can’t Stop the Music,” a widely ridiculed comedy starring the Village People and Steve Guttenberg and directed by Nancy Walker. Critic Rex Reed called it "one of the silliest movies ever made."

Village People music is the backbone of pool parties, high school dances, weddings, proms, bar mitzvahs, games and whenever an uplifting mood is needed. The songs also played at gay marches and the White House.

“We will think of Victor every time ‘Y.M.C.A.’ is played, like today, and all throughout this July Fourth Birthday week,” President Donald Trump wrote on social media Wednesday. “My condolences to his wonderful family and group, Victor Willis will be sorely missed.”

While musicians like Neil Young, John Fogerty, Phil Collins, Panic! At The Disco and the estates of Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty and Prince sent cease-and-desist letters to stop Trump from using their music, Willis said he didn't feel he was endorsing Trump when the song played.

Willis was born in Texas and grew up in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. When he moved to New York, he went to a YMCA on West 63rd Street in Manhattan, which inspired the hit song.

The ownership of Village People's songs came into doubt decades after the hits, and in 2015, a federal jury ruled that Willis was entitled to 50% copyright ownership in the United States of 13 of the group’s songs, including “Y.M.C.A.”

After a series of arrests on drug-related charges that resulted in a rehab stint, Willis told The Associated Press in 2012 that his life had turned around. “Life is fine. I went through whatever I went through, but everything is going great now,” he said.

In May, Willis and the Village People — he was the only original member — sang “Happy Birthday” and “Y.M.C.A.” for Secretary of State Marco Rubio during an event in India.

Starting Wednesday, the federal government is offering a selection of the brand name medications to certain Medicare and Medicare Advantage beneficiaries for $50 a month through a new trial called Medicare GLP-1 Bridge.

The temporary program, which runs until the end of 2027, is the first opportunity for most older adults to get GLP-1s, short for glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, covered by insurance when used strictly for weight loss. But there are weight and health requirements, and those who already get GLP-1s covered for diseases like diabetes and sleep apnea won’t qualify.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said he hopes the program can help his agency collect data to potentially work toward longer-term coverage, while providing immediate relief to cash-strapped older Americans.

“The sheer cost of these medications is a huge barrier to access,” he said in a call with reporters. “That ends today.”

Eligibility is based on BMI and other conditions

Of the more than 70 million Americans enrolled in Medicare, at least 10 million are overweight or obese, said Juliette Cubanski, vice president and director of the program on Medicare policy at the healthcare research nonprofit KFF. But, she said, a narrower slice of that group will have access to this program.

There's no good data on how many people it can benefit — and Oz declined to speculate on the number with reporters. He said data from the program will reveal how many eligible beneficiaries choose to take the drugs, a number his team is keen to learn.

To qualify, besides having Medicare drug coverage, you must have a body mass index of 35 or higher, or a BMI of 27 or higher alongside another health condition, such as a past heart attack or stroke, prediabetes or another from a list on the CMS website. BMI measurements are counted at the start of GLP-1 therapy — so even people who fall below the threshold now can qualify if they can show they had a high enough BMI when they began taking the drugs.

Medicare beneficiaries who have sleep apnea, diabetes or fatty liver disease can’t access the program, but their Medicare Part D insurance might cover their GLP-1s separately based on those diagnoses.

If you think you might qualify, the first step is to contact your health care provider, CMS says on its website. The provider must send a prescription for one of the covered GLP-1 drugs to a pharmacy and fill out a prior authorization form.

Only some GLP-1s are included

The covered medications include drugmaker Eli Lilly’s Foundayo tablets and Zepbound KwikPens and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy injections and tablets. Those GLP-1s have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for weight loss, Cubanski said.

For those in the program, the cost is $50 per month, regardless of dosage. But those payments won’t contribute to their insurance deductibles or out-of-pocket maximums. That’s because Medicare, rather than the Part D insurer, is subsidizing the prescription.

Longer-term coverage of GLP-1s remains uncertain

The program is scheduled to sunset after Dec. 31, 2027. And since Congress hasn’t authorized Medicare to cover weight loss drugs permanently, the federal government is limited in its options to keep the access flowing.

Congress could pass a law to allow the drugs to be covered. CMS also could move forward with a different, voluntary pilot program for covering the drugs called BALANCE, which the agency indefinitely delayed earlier this year when many Part D insurers were reluctant to sign up.

Oz told reporters that CMS plans to “carefully track participation and outcomes” to see whether an extension of the Bridge program or another solution is the best way to move forward. He told The Associated Press a federal law permanently allowing the coverage is “not essential right now” but something “for Congress to debate amongst themselves.”

“We can’t decide what’s going to happen long term with Bridge until we see some of the data,” he said, noting that other negotiations with drug companies to lower costs are ongoing.

Program is life-changing for some, frustrating for others

GLP-1s have soared in popularity in recent years, and they've spurred dramatic weight loss in many patients. But their cost — sometimes hundreds of dollars a month for higher doses — has been a barrier.

For 78-year-old California resident Gloria Dralla, who told the AP she’s lost some 40 pounds after buying lower-cost Wegovy in Europe, the Bridge program means being able to continue a treatment that has improved her life.

“This drug should be made available at a reasonable price for everybody who’s got weight loss problems,” she said.

But not everyone will have access to the drugs at an affordable price. Katie Smith, 71, in Virginia isn’t so sure she will be eligible for the program. She has a BMI of 33 but doesn't know yet if she has another health condition that would allow her to meet the requirements.

Smith, whose mobility and ability to exercise were severely limited by a spinal cord injury in her 20s, said she has looked into getting the medications but was quoted $700 a month, a price she can't afford.

“I cannot tell you how frustrated I am,” she said. “I have the drive and I have the willingness and I have the motivation, but I have not been able to lose weight in all the conventional ways.”

He will be joining The Guess Who as a part of the Takin’ It Back Tour which is coming to Pine Knob in Clarkston on Friday, July 3.

Watch the video above to see Don Felder’s interview on “Live in the D” where he talks about the tour and his music career.

Officials are actively enforcing that rule change.

The latest incident came on Tuesday night when Ecuador defender Piero Hincapié was sent off in second-half stoppage time of his team's 2-0 loss to Mexico in the round of 32. The red card didn't impact the outcome of the match, which ended moments later.

Hincapié's red card came after an exchange with Mexico forward Santi Giménez.

Why did FIFA establish the new rule?

FIFA established the new rule to prevent players from hiding abusive, discriminatory or offensive language while on the field.

Nicknamed the “Prestianni Law,” rules for red cards to players at the World Cup were added because of a controversy in international soccer this year.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino pushed for changes after Benfica winger Gianluca Prestianni tried to hide verbal insults toward Real Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior in a Champions League match. Soccer’s rule-making panel, the International Football Association Board, agreed that players can be penalized with a red card if they cover their mouths when verbally confronting another player.

The rule is not mandatory within the Laws of the Game but gives tournament organizers like FIFA the option to use it at their discretion.

The rule change was unanimously approved by IFAB, which includes officials from FIFA and the four British soccer federations, at a special meeting ahead of the FIFA Congress. FIFA’s proposal followed Vinícius, backed by Real Madrid teammate Kylian Mbappé, accusing Prestianni of making a racially charged insult while raising his jersey to cover his mouth during the game in February.

Is Piero Hincapié the only player who has received a red card at the World Cup?

No. Paraguay midfielder Miguel Almirón was the first player to be punished under the new rule when he was sent off in a group match against Turkey for covering his mouth during a confrontation with defender Mert Mulder.

