Here are this year’s finalists:

• Ashoka Indian Cuisine in Troy
• Midnight Temple in Detroit
• Namaste Flavours in Canton Township
• Pink Garlic Indian Cuisine in Oak Park
• Star of India

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.

Three defenders converged on Patrick Berg as he moved into the penalty box with the ball, and he kicked it over to a wide-open Haaland for his fifth goal in three games at this year's tournament.

Antonio Nusa scored with a curling kick for Norway, which is in its fourth World Cup and will next play five-time champion Brazil in the round of 16 on Sunday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The match comes 28 years after what many considered the greatest win ever for the Norwegians against Brazil.

Norway is playing in its first World Cup since that 1998 appearance, when the team got to the knockout round only after scoring goals in the 83rd and 89th minutes for an incredible 2-1 comeback win over then-reigning World Cup champion Brazil in the group finale.

Arnard Diallo, who had kept Norway from taking a two-goal lead earlier in the second half, evened the match with a left-footed kick in the penalty box in the 74th minute.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Livernois is shut down between Curtis Street and Margareta Avenue on June 30, as police surround a home.

It’s not clear why police are surrounding the home. Law enforcement has been present in the area for hours.

This is a developing story.

The 44-year-old Williams was given a standing ovation Tuesday as she walked onto the grass court where she won seven of her 23 Grand Slam singles titles.

Several supporters held up signs with messages like “Welcome Back” and one wore a T-shirt with the text “Unstoppable Queen.”

Williams’ two daughters, her husband Alexis Ohanian and sister Venus were all in attendance. After a brief warmup under the closed roof, Williams began her first-round match against Maya Joint by returning in the opening game. It is her first singles match since the 2022 U.S. Open after opting to return to the sport she dominated for so long.

After losing that first game, Williams easily held serve for 1-1 with the help of a perfect backhand lob that drew another loud ovation.

Williams’ match was the third and last on Centre Court on Day 2 of the tournament, after defending women’s champion Iga Swiatek and men’s French Open winner Alexander Zverev both won.

But the American's return was the main attraction as she went up against an opponent less than half her age in the 20-year-old Joint.

Her return has certainly created a buzz around the All England Club, which is without some of its usual star power after two-time men’s champion Carlos Alcaraz and home favorite Emma Raducanu both withdrew with injuries.

Williams practiced for about 50 minutes a few hours before her match, with good friend Caroline Wozniacki — another former No. 1 — looking on.

“I’m very excited, it’s always good to have the GOAT back,” Wozniacki told The Associated Press. “She is fun to watch, not only as a friend but also as a tennis fan. Anytime you can have her back and playing, I think it’s exciting for the game.”

After returning to play doubles at Queen’s Club this month, Williams accepted wild cards to play in both the singles and doubles tournament — with Venus — at Wimbledon.

After the opening day featured wins for No. 1s Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka, along with Novak Djokovic, Zverev and Swiatek also made it into the second round.

In a match between hard servers, the second-seeded Zverev beat Alexander Blockx 6-4, 6-7 (8), 7-6 (5), 7-6 (0).

Swiatek, who had her father and sister watching on in the Royal Box on Centre Court, struggled with her serve and committed nine double-faults before overcoming Townsend 6-1, 2-6, 6-3.

No. 2 Elena Rybakina also advanced, beating Lois Boisson 6-4, 1-6, 6-3.

Fifth-seeded Alex de Minaur and No. 6 Taylor Fritz were among the early winners in the men’s bracket. But No. 4 Ben Shelton, a quarterfinalist here last year, lost to 140th-ranked Finnish qualifier Otto Virtanen in five sets, going out 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (8), 6-2, 7-6 (9).

Fritz beat Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 on No. 1 Court, having originally been set to face Jack Draper on Centre Court before the British player withdrew with an injury.

Women’s No. 6 Amanda Anisimova also advanced, along with former Wimbledon finalist Jasmine Paolini.

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

The decision, in line with the longstanding judicial interpretation of the 14th Amendment, comes on the final day of a Supreme Court term that has centered on Trump’s expansive claims of presidential power — and largely ruled in his favor.

In its other Tuesday rulings, the court upheld laws in roughly half the states that prohibit transgender girls and women from playing on their public school and college sport teams and struck down limits on party spending in federal elections.

Here's the latest:

Petitioner in birthright case says she was ‘scared to come forward’

ACLU attorney Cody Wofsy read statements to reporters from some of the petitioners in the case, including from a Taiwanese woman who lives in Utah and whose daughter was born soon after Trump’s executive order. She is listed in court filings under the pseudonym Susan.

“It is a difficult time in the world to stand up,” she said in the statement. “We were scared to come forward, but the decision today showed me that I stood up for the right thing. We can all stand up for the right thing.”

ACLU celebrates the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship ruling

“This should have been a unanimous decision,” attorney Cody Wofsy, deputy director at the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, told reporters after the decision was announced. “The text of the Constitution is clear, the history is clear, and the precedent is clear.”

“That said, regardless of what the vote count may have been, this is a rejection of the Trump administration’s extreme attempts to rewrite the Constitution and to exclude entire portions of American-born children from our country.”

Birthright could become a powerful wedge issue in US politics, critic of decision says

“The president was never going to win, in the sense that his executive order was going to be overturned,” said Mark Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank favoring restrictive immigration policies. “The question was if the Supreme Court would accept the ACLU’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment.”

The ruling “constitutionalized the question” of birthright citizenship, he said, requiring changes through a constitutional amendment.

That, he argued, is highly unlikely: “Congress can’t rename post offices, let alone do anything else.”

But, he said, birthright could now become a powerful political wedge issue, similar to the court’s 1973 abortion ruling, which was overturned in 2022.

“It’ll distort our politics the way Roe vs. Wade did in energizing a political movement,” he said.

Could pregnancy now be a question on visa application?

Mark Krikorian, a prominent Washington voice favoring restrictive immigration policies, said he expects the ruling to result in new U.S. visa applications, with potential visitors being asked if they are pregnant.

“It’s something that visa officers are often reluctant to ask about — it’s awkward,” said Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

“But if it’s on the application then you have the answers, and if you lie you’ve committed a felony,” he said.

The Trump administration says birthright citizenship has created what it calls a birth tourism industry.

“It is unacceptable for foreign parents to use a U.S. tourist visa for the primary purpose of giving birth in the United States to obtain citizenship for the child,” the State Department said in a post on X. “Those who abuse our immigration system through birth tourism may be ineligible for future visas or travel to the United States.”

Justice Thomas says the majority misunderstands the 14th amendment

He insists the majority opinion perpetuates a misunderstanding and misapplication of the 14th amendment.

The citizenship clause and related Reconstruction statutes granted citizenship “to persons born and domiciled in the United States regardless of their race,” he wrote. But “neither guaranteed citizenship to persons who were not domiciled in the United States.”

He continued: “Blacks were entitled to citizenship because they were Americans. They had no other homeland, owed no allegiance to any foreign power, and were subject to no other authority.”

That highlights the argument over what it means to be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S.

The majority holds that, with exceptions like foreign diplomats, being on U.S. soil makes a person subject to U.S. laws. Thomas and dissenters reason that no one who is separately subject to another foreign government should be considered “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., at least when conferring citizenship.

Justice Jackson takes issue with Thomas in citizenship reasoning

Justice Clarence Thomas’ dissent in the birthright case argued the 14th amendment’s citizenship clause applied only to formerly enslaved people and not more broadly.

That prompted Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to pen a concurrence to Roberts’ majority opinion.

“Despite his longstanding endorsement of a ‘colorblind’ Constitution, Justice Thomas now surprisingly suggests that the Citizenship Clause was a race-conscious remedial measure, relating only to ‘freed slaves such as Dred Scott,’” she wrote, calling that a “narrow vision” of Reconstruction’s intended expansion of democracy.

“This alternative account pitches Black Americans against immigrants when the advocates who promoted the Fourteenth Amendment did no such thing,” Jackson wrote. “Freed Blacks fought for the shared humanity of all people.”

Jackson is the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Thomas is the second Black man, succeeding Thurgood Marshall, who argued the Brown v. Board case that struck down segregated schools.

Trump says Congress should end birthright citizenship and calls court ruling ‘too bad’

The president said the Supreme Court’s decision upholding that anyone born in the United States automatically becomes an American citizen was “too bad for our Country,” but that Congress could “easily” address it with legislation.

Trump declared that “No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!”

But the Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday makes it clear that it would be necessary to amend the Constitution. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the opinion for the court, pointed to the Fourteenth Amendment in the Constitution in ruling that anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions, is a citizen.

Justice Department reacts to the ruling on birthright citizenship

The Justice Department said in a statement that it’s “committed to tackling illegal birth tourism schemes by working diligently with U.S. Attorneys across the country to uphold the law.”

“Actors seeking to exploit loopholes to obtain automatic citizenship for their children pose a national security threat and will be brought to justice,” the department said in a post on X.