Paraguay won 1-0, but Almiron missed Paraguay’s final group game against Australia. FIFA said that decision was not subject to appeal.

What does it mean when a player receives a red card at the World Cup?

If a player is shown a red card by an official, he is ejected from the match and must serve a one-game suspension in the following match.

The team is forced to play the remainder of the match with 10 players — putting them at a huge disadvantage — but is allowed to start the following match at full strength with 11 players, just not the suspended player. ___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The legislation, signed into law by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in May, does away with the mandatory essay portion of the Michigan Merit Exam — a state and federally mandated competency test (previously the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, or MEAP) which 11th and eligible 12th grade students are required to take each spring.

The Michigan Merit Exam consists of three components: a college entrance test in reading and writing such as the SAT, an optional work skills test, and the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP) in science and social studies.

State Reps. Matt Koleszar (D-Plymouth) and Tom Kunse (R-Clare) are co-sponsors of the legislation. They say the laws will help take stress out of the college application process and re-dedicate more resources for instruction and student development.

“Nearly every Michigan college has test-optional applications, yet Michigan’s students have been required to share their scores even while out-of-state applicants haven’t,” Koleszar said. “These laws even the playing field for Michigan’s students, ensuring they can competitively pursue postsecondary education in their home state.”

Koleszar says removing the essay requirement will also reduce the time required for standardized testing in schools, allowing for “more valuable instruction time with their teachers.”

“At their core, these laws are about reducing unnecessary stress while increasing opportunity for our kids,” he said.

The legislation passed with overwhelming support.

That's not what's happening in the volatile Mideast, where ongoing fighting still resembles a war long after ceasefire agreements were announced and President Donald Trump declared victory.

Israel is lately carrying out daily attacks on Gaza. The deal in Lebanon is a ceasefire in name only. As for Iran, low-level talks are continuing in Qatar this week under a 60-day deadline — a long way from a peace deal. People on the ground in the region, as well as some analysts and journalists, are increasingly objecting to anyone describing the state of the conflict as a “ceasefire.”

The shooting and periodic closures of the Strait of Hormuz, they point out, have never stopped for long.

“There is no ceasefire between the United States and Iran," said Fawaz A. Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, “Iran has zero trust in the Trump administration, so they are making the U.S. fulfill its obligations step by step. This tells me we are living in a new era where the ceasefire no longer really means what it used to.”

Ceasefires don't necessarily mean the shooting stops

Ceasefires are almost as old as conflict, an ancient way of formally calling a halt to hostilities. Also known as a truce, such an agreement is commonly understood to be a period between war and peace, in which the combatants agree to pause fighting while negotiations take place.

Beyond that, a truce means whatever the negotiators will tolerate as long as none backs out of talks. Breaches are common and have been used strategically to set a standard, tit-for-tat style, of acceptable lower-level hostilities during the sensitive period. The idea is to allow for accidents, miscommunications or misunderstandings that the participants agree should not scuttle talks.

Some ceasefires end up operating as long-term peace deals that can withstand violations in the absence of a formal treaty. Exhibit A: the Korean Armistice Agreement, which halted the fighting of the Korean War on July 27, 1953.

No formal treaty was ever signed, so the peninsula technically remains at war. Nonetheless, the deal halted hostilities and established the DMZ, a 4,000-meter (2.5-mile) buffer zone between North and South Korea. Breaches over the years have been commonplace.

In contrast, negotiators in the Mideast are still getting started, with the midterm U.S. elections looming and Trump eager to end the unpopular war.

Two U.S. envoys arrived in Qatar on Tuesday for talks with mediators about the an initial deal to end the war in Iran. The visit by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special Mideast envoy, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, comes after a weekend of crossfire in the Persian Gulf over efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping traffic.

Defining a ceasefire in 2026 is complex

The terms of ceasefires can be vague or highly specific. They can cover troop withdrawals, cessation of hostilities, limits on where fighting can happen, humanitarian aid, buffer zones and timing. Violence levels have a good chance of dropping during a declared ceasefire.

Technically, ceasefires of varying durability exist between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon and between the United States and Iran. But that has not meant an end to fighting.

Trump said it's all relative. “It’s a different part of the world, you know," he told reporters last month. "I’d say in that part, a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

Instead of halting fighting, the agreements have “paved the way for a new conflict in which the various parties are fighting over the postwar strategic reality and the acceptable rules of the game,” according to analyst Daniel Sobelman of Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

In the Mideast, “so-called 'rules' emerge through a process of violent bargaining over what is acceptable and what is a violation," said Sobelman, director of the graduate program in international security and diplomacy. Thus, the dissonance between the calm many people expect from a ceasefire and near-daily reports of ongoing fighting.

Does it work? Consider, Sobelman said in an email, that the U.S. and Iran have exchanged fire several times since the ceasefire went into effect, “and nonetheless the war has not erupted again because these upticks in violence are limited in time and scope.”

Institutions, from the United Nations to the U.S. Department of Defense and many news outlets like The Associated Press have broadly defined ceasefires as political instruments designed to take the pressure off the conflict as long as the sides consent to talking.

On the U.S.-Iran conflict, the AP advised its writers June 10 to include details about what’s happening on the ground, consider qualifying the deal with such terms as “tenuous” and referring to a "‘ceasefire deal,’ which speaks to the political process and not just the military/security dynamic.”

Over the weekend as fighting in the region flared again, Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., tried more colorful imagery. Asked on NBC's “Meet the Press” whether the war is really over, he described the ceasefire talks as “almost just a mop-up operation." Then he described some of the terms. “We have to press them if they strike us. We have to strike them back by 10.”

He added: “This is a ceasefire, and yeah, they broke the ceasefire.”

‘Ceasefires are changing character’

On the ground in the region it can feel like a war, and there's a rising resistance in some quarters to calling this period anything else.

“It is not a ceasefire when it applies only to Hezbollah, Hamas or Iran, but not to Israel and the United States,” Kathy Gannon, who reported from Pakistan and Afghanistan for the AP for 35 years before retiring, wrote on Substack June 7.

Much of the objection to using the term comes from Israel's ongoing attacks in Lebanon and Gaza despite ceasefires. Israeli leaders make references to deals and agreements. But they stress the country’s freedom to operate against what they say are violations and existential threats.

“Continued Israeli strikes are treated as compatible with the truce; comparable actions by others are treated as its collapse,” said H.A. Hellyer, senior associate fellow of Middle Eastern studies and geopolitics at the Royal United Services Institute and the Center for American Progress. “A word that once implied mutual restraint now serves to legitimize profoundly unequal restraint."

Israel continues to occupy large swaths of Lebanon's south while battling Hezbollah fighters, causing civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure. More than 4,000 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes since March, when Hezbollah fired at Israel two days after the Iran war began. Thirty-eight soldiers and three civilians have died on the Israeli side.

Here's what a ceasefire looks like in Gaza, where Israeli strikes have never really ended after the ceasefire agreement with Hamas in October. On Monday, Israeli strikes in southern and central Gaza killed at least eight people, including two children, and wounded at least 20 others, according to health officials and emergency services.

More than 1,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire in October, Palestinian authorities say.

Here are this year’s finalists:

• Adam’s Apple Bar in Detroit
• Brewligans Public House in Trenton
• Eastern Palace Club in Hazel Park
• My Place Bar & Grill in Wyandotte
• Sprader’s On the Lake in White Lake

We received more than 16,700 nominations across our 80 Vote 4 The Best categories this year. Each category was then narrowed down to five finalists.

Click here to view the full list of finalists.

Now that nominations are over, voting on finalists can begin. Voting is open from June 22 through July 20, and you can vote for each category once per day during that time.

Click here to vote for finalists in all 80 categories.

Shields will make her highly-anticipated Atlanta debut as she returns to the middleweight division and attempts to become just the second heavyweight champion, male or female, to win a world championship in a lower weight class in the last 120-plus years.

Presented by Salita Promotions in partnership with Wynn Records, Claressa Shields Promotions and Route 30 Promotions, and presenting sponsor Zeus Network, the event marks the first women’s headliner at State Farm Arena. The fight card will air live on boxing streaming service, DAZN. Tickets for the event are available on Ticketmaster’s website.

It was announced Tuesday that Zeus Network will stream live undercard coverage beginning at 6 p.m. ET featuring a mix of professional and celebrity influencer bouts. The Zeus Network press conference featured recording artist, actor and TV host Ray J, actor Orlando Brown, TV personality Big Lex, Not Da Lil One and TV personality Tesehki.

Here’s what the fighters and executives had to say on Tuesday:

CLARESSA SHIELDS:

“I want to thank Kaye for taking this fight, but because of you I have to lose 20 pounds. If you hadn’t taken this fight I wouldn’t have come back down to middleweight. I vacated those belts because no one wanted to fight me.

“I can make weight comfortably and keep all my power. I was undisputed twice at 160 and I wasn’t my strongest, but over the years I’ve gotten stronger. Kaye looks very strong and fit right now. Come Aug 15 I will look just as strong and fit.

“She’s not an easy task and she’s not someone who wants to lose. I saw her get a draw and come right back for a rematch to win these belts. It was a dog fight. They were bloody and bruised by the end of it, but Kaye came out on top.

“I honestly didn’t think she would say yes to this fight but I’m happy she did. I’ve always celebrated her wins – I’m not a hater so I can do that. The only time I have to go against anyone seriously is when they get in the ring with me.

“Kaye is so strong but I hope she’s ready for my best. Don’t think me losing this 20 pounds is going give you the upper hand.

“I know Kaye can’t outbox me. I think her game plan is going to be to come forward with those big broad shoulders and legs and try to land one of the meanest and strongest shots she can land to try to knock me off my block. That’s when you’re going to see a fight. That’s what I’ve been training for - to not get hit, to not get in a back and forth with her. Kaye loves back and forth wars.

“Kaye just said she thinks me coming down is her advantage and that’s how she’s supposed to think. But know this, skill overrides everything. I could be tired and have skill. I can be weak and have skill. People think that it’s all about strength. But I just know how to win.

“I’m looking forward to putting on a show in Atlanta. I was supposed to come here 2 years ago and I’m glad it finally happened. I love Atlanta. Shout out to all my fans who bought tickets. The dress code for the ladies is diamonds, glitter and sheer.

“I thank God for me being here. I thank Salita for rocking with me since 2016. I want to thank DAZN. I thank Ruben and Wynn for seeing my worth. And I want to thank you for Zeus for making this a bigger event.”

KAYE SCOTT:

“This is a big opportunity and I am honored to be part of it. This is not unfamiliar territory. I’ve earned this spot and I’m ready to put it everything on the line. They’re my belts and I am the world champion right now. She’s the challenger. I’m not looking to hand them over, she’s going to have to come get them off me.

“I have over 120 amateur fights, seven pro fights, nearly two decades dedicating my life to the sport. Self-belief is a strong tool and while I’m coming up against one of the best women in the entire world, I believe in myself and my ability. I believe I can get the job done.

“The aspect of her dropping the weight is definitely my advantage. In the amateurs I’ve done some heavy weight cuts and it can be draining on the body. I sit comfortably at middle weight. I’m hoping in the later stages of the fight that my endurance will come through. My fitness gives me the advantage to be able to push through.

“Thank you to my manager Mark Taffet, Salita Promotions and Wynn Records for believing in an event like this. Thank you to Claressa for choosing me as your dance partner.”

DMITRIY SALITA, PRESIDENT, SALITA PROMOTIONS:

“We are bridging together boxing and music. Thank you to Ruben, Papoose and Wynn Records for helping me bridge that game. Thank you to the cultural streaming network Zeus and Lemmy Plumber. Thank you DAZN, the number one premium boxing broadcast in the world.

“Claressa Shields needs no introduction as she is one of the most decelerated women in the sport. She the first woman boxer to be the main event on premium cable television. She’s a two-time Olympic gold medalist, the only male or female fighter to accomplish that in the history of the sport.

“Kaye Scott is very experienced world champion who just won WBC Fight of the Year. This is going to be an incredible fight.

“Thank you to State Farm Arena and thank you to Atlanta for welcoming us and for the hospitality.”

RUBEN BRANSON, CEO, WYNN RECORDS:

“Thank you DAZN and thank you Lemmy for helping us bring the sport of boxing to a whole new level. Wynn Records’ goal is to blend sports, entertainment and culture and with our partners we have been successful. August 15 will be an epic night for Claressa Shields who continues to redefine history. We are proud to walk side by side with you Claressa. As a United States veteran myself, I am so proud of you being a US two-time Gold Medal Olympian.”

LEMUEL PLUMMER – CEO, ZEUS NETWORK

“Thank you Ruben and Wynn Records and Salita Promotions. We are excited to be part of this and distributing the undercard on the Zeus network. This partnership will change the sport of boxing entertainment.”

MIRIAM ARCHIBONG, ROUTE 30 PROMOTIONS:

“August 15 isn’t just another fight. For the first time in Atlanta’s history, State Farm Arena will host a major boxing event headlined by two women. I can’t think of anyone more deserving to headline that event than Claressa The GWOAT Shields and Kaye Scott. Great cities don’t wait for history, they create it.”

CMA CGM Group said the acquisition will triple the size of its own logistics arm, CEVA Logistics and help build its presence as a contract logistics provider in North America.

In 2025, CMA CGM pledged to invest $20 billion in its U.S. warehousing, air cargo and logistics over four years.

The two companies said they expected to enter into multiyear air and ocean freight commercial agreements as well.

Rodolphe Saadé, CEO of CMA CGM Group, said the deal will "reinforce our long-term commitment to investing in the United States and supporting the resilience and efficiency of its supply chain.”

FedEx, based in Memphis, Tennessee, has been spinning off some businesses to focus on its delivery business, focusing on higher-margin business-to-business deliveries for the healthcare, automotive, aerospace and data center industries. It completed its spinoff of FedEx Freight, which transports heavy and bulky shipments, on June 1.

The acquisition is expected to close later this year, subject to regulatory approvals.

The air cargo and ocean freight deals are expected to be ironed out in different phases between 2026 and 2028.

Mere startups when he took the oath of office, the new ventures have now eclipsed in revenue much of his vast property portfolio that took him decades to accumulate. Fueling their rise were billionaire investors and Trump’s own move to quash a federal crackdown on the industry.

Trump got more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling new crypto products, including “governance tokens,” according to the required annual disclosure report with the Office of Government Ethics. It also showed another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face.

Both the tokens and the coins have plunged in value since the sales.

Trump also took in millions last year from selling Trump-branded Bibles, sneakers and other small items in another unprecedented move for the presidency. The sale of Trump-branded watches alone brought in $4.7 million.

The 927-page disclosure form paints a stark, if incomplete picture of the massive growth of the president’s wealth since taking office last January through a web of business interests — many of which have benefited from the policy moves of Trump’s own government. Trump has insisted that his sons direct his finances but the arrangement rejects the conflict of interest protections that his recent predecessors in office had instituted.