Dred Scott case featured in the justices’ birthright citizenship writings

U.S. Supreme Court justices have long distanced themselves from the pre-Civil War decision that declared Black people — enslaved and free — were not U.S. citizens.

The 1857 Dred Scott case was featured again Tuesday, being mentioned 48 times in 194 pages of the birthright citizenship opinion, concurrences and dissents.

Roberts’ majority opinion explained how U.S. birthright citizenship originates with English common law: Anyone born in the monarch’s realm was considered a “natural-born subject.”

The “odious” Scott case, Roberts said, deviated from that once-accepted understanding and “was met with shock.”

In response, he detailed, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause restored common law understanding, with lawmakers making clear they were explicitly rebuking the Scott decision.

Yet, Roberts wrote, “the Government and the principal dissent propose a return to its core tenet,” that “for certain people, being born on American soil will not suffice to confer citizenship.”

Supreme Court denies report that Justice Samuel Alito is retiring

The Supreme Court’s public information office is denying a published report, since retracted, that the court announced Alito’s retirement Tuesday.

The unusual statement followed a story from NPR saying the court had announced that Alito was stepping down. NPR pulled the story a short time later. Chief Justice John Roberts announced the retirement of several court employees Tuesday, as he customarily does after the court’s final opinions are out. Alito was not among them.

Speculation had swirled about the justice’s future plans earlier this year, but Fox News and CBS reported this spring that he planned to remain on the bench.

NPR’s editor-in-chief released a statement saying the story had been incorrectly reported and that correspondent Nina Totenberg would appear on “All Things Considered” Tuesday afternoon to explain what had happened.

Court will consider striking down assault weapons bans in Connecticut and the Chicago-area

A Supreme Court that has expanded gun rights will consider whether bans on semiautomatic rifles, often called assault weapons, violate the Second Amendment.

The justices said Tuesday they will take up appeals asking the court to strike down bans on the AR-15 and similar semiautomatic firearms in the Chicago area and Connecticut.

Similar laws are in place in about a dozen states, covering major cities like New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Congress allowed a national assault weapons ban to expire in 2004, but Democrats have supported renewing it in response to a series of mass shootings and states have continued to pass their own laws.

The cases are the latest high-profile disputes over guns to reach the court since its conservative majority handed down a landmark ruling in 2022 that expanded Second Amendment rights and spawned challenges to firearm laws around the country.

The case is expected to be heard in the fall.

▶ Read more

More reactions to the Supreme Court’s decision on campaign spending

The conservative-leaning Institute for Free Speech hailed the decision as “a landmark victory for the First Amendment.”

“More than half the states have operated for years without restricting coordinated party expenditures, and there is no evidence of the corruption the federal government fears,” institute senior attorney Brett Nolan said. “The Court corrected a two-decade-old mistake.”

Meanwhile, Jacquelyn Lopez and Rachel Jacobs, partners in the Elias Law Group, which represents Democrats in voting rights cases and election contests, said the decision “needlessly” destroyed “a long-standing pillar” of federal campaign finance laws.

However, they also said Republicans have “pushed the boundaries” of the limits to help weak candidates. They said the Elias Law Group had anticipated the outcome for months.

“In the long run, Democratic campaigns will benefit from the level playing field this ruling provides,” they said. “Now, both parties are free to offer unlimited support to their candidates, not just the party willing to ignore the law to do so.”

From a descendant of the man at the center of the 1898 birthright citizenship ruling

Norman Wong, the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, the Chinese American cook at the center of the landmark 1898 Supreme Court decision establishing birthright citizenship, applauded Tuesday’s ruling.

“My great grandfather, Wong Kim Ark, never set out to become a symbol. He was one man, only a cook, and yet he stood up for what was right, and I believe that it has made a difference,” Wong said in a statement. “As a result, he stood up for the rights of all of us Americans — it just so happens that I am related to him. Today’s ruling shows that his victory remains as important now as it was in 1898.”

‘By the grace of God, the president does not manage to do everything he wants’

For a Mexican mother with six children born in the United States — ranging in age from 18 years to 18 months — the Supreme Court’s decision brought happiness.

“I am happy for our children,” the 38-year-old woman said in a telephone interview. “I am happy because they don’t face any risk like we do.”

The woman, who asked not to be identified for fear of being detained and deported, crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2007 in search of a better life. She has not applied for asylum or any other immigration status.

She works at a plant nursery in South Florida, where her children attend school.

The woman said one of her children called her as soon as he found out about the decision to share his joy with her.

“By the grace of God, the president does not manage to do everything he wants,” the mother said. “I was confident that, with God’s help, he would not succeed.”