Forbes estimates Trump's net worth at $6 billion, up from $2.3 billion in 2024.

The Trump business is growing abroad

The rise of crypto relative to Trump’s property is especially noteworthy because he first rode to office boasting of his property wins. It's also remarkable because that mainstay business also boomed last year. Trump took in tens of millions in fees from a flurry of new hotel, resort and condo deals overseas that amounts to the biggest property expansion ever in the century since the family business was founded.

Many of those countries were negotiating with the U.S. over tariffs, military aid and other important matters while the family business was striking the deals.

A property in the United Arab Emirates generated $10.4 million for the Trump business last year. One in Saudi Arabia being built by a real estate developer close to the ruling family sent the president’s company $9 million. And one in Bucharest, Romania, and another in Qatar sent him $5 million each.

One of his prominent domestic properties, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, notched big growth last year, too.

Trump took in $77 million from the property, a 50% jump from the year earlier when he was just another citizen, as heads of state and business people flocked to it in his new term.

The disclosure report doesn't give profit figures, just revenue, so it's impossible to know how much he is earning.

Trump is now the billion-dollar crypto man

Trump said Wednesday that most of his gains last year came from the stock market and he's just riding along with everyone else.

“We’re all profiting,” he said. “I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.”

But crypto was clearly the big revenue generator last year in part due his own moves since taking office — pushing policies friendly to the industry and reversing a Biden administration regulatory crackdown.

The regulators are still worried. Before Trump's World Liberty began selling “governance tokens,” they issued warnings about this new kind of crypto asset, saying that unlike stocks, the tokens offer no ownership stake in the issuing company, just voting power on certain corporate policies, and are difficult to value.

Buyers pounced anyway, including a Chinese billionaire who spent $75 million on the tokens and $200 million on the souvenir coins. In February last year, a federal lawsuit charging him with duping investors was paused before being settled for a $10 million fine.

The billionaire, Justin Sun, has repeatedly denied his spending on Trump businesses had anything to do with his federal case, while World Liberty has dismissed the notion of a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile, investors have seen the value of their Trump-tied holdings drop significantly.

The price of World Liberty tokens has fallen 80% since they started trading in September. And the Trump souvenir coins that spiked to more than $74 in the days after launching in January 2025 now sell for $1.68.

The White House says Trump only acts in the public interest

The White House has repeatedly said Trump put his business in a trust managed by his sons and is not involved in its decisions and that there are no ethics issues to discuss.

“Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people.”

The Trump umbrella company, the Trump Organization, has said its deals overseas were with private companies, not with governments.

Still, it is difficult to know what is truly private in countries ruled by authoritarians, royal families and one-party governments.

For a new Trump resort in Vietnam, the report shows Trump took in $5 million last year after the ruling Communist Party sent its deputy prime minister to sign off on the deal and, according to The New York Times, pushed farmers off the land to make way for the construction.

Whether the deals played any role in changing U.S. policies in ways these countries sought is nearly impossible to know, but the countries did get what they wanted.

Vietnam got tariff relief. Qatar got access to advanced U.S. technology previously off limits, and Saudi Arabia got U.S. fighter jets it had coveted for years.

___

AP White House reporter Josh Boak contributed from Washington.

Cavalli struck out Contreras looking on a full-count pitch in the top of the fourth of what eventually became an 8-1 victory by the Nationals. The 27-year-old right-hander then shouted at Contreras as Contreras made his way back to the Boston dugout.

Red Sox manager Chad Tracy said he heard Cavalli yell “Sit down, boy” after fanning Contreras.

Asked what his specific words to Contreras were, Cavalli told reporters, “I don’t know. I just lose my head in it. I’m competitive. I just told him to sit down.”

The term “boy” has a racist history in the U.S. Contreras, who is Venezuelan, demurred when asked if he felt there was a racial component to Cavalli's word choice.

“To be honest, I don’t know,” Contreras said, later adding he plans to "let MLB handle that.”

Contreras, who hit a three-run homer off Washington's Miles Mikolas on Monday and celebrated with a massive bat flip that he later apologized fo r, then approached Cavalli on the mound. The two jawed at each other as both dugouts emptied.

“He struck me on a good pitch, I was walking back to the dugout, and then he did what did, and the rest was history,” Contreras told reporters afterward, later adding, "He was like, instigating, and I snapped.”

Boston catcher Carlos Narvaez tried to hold Contreras back, but Contreras broke loose long enough to leap and throw his batting helmet in Cavalli's direction.

Things settled down quickly after that, though the brief dustup ended with Contreras, Boston interim manager Chad Tracy, Boston outfielder Nate Eaton and Mikolas being ejected.

Cavalli pointed to an incident at the end of the top of the first when Contreras nearly ran into the pitcher as both exited the field as the spark that set things in motion.

“He's just been doing stuff," Cavalli said of Contreras. “In the first inning, he just runs past me and brushes me. It's just something you don't do in baseball. I think he knows that. I didn't say anything. I just looked at him. And a few words were said after the strikeout. It's part of the game. And he's going to let everybody run out there and try and do whatever he does, throw a helmet and get himself tossed.”

Cavalli stayed in the game and allowed one run on one hit with 13 strikeouts over seven innings in what became an 8-1 romp.

“After everything that happened, the people that they chose that were going to leave the game, I just felt like the other pitcher should have been one of them too,” Tracy said. "That was my biggest complaint.”

The early exit was the second in as many nights for Contreras, the first time that's happened to a Red Sox player in the club's 126-year history. The 34-year-old Venezuela native — who acknowledged he is having a difficult time while his native country tries to recover from a pair of devastating earthquakes last week — was ejected in the second inning on Monday for mimicking an appeal call after striking out on a checked swing.

“I feel like everything is against me right now,” Contreras said. "I got ejected last night from nothing. I got ejected today even though I was walking back to the dugout.”

___

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

Almost daily long-range attacks on Russian oil facilities have created a fuel crisis and heaped political pressure on the Kremlin as its all-out invasion of Ukraine stretches into its fifth year.

The Ufa refinery is one of Russia’s largest producers of lubricants and is located more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from Ukraine, Zelenskyy said on social media.

Ukraine also struck a plant producing missile components in Russia’s Penza region southeast of Moscow, some 500 kilometers (300 miles) from Ukraine, Zelenskyy said.

Russian officials did not confirm the strikes, which could not be independently verified. The Russian Defense Ministry reported intercepting 179 Ukrainian drones over 16 Russian regions, the annexed Crimea and waters of the Azov and the Black Sea.

Penza regional Gov. Oleg Melnichenko said that Ukrainian drones struck two industrial plants in the city of Penza, injuring two people at one of them. He didn’t name the plants or describe the damage.

The explosions shattered windows in two apartment buildings in Penza, Melnichenko said, while downed drone debris damaged a power line and fell on a building under construction.

Ukraine says drone strikes slow Russian advance

Ukraine’s domestically developed and manufactured drones and missiles have been hammering Russian oil facilities, including refineries, terminals, storage depots and pipeline pumping stations, for months.

Many regions of Russia, one of the world’s biggest energy producers, have introduced fuel rationing.

Ukraine has developed new weaponry and in recent months has gained an edge, according to Western officials. Its strikes on supply routes behind the front line have robbed the Russian army of momentum on the battlefield, officials and analysts say.

“Russians now have great problems with delivering infantry to the front line and supplying it,” Ukrainian Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov said Wednesday.

Ukraine sees growing interest in its military technology

Ukraine has become a provider of military technology sought by countries around the world, especially drones.

With European countries fearing what Moscow’s territorial ambitions might lie beyond Ukraine, leaders have described Kyiv as a bulwark against Russian advances.

Ukraine is “becoming a security provider for the whole of Europe,” Swedish Minister of Defense Paul Jonsson said in Kyiv, where he held talks with Fedorov.

Ukraine signed an agreement on Tuesday for Sweden to provide Kyiv with Gripen fighter jets. They will help Ukraine stop Russian aircraft carrying powerful glide bombs, Fedorov said.

Jonsson said European countries want Ukraine to be integrated into Euro-Atlantic defenses, although Ukraine’s NATO membership has been a contentious issue and likely will be discussed at an alliance summit in Turkey next week.

“The sooner it happens, the better it is for you, the better it is for our security and prosperity as well,” Jonsson told a press conference.

Ukraine also wants to join the European Union, though the process could take years. Zelenskyy arrived Wednesday in Ireland, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.

“Ukraine proves every day that it deserves to be an equal partner of our common European home. And we hope that during Ireland’s presidency of the EU Council, we will be able to achieve tangible progress on the path to membership and open all negotiations clusters,” Zelenskyy said.

Russian attacks kill five Ukrainian civilians, injure 35

Russian long-range attacks on Ukraine continued, with at least five civilians reported killed Wednesday.

A Russian drone struck a bus in the southern Kherson region, killing two people and injuring six others, regional head Oleksandr Prokudin said.

Glide bombs hit the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest, killing two people, including a 15-year-old boy, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. At least 26 people were wounded, including a 1-year-old, he added.

A 43-year-old woman was killed and three were injured, including a 35-year-old pregnant woman, when Russia attacked five gas stations in the central Dnipropetrovsk region overnight, according to regional authorities.

Russian forces have increasingly targeted Ukrainian gas stations.

___

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

Anthropic said Tuesday night that its AI model called Claude Fable 5 is now widely available. It's also restoring access to its most powerful model, Mythos 5, but only to a select group of U.S.-based organizations approved by the federal government.

The Commerce Department blocked foreign nationals from using both AI models on June 12, a move that San Francisco-based Anthropic said forced the company to immediately take the products down for all users just days after it unveiled them.

Anthropic said in a blog post this week that the government's concerns were sparked by a report from cybersecurity researchers at Amazon, Anthropic's primary cloud computing provider. The company “had found a method of bypassing Fable 5’s safeguards” that enabled it to discover and potentially exploit software vulnerabilities, Anthropic said.

Officials have grown increasingly concerned since Anthropic warned earlier this year that its Mythos model was adept at finding software flaws in a way that could be weaponized by malicious hackers and threaten critical computer networks around the world.

Anthropic's chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, also said Friday it is restricting the release of its new artificial intelligence model at the request of President Donald Trump’s administration.

OpenAI said its new AI product, called GPT-5.6 Sol, would be accessible only to a select group of government-approved customers for a temporary period.

Trump last month signed an executive order on AI oversight that established a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to 30 days before their public release. The order described participation by AI developers as voluntary, but the framework has not yet been fully developed.

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman in Washington said that policy violated the First Amendment. He issued a preliminary ruling Tuesday barring the requirement while the Times continues its protracted legal battle against the department's restrictions.

While the order's language suggested the judge's decision was directed only at the Times, the escort policy itself applies to all journalists.

The newspaper in May sued the Defense Department for the second time in five months. The lawsuits have played into an escalating tension between the U.S. media and the Republican administration, both in the public arena and the courts.

The Times hailed Friedman’s ruling.

“Today’s well-reasoned decision reaffirms the First Amendment rights of the press to cover the Pentagon without restrictions designed to prevent the public from knowing what the military is doing,” said Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson. “The court recognized that the Pentagon’s hastily implemented new policy was a clear violation of the Constitution.”

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell posted on X late Tuesday that the department “strongly disagrees” with Friedman's decision. "This ruling strips away reasonable security measures and will make it easier for sensitive and classified information to reach our adversaries.”

Parnell argued further that “unescorted access to the Pentagon allowed journalists to observe activity patterns and develop relationships that contributed to repeated unauthorized disclosures of operational plans and intelligence. The court’s order effectively restores that risky environment at a time when protecting our military’s secrets is more critical than ever.”

The Times first sued in December over rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seeking to limit media access.

The escort policy was implemented in March after a ruling by Friedman that had struck down earlier restrictions. He said they violated the rights of Times reporter Julian E. Barnes and the paper.

The following month, the judge ruled that the interim policy violated his March order. But the escort policy remained in place when an appeals court stayed part of Friedman’s ruling while the government appealed. The appeals process is ongoing.

The Times and other outlets walked out of the Pentagon in October rather than agree to Hegseth's restrictions. They continue to cover the U.S. military from outside the building. A new press corps approved by the department currently occupies the Pentagon space.

Last year, President Trump announced a new fighter mission for the base.

The plan will give Selfridge 21 new F-15 Ex Eagle Two Fighter Jets to replace aging A-10 Warthogs.

The new jets will reach 1,800 MPH and can fly 3k miles without refueling.

New jets are set to arrive in 2028.

For the jets, Lansing has locked in $152 million for runway and infrastructure upgrades at the base.

The funding is a piece of what Selfridge is expecting for its needed $1 billion improvements over the next few years.

Selfridge supports 30k jobs statewide and brings in an estimated $850 million dollars into Michigan’s economy each year.

On July 1, the base turns 109.

The base is located in Harrison Township.

Originally, the land was bought by Henry Joy, president of the Packard Motor Car Company, in 1916 and named Joy Aviation Field.

When the U.S. Army took over the field in 1917, the field was renamed Selfridge, after Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, the first person ever killed in a military aircraft crash.

54 years later, on July 1 1971, the army handed the base to Michigan Air National guard, making Selfridge the first active air force base in the country to be run by the guard.

Maj. Gen. Paul Rogers, Adjutant General, Michigan National Guard. joined Local 4 Live to tell us more.

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

The Wayne Metropolitan Community Action agency is launching “Wayne Metro on the go”, a mobile intake unit to bring support directly into communities across the County.

The organization is planning to give residents access at block parties and community events to connect with staff and access full range of services on the spot.

Jasmine Carson, executive director and Hiba Haidous, director of community for the organization joined Local 4 Live to tell us more on how residents can utilize this service.

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

Fuel rationing has been introduced in many regions, with hourslong queues of cars snaking beside roads. Social media videos show drivers aghast at the lines or swearing at empty gas pumps and rising prices. The mayor of the Siberian city of Irkutsk even ordered portable toilets brought in to accommodate those in line.

The fuel crisis — unprecedented for a nation that is one of the world's biggest energy producers — has brought Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine home to ordinary Russians like few other events in the war, now in its fifth year.

It drew a rare admission from President Vladimir Putin, who acknowledged “problems persist for both motorists and businesses,” and “there are still queues at petrol stations, and finding the right grade of petrol isn’t always easy.”

He insisted the shortages are “not critical” and “temporary.”

But that appeared to do little to reassure at least one motorist in Moscow, the wealthy capital typically better-insulated from economic shocks than the rest of the country.

“I think the situation is not very good,” the motorist waiting in line told The Associated Press on Monday, the day after Putin's televised remarks.

“They say one thing on television, and in reality it’s another. ... People are queueing everywhere,” he added, declining to give his full name out of safety concerns.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday echoed that sentiment, writing on Telegram that “Putin can go on and on, claiming on TV that he supposedly has everything under control," but Russians can see that the war "has reached the point where even an oil state -- a gas station, as Russia used to be called -- is now facing gas shortages.”