Birthright citizenship survived racist eras, and now Trump, Global Refuge leader says

The head of Global Refuge said the Supreme Court averted a catastrophe with its 6-3 opinion upholding the 14th Amendment and rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to overturn a Reconstruction era amendment.

“Birthright citizenship survived the Chinese Exclusion Act, Jim Crow, and today, it survived an executive order that would have essentially turned the maternity ward into a customs checkpoint,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President and CEO of Global Refugee.

“The Justices rightly recognized that the U.S. Constitution is clear and unambiguous: if you are born in this country and subject to its jurisdiction, you are a citizen of this country,” she said. Vignarajah said a different outcome would have denied citizenship to more than 250,000 children born in the U.S. each year.

“This was a constitutional stress test.”

Trump says Republicans won ‘big’ on Supreme Court’s party spending ruling

The president applauded a Supreme Court ruling that struck down a federal election law and made it easier for major donors to avoid caps on individual contributions to candidates by going through the party.

“A BIG WIN FOR REPUBLICANS and, more importantly, The First Amendment!” Trump posted on social media.

House Speaker Mike Johnson ‘very disappointed’ over birthright citizenship ruling

The Republican leader’s news conference was interrupted by the ruling as reporters instantly sought a real-time reaction.

“Oh dear,” Johnson said as a reporter read out the decision.

Johnson said he believes it will subject the country to “serious challenges going forward and we’ll have to deal with that.”

Johnson, who has worked as a constitutional lawyer primarily on religious issues, said the 14th Amendment is being abused by people who are coming to the U.S. to have children in a “birthing tourism trend.” It’s not illegal but is a practice the Trump administration has tried to reduce.

Republican senator calls for constitutional amendment restricting birthright citizenship

Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri called the Supreme Court’s decision “wrong, dangerous, and disastrous for American sovereignty and the American people.” He denounced the decision’s majority, including “squish conservatives,” in a post on X.

Schmitt added that Congress may need to act to restrict birthright citizenship following the court’s ruling.

“I will be announcing a forthcoming constitutional amendment to restore the sacred bond between American citizens and their government,” Schmitt wrote.

He said the amendment “will ensure that citizenship once again reflects allegiance, permanence, and membership in the American nation.”

Nation’s largest Latino civil rights group touts victory in birthright citizenship case

“This decision confirms a truth that generations of Americans have lived by: a child born on this soil is a citizen of this nation,” Roman Palomares, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said in a statement. “The Court has made clear that no president can override the Constitution by decree.”

LULAC was one of the plaintiffs in the birthright citizenship case. The organization sued the Trump administration last year over the president’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship.

In transgender sports dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor says details matter

In her dissent on the West Virginia transgender athlete case, Sotomayor emphasized that Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 16-year-old high school sophomore, identified as a girl at a young age and started hormone therapy before going through puberty as a male.

That matters, Sotomayor said.

The justice did not argue that West Virginia could not set policies that set restrictions on transgender participation in girls’ sports to ensure safety and fairness. Such a policy, Sotomayor argued, could conceivably allow Pepper-Jackson to compete as she wishes. Meanwhile, the justice wrote, an absolute ban could violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

But the immediate issue, Sotomayor said, is that courts haven’t resolved the factual question of whether Pepper-Jackson’s circumstances put her on the same competitive level with other female athletes. Sotomayor said justices should have returned the case to lower courts to settle that question.

Opposing reactions to the Supreme Court’s trans athlete decision

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, hailed Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision barring transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports, while the American Civil Liberties Union senior lawyer Joshua Block called it “heartbreaking.”

Morrisey said the decision “will be remembered as one of the most important victories for women’s athletics since the enactment of Title IX itself…We defended a simple principle most Americans instinctively understand: that women’s sports exist to provide women and girls a fair opportunity to compete and succeed.”

Block said: “The reality is that the equality of transgender women and girls takes nothing away from, and in fact promotes, the equality of all women and girls. We will continue to advance the fundamental principle that all young people deserve equal opportunity to thrive and succeed.”

The trans teenager at the center of the Supreme Court’s decision on sports

Becky Pepper-Jackson is at the center of Supreme Court decision upholding states’ ban on transgender athletes participating in girls’ and women’s sports.

The teenager from Bridgeport, West Virginia, is a state-qualifying track and field athlete who placed third in the 2025 discus competition.

Six years ago, at age 11, Pepper-Jackson challenged a then-new state law banning trans athletes from competing in female sports in middle school, high school and college.

Now, in high school, Pepper-Jackson is the only trans person who’s sought to compete in girls sports in West Virginia.