Ukraine hits energy targets multiple times

An AP count shows over 50 reported attacks by Ukraine on oil refineries, depots, terminals and other energy infrastructure in Russia and the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula since March. Often, the same facility was hit more than once -– such as the refinery in the Black Sea town of Tuapse that was struck four times.

The amount of crude oil Russia processed into fuel in June was down 25% from a year ago, to 3.95 million barrels per day — the lowest level in over two decades, said Gary Peach, oil markets analyst at Energy Intelligence.

“The outages are extraordinary,” he said.

Gasoline production has fallen 17% to 850,000 barrels a day, from 1.03 million a day a year ago — far short of what the domestic market needs. Russia exports relatively little gasoline.

About a third of Russia's oil refining capacity is offline, said Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Ltd. Consultancy, noting that because refineries don't publicly confirm the extent of the damage, his estimate comes from anecdotal evidence and oil industry sources.

“It comes at a very critical time for the Russian economy, in that the agriculture season, particularly the harvest season, is now starting to ratchet up,” increasing demand, Weafer said.

Ukrainian officials describe the strikes as a campaign to pressure Moscow to end the war by undermining military logistics and supply lines and weakening its ability to mount front-line assaults.

In particular, Kyiv has sought to isolate Crimea, which was seized from Ukraine in 2014 in a move most nations don't recognize. Attacks this year forced the Moscow-installed authorities to enact fuel rationing on the peninsula in May and halt sales to civilians there altogether. Limited sales later resumed in the city of Sevastopol.

Attacks — and fuel shortages — spread

Ukraine carried out major drone strikes on Russia’s two largest cities, embarrassing the Kremlin with images of black plumes of smoke that circulated widely online, despite regulations restricting their publication.

A June 3 attack on a St. Petersburg oil terminal darkened the sky as Putin prepared to host his annual economic forum to attract foreign investment. On June 18, a similar cloud rose from the Moscow Oil Refinery on capital's outskirts, with greasy black droplets raining down.

By late June, some form of rationing was reported in over half of Russia's regions. Some slapped strict limits on all gas stations; in others, gas station chains limited how much fuel could be bought.

Officials blamed hoarding and panic-buying, urging motorists to fill their tanks only when needed.

Exports of gasoline and aviation fuel have been restricted, and authorities weighed banning diesel fuel exports, too.

Importing fuel was being considered. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said contacts with some countries were “underway,” calling the move “another step toward stabilizing the market and aimed at reducing panic-buying.”

Shortages in Siberia

The shortages have reached distant regions where no refineries were attacked by Ukraine.

Viktor Shkurenko, who owns retail stores and other businesses in the Omsk region, called announced limits on gasoline sales there to 40 liters (10.5 gallons) per vehicle “unexpected.”

“Nothing was bombed here. We have the biggest oil refinery in Siberia right here, and it gave us confidence that this fuel crisis won’t come to us,” he said, expressing worry about how limits could affect his businesses. As of Saturday, however, he said his company has not had any problems refueling its vehicles.

In the Siberian region of Zabayakalye, east of Lake Baikal, media reports said a garbage hauler suspended pickups and some bus services were curtailed.

In addition to ordering portable toilets outside gas stations, the city of Irkutsk raised public transport fares as of Wednesday, citing higher fuel costs.

Pavel Kharitonenko, acting head of Irkutsk's branch of the opposition Yabloko party, told AP he finds it easier to walk or use public transportation.

“I don't have the fuel, and I don't want to queue at gas stations,” he said. The Irkutsk region, home to a Rosneft oil refinery, has experienced acute shortages for several days, with lines growing, Kharitonenko said.

Repairs will take time

Putin said Russia's gasoline stockpiles are only 4% lower than what it had the same time last year. Weafer, the analyst, says that "reportedly, there are good supplies of fuel around the country. The problem is it’s in the wrong place."

Supplies need to be reallocated to regions experiencing shortages, and in a big country like Russia, “it's not something that can be done overnight," Weafer said.

“There should be enough, but it will take several weeks to get it from where it is to where it’s needed,” he says. “It’s just a huge logistics operation to do that.”

Fixing the war-damaged refineries is complicated. Ukraine's attacks damaged specialized equipment that is often imported, making repairs time-consuming and expensive as workarounds or replacements are sought by evading sanctions.

“They manage to get these things up and running, not necessarily at full capacity,” Peach said. “But the extent of the damage this time is so extensive that they won’t get back to winter levels of refining this summer.”

Some refineries aren't worth repairing until a ceasefire or armistice, he said, because they will just "get knocked down again.”

Repairing the Moscow refinery that supplied 40% of the fuel for the capital and the surrounding region is expected to take at least three months, Weafer said.

If there's no further damage to Russia's oil infrastructure, he estimated the shortages will last “probably throughout the summer" because demand from agriculture will likely remain high into September.

———

Associated Press writers David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, and Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed.

Collins, 28, is expected to step into Detroit’s starting power forward role.

ESPN Senior NBA Insider Shams Charania reported Wednesday (July 1) on X that the Pistons identified Collins as their top free-agent target.

The Pistons pursued Collins as their top target to assume an expected starting role at power forward -- completing a deal with his agents Sean Kennedy and Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management this morning. https://t.co/gBtEQeNYQh

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 1, 2026

The signing addresses the team’s vacant power forward position and adds depth at center, where All-Star Jalen Duren’s status remains uncertain.

Collins gives the Pistons another pick-and-roll finisher at the rim alongside Cunningham.

The 28-year-old spent last season with the Los Angeles Clippers after being acquired in a trade before the 2024-25 season.

He averaged 13.6 points and 5.3 rebounds while shooting 55% from the field and 40% from the three-point range, offering both scoring and floor spacing.

Known for his explosiveness above the rim, Collins finished nearly 15% of his field-goal attempts with dunks last season.

He has also continued to develop into a reliable perimeter shooter, making him a versatile offensive weapon.

Originally selected by the Atlanta Hawks with the 19th overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, Collins emerged as one of the league’s top pick-and-roll finishers alongside now Washington Wizards guard Trae Young.

Collins later spent two seasons with the Utah Jazz before joining the Clippers.

His arrival continues Detroit’s push to build around Cunningham following the Pistons’ return to playoff contention last season.

His ability to finish at the rim and space the floor is expected to complement the team’s potential young core, especially if Duren re-signs with the team.

Contest organizer the European Broadcasting Union and Canadian public broadcaster CBC announced that Canada will send an act to the 2027 contest in Bulgaria in May. Canada is the first new country to join Eurovision since Australia entered in 2015.

The announcement was made on the Canada Day national holiday. It comes shortly after Canada joined the EBU, an association of national public broadcasters that oversees Eurovision.

A campy, colorful contest that has been likened to the World Cup with songs instead of soccer, Eurovision has given the world the perfect pop of ABBA’s “Waterloo” – the winning song in 1974 – and a host of Euro-pop party anthems.

CBC President Marie-Philippe Bouchard said participation “will allow Canadian talent to be showcased on one of the most storied music stages in the world.”

Founded in 1956, Eurovision brings together musical acts from dozens of mostly European countries to compete for the votes of professional jurors and international viewers.

Eurovision Director Martin Green said Canada’s accession is “a further sign that, while born in Europe, the Contest continues to welcome the world.”

The CBC said it will announce details of how Canada’s entry will be selected later this year. Some Eurovision countries choose their competitors through televised national selections. In others, competitors are picked by the national broadcaster.

Canadians have entered Eurovision before under different flags — most famously Quebecoise chanteuse Celine Dion, who won the 1988 contest competing for Switzerland.

The 70th Eurovision contest in May featured 35 countries and was won by Bulgarian singer Dara, so next year’s competition will take place in the southeast European country.

Eurovision has been roiled in recent years by protests over the participation of Israel, a competitor since 1973.

Five longtime participants — Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland and Slovenia — boycotted this year after organizers declined to kick Israel out over its conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza and violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The 2026 Eurovision final was watched by 130 million viewers around the world, organizers say, down from 160 million in 2025.

Despite the blows to Eurovision’s finances and viewership from the boycott, the contest is eyeing expansion, with a spinoff Eurovision Song Contest Asia due to take place in Bangkok in November.

The blaze was caused by a technical failure on the ground floor of the building, where more than 200 people live in 80 apartments, in the city’s Linkeroever neighborhood, sending vast plumes of smoke into the air, Antwerp police said in a statement.

The top floors of the 10-story block appeared worst hit. The building was evacuated and nearby residents were warned to keep their windows and doors closed and, if needed, to turn off any ventilators due to the amount of smoke in the air. Those evacuated were taken to a local shelter.

Firefighters battled the blaze in difficult conditions due to its size and intensity, police said. Several teams of first responders and police were dispatched to the site, including a specialized drone unit.

Television images from the scene showed one man on an upper floor enveloped in smoke and hanging over a balcony in an effort to get fresh air, before making his way to a nearby window.

A medical emergency plan was activated to keep the victims from saturating nearby hospitals.

An Associated Press photographer at the scene said that the smoke died down by early afternoon, but that many first responders were still there.

Belgium 's Prime Minister Bart De Wever, a former mayor of Antwerp, said his “thoughts are with the victims and the evacuated residents of the terrible fire on Linkeroever.”

“My deep appreciation goes out to the emergency services who are striving to help the many affected people as quickly and safely as possible, and who are working hard to bring the fire under control,” he said in a post on social media.

Linkeroever, which is located on the eastern edge of Antwerp, is a large residential area dotted by high-rise apartment buildings and bordering a major park where outdoor music concerts are held.

___

Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

But a box-fan distribution hosted by the Salvation Army Grandale Corps in Detroit ended early after the organizers ran out of supplies within an hour.

“We were going to do it yesterday from 10 to 12 and today from 10 to 12,” said Envoy Margaret Gaster with the Salvation Army. “But by 11 o’clock yesterday, the fans were all gone.”

Gaster said the site received 137 box fans donated by Ace Hardware and promoted the two-day event online, believing the supply would last through both distribution windows.

“We thought it would stretch over the two days, but it did not,” Gaster said.

On Tuesday (June 30), some community members arrived to find signs posted on the doors reading, “Sorry, we are all out of fans.”

Gaster said turning people away is the last thing the organization wants to do, especially during a stretch of dangerous heat when needs are rising across multiple services, including its food pantry.

The Salvation Army Grandale Corps is now asking the community to help meet demand, particularly for residents without air conditioning.

“We have a lot of seniors in this area. And I would say maybe 10 percent would have an air conditioner. The rest are just going off fans,” Gaster said. “They’re keeping their house locked up, so the heat doesn’t get in, but then it gets stuffy in there.”

How to help

The Salvation Army Grandale Corps is accepting donations of:

• Box fans
• Small air conditioners
• Shelf-stable food items, including proteins

Donations can be dropped off at the Salvation Army Grandale Corps at 11325 Montrose Street, Detroit.

Cleveland's left fielder lost track of the number of outs in the seventh inning and threw the ball into the stands, allowing the Texas Rangers to score the go-ahead run in a 4-2 victory over the Guardians on Tuesday night.

“Obviously, I feel terrible,” Ingle said, his face flushed red on a warm, humid night. "It’s a pretty embarrassing feeling.”

With a runner at second base and one out in the seventh, the 24-year-old Ingle, making just his second major league start as an outfielder, caught a routine fly ball hit by Rangers left fielder Alejandro Osuna off Cleveland starter Tanner Bibee for the second out.

Thinking it was out No. 3, Ingle briefly glanced at the ball in his glove before throwing it over the protective netting to fans as a souvenir.

The umpires immediately ruled the ball was dead and Osuna was awarded home plate.

It wasn't until then that Ingle realized his mistake and he walked back to his position in shocked disbelief. He was charged with an error.

“Yeah, honestly when I threw the ball out, I heard a bunch of yelling,” Ingle said. “Happens sometimes, but just got to learn from it and not make the same mistake."

Guardians manager Stephen Vogt, who has had to plug rookies into his starting lineup all season, offered his unwavering support to Ingle.

“These things happen,” Vogt said. “Rookie. Nonrookie. It’s happened to Hall of Famers. They’ve done it. We’re going to keep learning. We’re going to keep getting better.”

Vogt was proud of the way Ingle's teammates quickly rallied around him following the bone-headed play.

“It’s a mistake. Lost track of the outs. Pretty big spot,” he said. “We’ll learn from it and can’t control it once it happens. That’s why I was like, flush it. And I just want to give a credit to the dugout. Every one of his teammates, when he came back in, same messaging.”

One of the first to talk to Ingle was Guardians catcher Austin Hedges, who told him to keep his chin up.

“I’ve made so many mistakes,” Hedges said. “I can’t even remember half of them. I’ve embarrassed myself a billion times on the field. I mean, just check my offensive numbers for my career. It’s not super easy to go through that, but that’s the big leagues.”

After his mistake, Ingle said he immediately apologized to Bibee (2-9), who went toe to toe Jacob deGrom for seven innings. Bibee's response to his teammates was to try and make things right.

“I just told him to go tie the game right back up,” Bibee said. “Obviously, we all make mistakes. Everyone in this locker room has made multiple mistakes in the big leagues, whether you’re (rookie) Khalil (Waston) or me or Hedgie. It’s tough.”

Ingle was brought up from Triple-A Columbus last week. He made his big league debut on June 26 and got his first major league hit the next day, a two-run single against Seattle.

After his fielding foible, Ingle came up in the bottom of the seventh and grounded out. He got another chance in the ninth to avenge his gaffe but struck out looking for the game's final out.

What's most important now is that he move forward.

“Obviously learn from it and think about it,” he said. “It’s not something that makes you feel great, but things like that happen for a reason and learning from those things and moving on and getting better from them, it’s pretty much the only thing you can do.”

Vogt said the mistake doesn't affect his belief in Ingle.

“We’re going to help him through it. That’s what we’re here for,” he said. "You’re playing in your second game in the outfield in the big leagues and a mistake like that. Let’s learn. So what? It’s over. Flush it. We’re not going to be mad at him.

“We’re not going to hold it against him. He’s going to be right back out there the next time it’s his turn to play outfield. This was a mistake. This isn’t a judgment or anything like that, but we know how good of a player Coop is and we’re going to stick with him and we’re going to keep helping him.”

___

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

“He just started walking,” laughed his mother, 27-year-old Kyra Cornell. She's already plotting her son’s soccer career during a World Cup-themed event for toddlers at a suburban Kansas City library, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the stadium where six matches are being played.

Across the country, experts are watching to see whether the World Cup will give a boost to youth soccer — and mint fans for decades to come.

Soccer already ranks among the most popular youth sports in the country. Among 6- to 12-year-olds, 7.5% played youth soccer in 2024, a slight drop from a decade earlier, but only baseball and basketball recorded higher stats, according to a report from the Aspen Institute.