Tuesday’s ruling means Pepper-Jackson’s recently completed track season will be her last in the state.

Divides over political party spending have mostly split along partisan lines

After President Trump took office for his second term, the Federal Election Commission dropped its defense of the law limiting party spending and joined with Republicans in urging that it be overturned.

Democrats had called on the court to uphold the law, even though there’s wide agreement that the spending limits have hurt political parties in an era of unlimited spending by other organizations.

Entrenched divisions between liberal and conservative justices over campaign finance restrictions were on display when the court heard arguments in December.

“Every time we interfere with the congressional design, we make matters worse,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a dissenter in Citizens United and the court’s other campaign money cases.

By contrast, Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the Citizens United majority, described the decision as “much maligned, I think unfairly maligned.” The effect of the decision was to ”level the playing field,” Alito said, by expanding the right to spend freely that had previously belonged only to media companies.

Group supporting tough restrictions on immigration says Supreme Court ruling is a mistake

“Birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens will continue to be a ballooning negative consequence of the failure to enforce our immigration laws,” said Dale Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “But that very fact makes it all the more urgent to step up enforcement to the maximum possible extent and end illegal immigration.”

Trump says Supreme Court ruling on transgender athletes is a ‘big win’

The president has made his opposition to transgender athletes a key feature of his speeches and he embraced the Supreme Court decision that states can ban the athletes from girls and women’s teams.

“BIG WIN,” Trump said on social media. “Wow! That takes that ridiculous situation off the table!!!”

Immigrant advocacy group welcomes birthright citizenship ruling

“The Justices rightly recognized that the U.S. Constitution is clear and unambiguous: if you are born in this country and subject to its jurisdiction, you are a citizen of this country,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the head of Global Refuge, a nonprofit that works with immigrants, said in a statement. “Birthright citizenship survived the Chinese Exclusion Act, Jim Crow, and today, it survived an executive order that would have essentially turned the maternity ward into a customs checkpoint.”

Latino civil rights leaders praise birthright citizenship decision

“Today, the Supreme Court defended the soul of this country and the very definition of what it means to be an American,” Voto Latino President Maria Teresa Kumar said in a statement.

She added: “By reaffirming that every child born on American soil is a citizen, the court chose to embrace our multiracial and multicultural reality, rather than succumb to a political agenda rooted in the fear of it.”

Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion upholding birthright citizenship

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court, citing congressional debate over the amendment. “We keep that promise today.”

How colonial history helped shape birthright citizenship

Unlike much of the world, birthright citizenship is common across North, Central and South America. Many legal historians believe the roots of that geographic divide reach back more than 500 years, when European nations began sending settlers to their American colonies.

Europe’s aristocrat rulers wanted to encourage people to move to the colonies, but those colonists wanted their children — even if born overseas — to hold on to their European citizenship.

The practice remained in place as independence movements began to take shape and as independent nations began to emerge.

“By then, their legal traditions had already started to form,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University. “So by and large they continued some of the key legal practices of the colonial European governments that they had just severed ties with.”

Depression, Kean said, “is physical, it is emotional, and until you experience it yourself, it is difficult to fully understand how powerful this illness can be.”

Kean’s reappearance came weeks after his victory in an uncontested primary on June 2 and months after he last cast his vote in the House. His speech ended the silence on his condition, yet left questions unanswered. Kean said he first entered the hospital due to health concerns and underwent testing, but offered no further details.

After the speech, Kean left the Capitol quickly without answering questions from reporters.

Kean last voted in the House on March 5. His absence had complicated matters for House Republican leaders, who have been struggling to pass bills with their threadbare majority.

Kean said he was diagnosed for depression and that doctors recommended he remain in the hospital. Addressing his earlier statement that he expected to return to work in a matter of weeks, Kean said he believed that at the time and it was his doctors’ best estimate then.

“But as the over 48 million of my fellow Americans being treated for this illness have come to discover there is no timeline for healing," Kean said.

“Today I stand before you healthier, stronger and excited to return to the work that I love."

A second-term lawmaker and scion of a New Jersey political family, Kean represents a battleground district that includes President Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club.

What the House speaker says about Kean’s return

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he would leave it to Kean to decide whether his remarks Tuesday provided sufficient transparency.

“He spoke to it," Johnson said. “It’s his personal issue, and, you know, I thought the speech on the floor was, well, I thought he explained it.”

Johnson said he had “encouraged him all along to be as transparent as possible” and was “glad he finally has” been.

The mystery over Kean's absence had potential political implications, given the competitive district he represents and the Republican Party's narrow control of the House. His office has said he is still running for reelection and is set to face Democratic nominee Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, in New Jersey's most high-profile contest in November.

Democrats have targeted the district as a prime pickup opportunity, given that the seat has changed hands in the last two midterm elections. Kean won in 2022 by defeating Democrat Tom Malinowski, who had defeated Republican Leonard Lance in 2018.

Johnson added Tuesday he is confident Kean would be “easily” reelected in November. Trump has endorsed Kean’s reelection, without mentioning his absence.

Kean comes from a long line of public servants, stretching 250 years to the country’s founding when one of his ancestors became New Jersey’s first leader since independence.

Kean's great-grandfather was a senator, his grandfather was a congressman and his father is the former two-term governor, Tom Kean Sr.

Absent from public view

Lawmakers vary in how transparent they are about extended absences.

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history, was hospitalized more than two weeks ago, and his office has released few details about his condition since.

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat, checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment for clinical depression weeks after being sworn into office in 2023. Fetterman, who has dealt with the effects of a stroke he suffered in May 2022, disclosed the hospitalization the day after he was admitted.

Fetterman has talked openly about his struggle with depression and urged people to get help.

“There are people who are suffering with depression in red counties and blue counties," Fetterman said in 2023 after a six-week inpatient treatment. “If you need help, please get help,.”

Kean and House Republican leaders kept the public in the dark about his condition for months. He missed more than 100 House votes this year and was not seen publicly in Washington or his district.

New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat who has spoken openly about living with depression, wrote on social media after Kean's remarks that he has “deep sympathy for anyone struggling with mental illness.”

“At the same time, public office carries a duty of transparency," Torres wrote. “When a public official is absent for an extended period, the public has a right to an honest explanation.”

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Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

Prodded by a Republican-led lawsuit that includes Vice President JD Vance, the court's six conservative justices were again in the majority of the latest decision that upended congressionally enacted limits on raising and spending money to influence elections. The court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the door to unlimited independent spending in federal elections.

The limits on party spending stem from a desire to prevent large donors from skirting caps on individual contributions to a candidate by directing unlimited sums to the party, with the understanding that the money will be spent on behalf of the candidate.

The Supreme Court had previously upheld the limits, in 2001.

But Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the court, said that decision was wrong and should be overruled. “In short, constitutional text, history and precedent establish that the political-party coordinated-expenditure limits violate the First Amendment,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Justice Elena Kagan's dissent for the three liberal justices said the court “ushers in untold harm” by enabling parties to funnel large contributions to individual candidates, far in excess of what donors can give those candidates directly.

National parties now will be able to make direct contributions to candidates’ campaigns,

The decision is likely to give Republicans at least a short-term boost because they maintain a sizable cash advantage over Democrats.

The Republican National Committee and its Senate and House campaign fundraising arms have dwarfed Democrats’ in the months before congressional elections where the GOP is defending narrow majorities in both houses.

At the end of May, the RNC reported having more than $125 million to spend, its highest-ever cash on hand total, according to its most recent Federal Election Commission filing in May. Meanwhile, the National Republican Senatorial Committee had more than $48 million on hand in its most recent report and the National Republican Congressional Committee had more than $81 million.

In the same period, the Democratic National Committee had $14.4 million on hand, while the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had roughly $37 million and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, roughly $73 million.

The Republican committees for House and Senate candidates filed the lawsuit in Ohio in 2022, joined by Vance, then a senator from Ohio, and then-Rep. Steve Chabot.

After President Donald Trump took office for his second term, the Federal Election Commission dropped its defense of the law and joined with Republicans in urging that it be overturned.

Democrats had called on the court to uphold the law, even though there is wide agreement that the spending limits have hurt political parties in an era of unlimited spending by other organizations.

Last year, the coordinated party spending for Senate races ranged from $127,200 in several states with small populations to nearly $4 million in California, the most populous state. For House races, the limits were $127,200 in states with only one representative and $63,600 everywhere else.

Entrenched divisions between liberal and conservative justices over campaign finance restrictions were on display when the court heard arguments in December.

“Every time we interfere with the congressional design, we make matters worse,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a dissenter in Citizens United and the court’s other campaign money cases.

By contrast, Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the Citizens United majority, described the decision as “much maligned, I think unfairly maligned.” The effect of the decision was to ”level the playing field,” Alito said, by expanding the right to spend freely that had previously belonged only to media companies.

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Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont contributed to this report.

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

The Panthers sent Evan Rodrigues, Jesper Boqvist and the rights to pending restricted free agent Ben Steeves to the Devils for Markstrom and winger Angus Crookshank. Florida got goalie Akira Schmid from Vegas on Monday night for a 2028 third-round pick.