Youth soccer already has a track record of converting players into fans

Look at Haley Garbowski, a midfielder who has been to more professional women's soccer matches than she can count.

Just days after her private Kansas City, Missouri, high school won the state championship match, the 18-year-old was helping out at a summer camp on the Kansas side of the metropolitan area, leading a gaggle of grade-school girls around a circuit of sports that includes rugby, tennis and, of course, her own beloved soccer.

“We were killing it,” gushed Garbowski, as she recalled the title game victory in the small school division. In the fall, she is headed to San Diego State University as a business major and considering a career in sports marketing.

Are her grandparents soccer fans? She laughs at the thought. Her mother has become a fan but didn’t start out that way, unaware her high school had a soccer team until Garbowski went snooping in an old yearbook.

None of this comes as a surprise to Michael Lewis, an Emory University professor who focuses on the intersection of sports analytics and sports marketing.

“Soccer is a generational story that’s building generation after generation, but it takes a long, long time,” Lewis said.

America’s sports landscape shifts

Overall, soccer doesn’t have the draw of the big three of baseball, basketball and the American brand of tackle-heavy football. Ipsos Sports research shows that only about 1 in 10 Americans consider themselves fans of U.S. soccer or international soccer.

Boomers in particular grew up playing the big three and that influences what they watch now, Lewis said. Ipsos data shows that those 65 and older are especially likely to call themselves fans of the popular trio.

But market researchers see promise with millennials — and Gen Z, those between the ages of 14 and 29.

America’s sports landscape began to change in the 1970s, when the now-defunct North American Soccer League signed greats like Pelé, the winner of three World Cups with Brazil.

By the 1980s, U.S. kids were playing, too, including girls thanks to Title IX, the federal law that bans sex-based discrimination in education.

But the gym teachers and parents who coached this first batch had little experience to draw from. Some learned the rules from books. And those in football-dominated towns sometimes resisted soccer, fearful it would pull talent away from the gridiron. Players faced taunts and slurs, and were even accused of being communists.

“I cannot repeat the things I got called,” said Darin White, 58, who played and then coached at the college level before becoming the executive director of the Center for Sports Analytics at Samford University in Alabama.

But kids kept playing. The U.S. hosted the World Cup in 1994. Major League Soccer played its inaugural season two years later. Today's parents frequently have played themselves. There are highly competitive travel teams. MLS has joined the player development effort with its MLS Next program. Its players have gotten better, and viewership is up.

When American sports fans are asked why they became a fan of sports generally, about half say it was because of their family’s connection to the sport, or that they grew up as a fan of a particular team, Ipsos data shows.

The women's game has fueled soccer's rise, too, said Nicholas Watanabe, a professor at the University of South Carolina, whose book “The Beautiful Game?” is about the future of soccer. Girls that play as kids become fans. Their enrollment helps keep youth leagues large and more financially viable, Watanabe said.

“Without the success and long-standing growth, I don’t think you get this side-by-side effect that also I think has helped the men’s team, too,” Watanabe said.

Consider the Kansas City Current, the NWSL team that touts its stadium as the first built for a women’s soccer team. Its owners include Brittany Mahomes, a former college soccer player and the wife of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The Current, which is playing host to the Netherlands' team during the World Cup, sent staff to help at the camp where Garbowski was working.

Where soccer goes from here in the US

Make no mistake. Experts are quick to add soccer isn't the NFL, the juggernaut in a saturated U.S. sports market.

“The question isn’t, ‘Why aren’t we as big as football?’ Well, we’re not, but we are way closer than the last time we hosted the World Cup,” said White, who is studying how Americans get hooked on the sport.

There are challenges: Most of the best players still compete in the more storied European leagues. Hardcore American fans frequently follow those European teams, rather than MLS ones, which means less money to grow the sport in the U.S., White said. But on the plus side, American players are increasingly breaking into these top European leagues, White said. And he noted the sport's youthful fan base in the U.S. is one marketers are eager to woo.

“I am more hopeful right now than I’ve ever been in my life,” said White, adding, “And I’ve been a soccer missionary, if you will.”

Back at the Lenexa, Kansas, library, one mother held her 1-year-old daughter's hands as she toddled toward a ball, kicking it with a chubby bare foot.

“Messi,” another toddler practiced saying, repeating the last name of the star of the Argentine team whose tournament home base is nearby.

Jude, meanwhile, was shifting from tossing cones to tugging at his ears, afflicted with the same malady that had landed several of the toddlers on the room’s version of the injury list. Teething.

“Do you want to play soccer?” his mother asked the 17-month-old, noting some programs in town take kids as young as 2. He didn't respond.

“You don’t know,” she said. “Maybe like next spring or summer we start trying.”

____

AP journalist Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

USA vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina watch party at Campus Martius: Everything Detroit fans need to know

The World Cup excitement continues in downtown Detroit as soccer fans are expected to gather for a watch party featuring the United States’ Round of 32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The World Soccer Celebration will take place at Campus Martius Park in partnership with the Downtown Detroit Partnership and Detroit City FC.

The match is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., with gates opening at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 1. Fans must have a free ticket to attend.

The event is expected to bring together soccer supporters from across Metro Detroit to cheer on Team USA in a downtown celebration atmosphere.

Read more here.

Corrections officer at Milan prison who had sex with inmate summoned for no-contact violation

A former corrections officer who served six months in jail for having sex with an inmate in her care and buying him a gold chain is due back in court this week after allegedly violating the terms of her probation.

Cara Wozniak, 36, of Milan, pleaded guilty in September 2024 to having sexual contact with a ward while working at FCI Milan and providing the inmate with contraband. She was sentenced in February 2025 to six months in jail followed by one year of supervised release, during which she was ordered to have no contact with the inmate. However, court documents filed last month show that Wozniak violated those terms.

Read more here.

Priority Waste CEO shares progress on plan to fix disruptions, delays across Metro Detroit

The CEO of Priority Waste announced the progress of the company’s recovery plan following numerous customer complaints across Metro Detroit.

CEO Aaron Johnson sent a letter to residents on Wednesday, July 1, outlining the progress so far on Priority Waste’s recovery plan after numerous communities across Metro Detroit experienced service delays and collection disruptions.

“Our objective is not simply to restore service, but to build a stronger, more reliable company than the one that existed before,” said Johnson. “We will continue to communicate openly, share our progress, and hold ourselves accountable for delivering measurable results.”

Read more here.

Redford Township cat hoarding case: Animal Control rescues cats from home deemed public health hazard

Animal control officers from multiple agencies are continuing efforts to rescue dozens of cats from a Redford Township home after authorities declared the property an imminent danger to public health.

Redford Township Animal Control responded to a home in the 20000 block of Gaylord Street on Wednesday (June 24) after receiving a welfare check request.

Officers found what officials described as deplorable living conditions. The homeowner was located and transported to a Metro Detroit hospital for treatment.

Read more here.

Weather: Dangerous heat continues across Metro Detroit as storm chances increase for the holiday weekend

A prolonged stretch of dangerous heat and humidity continues to grip Metro Detroit with near-record temperatures expected through Thursday before a more active weather pattern arrives heading into the holiday weekend.

An Extreme Heat Warning remains in effect through Thursday as afternoon high temperatures soar into the mid to upper 90s. When combined with oppressive humidity, heat index values will climb to 105 degrees or higher, creating dangerous conditions for anyone spending time outdoors.

• More Local Headlines
• National Headlines
• World Headlines
• Sports Headlines