“Jacob is an established veteran leader in this league who possesses size and a relentless drive to win,” Panthers general manager Bill Zito said. “We are excited for him to compete alongside our established group and return to South Florida.”

Markstrom at 36 returns to Florida, where he started his NHL career a decade and a half ago. He was one of the top prospects at the position after getting taken with the 34th pick in the 2008 draft and played his first 43 games in the league with the Panthers during their down years, long before becoming a contender again.

Bobrovsky, 37, backstopped Florida to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2024 and ’25 and another trip to the final in ’23. He is expected to be among the top players available when free agency opens Wednesday.

Markstrom is beginning a two-year contract at an annual salary cap hit of $6 million. That was signed in late October by former Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald, who left the organization in April. Moving on from him is the first big roster shakeup for successor Sunny Mehta. New Jersey now has Jake Allen in net and will likely go shopping for his tandem mate in free agency.

Rodrigues, who turns 33 on July 28, gives the Devils another top-nine forward. The Panthers shed his salary of just over $3 million after getting Brady Tkachuk from Ottawa to play with brother Matthew.

In other moves around the NHL:

— The St. Louis Blues put winger Jonathan Drouin on unconditional waivers to buy out the final season of his contract. They got Drouin at the trade deadline from the New York Islanders as part of the return for Brayden Schenn.

— Utah signed goalie Sebastian Cossa to a two-year, $4 million contract after trading a first-round pick to Detroit for his rights.

— Fresh off winning the Cup, Carolina reacquired defenseman Kyle Masters' rights from Anaheim for forward Noah Philp. The Hurricanes sent Masters to the Ducks on Saturday along with a sixth-round pick for the rights to pending free agent John Carlson.

— Vegas, which lost to Carolina in the final, made a one-for-one defenseman swap with Pittsburgh, sending Kaedan Korczak to the Penguins for Parker Wotherspoon. Pittsburgh is retaining half of Wotherspoon's $1 million salary in a cap-saving deal for the Golden Knights.

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

One of the killed firefighters worked for the U.S. Wildland Fire Service, created this year without customary congressional approval by drawing personnel from four agencies within the Interior Department. The victims were part of an elite, helicopter-based crew that got trapped Saturday in a fast-growing wildfire near the Utah border as they attacked the blaze on the ground.

Authorities say they were among five firefighters who tried to shield themselves by deploying tentlike emergency shelters as flames overran their position. Two survivors were hospitalized with burn injuries.

The consolidation of thousands of personnel into the fire service has sown confusion among some firefighters about who their bosses are and what their responsibilities should be, according to former government officials.

And the administration’s focus on “full suppression” of new fires marks a sharp reversal from a decades-long trend toward embracing flames as a tool — to burn off old vegetation and growth that acts like fuel and lessen the risk of catastrophic blazes being stoked by a warming planet.

The changes benefit private fire aviation companies that are key to hitting blazes fast.

Federal officials have not released details on the circumstances preceding the weekend deaths, including the firefighters’ objective at the site where they were overrun.

“The question is, why were they attacking that fire in the first place?” asked Timothy Ingalsbee, a former federal firefighter and cofounder of the advocacy group Firefighters United For Safety, Ethics and Ecology. “What was actually at risk? If it was a bunch of shrubs on remote mountaintops, what was the real risk that justified putting those firefighters at risk?”

98% of fires are extinguished

Wildfires ignited over the past week all across the West following months of dry weather and a record lack of snow in some places.

Acting under an order from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the Wildland Fire Service will use full suppression “for every wildfire under its management,” federal officials said in a statement to The Associated Press.

“Any wildfire that represents a threat to life, property, infrastructure or the environment should be extinguished as quickly as possible,” the statement said. “Our experienced fire managers retain the authority to select the safest and most effective tactics based on conditions on the ground.”

But critics say the administration is trying to fix something that isn’t broken: The four agencies the firefighters were drawn from — the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and National Park Service — have a record of extinguishing 98% of the fires they handle.

The new agency and policy won’t eliminate catastrophic wildfires that occur due to dense forests where people are increasingly moving and extreme weather caused by climate change, said Steve Ellis, who retired as a Bureau of Land Management deputy director and chairs the National Association of Forest Service Retirees. Land managers must be a part of the solution, he said.

“Severing forest management and forest managers from fire suppression will make firefighting less safe and put communities at greater risk,” Ellis said.

The two other wildland firefighters killed in Colorado worked for the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, which handles most U.S. wildfires and is also operating under a full suppression policy. Trump had wanted the new agency to include Forest Service firefighters, but Congress blocked that part of the plan.

Fire aviation companies pushed for the consolidation

Under Trump, federal officials have been bringing in aircraft more quickly once fires ignite, said Austin Moeller, senior aerospace analyst for Canaccord Genuity group, an investment firm.

“Anyone that has an air tanker benefits from this more aggressive contracting activity,” Moeller said.

A chief beneficiary is Bridger Aerospace, a Montana-based company founded by U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy. Before his 2024 election, Sheehy hired lobbyists in a failed attempt to persuade the Montana Legislature to create a statewide fire service analogous to the one just created at the federal level. Within a month of taking federal office, he sponsored a bill to codify the consolidation of federal firefighters into one agency.

Sheehy stepped away from his company during the 2024 campaign and put his Bridger assets into a blind trust, said Sheehy spokesman Tate Mitchell.

Mitchell said Trump was behind the idea to create a new fire agency, but Sheehy supports it.

“One of Senator Sheehy’s top priorities in the Senate is using his experience to stop the catastrophic fires destroying American communities and he won’t apologize for it,” Mitchell said.

Bridger describes itself as one of the nation's leading aerial firefighting companies. CEO Sam Davis has said the company's fleet of Super Scooper aircraft, its surveillance aircraft and its fire observation technology make it “uniquely positioned” to respond to the renewed emphasis on attacking fires to put them out.

New full suppression policy dates back decades

The aircraft will help the administration's new full suppression policy, which harkens back to a 1935 policy known as the 10 a.m. rule because it required agencies to put out new fires by 10 a.m. the following day.

Michael Dudley, a retired director of fire, aviation and air management at the Forest Service, said that old policy is why forests today are overgrown.

Wildfires serve a purpose — they clear out the small and dead material. But officials became so good at putting out fires that the forests kept growing and more fuels built up, so when a fire hits now, it's easy for it to get out of control, he said.

Scientists who study wildfires say trying to stop all fires is unrealistic since some of the most destructive blazes in recent years have evaded efforts to put them out. Some fires simply grow too fast, are too remote, or result from multiple ignitions that makes them impossible to stop.

“The narrative that if we just try harder, we’re gonna make these fires go away isn’t true,” said former Forest Service wildfire researcher David Calkin. “The fire paradox is not beatable: The more you make fire go away, the more fuel accumulates. The more fuel accumulates, the harder it is to make fires go away.”

Firefighters: New agency needs work

Firefighters in the consolidated agency are working under newly appointed Wildland Fire Service Chief Brian Fennessy, who had served as chief of California's Orange County Fire Authority since 2018.

“There’s a level of confusion as everyone’s trying to sort out responsibilities and who’s in charge and who do you report to,” Dudley said.

An Interior spokesperson said Fennessy was highly respected with decades of experience, including managing some of the nation's most complex fire challenges in densely-populated southern California.

Luke Mayfield, a founder of the group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, said he believes the consolidation will better serve firefighters, but significant work remains to get the new agency fully running.

“Everyone was aware of the potential fuel and fire conditions we face this fire season,” Mayfield said. “Those conditions are surfacing and have resulted in firefighter fatalities with weather conditions that won’t let up in the near future.”

The S&P 500 rose 0.8%, though it's still heading for its first losing month following two fabulous ones. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 140 points, or 0.3%, as of 2:20 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.4% higher.

The main reason for this month’s weakness has been a fall to Earth for stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry. After soaring to tremendous heights in the frenzy around AI, such stocks have come under pressure because of worries that they shot too high. That’s a big deal for all investors because AI stocks have grown into some of Wall Street’s largest and most influential, pulling indexes behind them.

AI stocks were stronger Tuesday, with Nvidia rising 2% to trim its loss for the month. It was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.

Microsoft, which is investing heavily in AI, rose 0.6% to bring its loss for the month back below 18%. Oracle, though, fell 0.8% to bring its drop for June to 35%. It's another company contending with concerns that big spending on AI may not yield enough productivity and profits to make it worth it.

Outside of AI, the economy seems to be rumbling along, even though U.S. households are still feeling sour about it. A report released in the morning said that U.S. employers were advertising many more job openings at the end of May than economists expected, the latest signal that the job market remains resilient.

But a second report said that confidence among U.S. consumers improved by less than economists expected. More Americans are saying it's hard to get a job, according to a survey by the Conference Board, even with data suggesting continued hiring.

Tuesday's relatively quiet trading came as companies close their books for the quarter running from April through June. Investors want to see strong growth in profits to justify the big gains stocks made early in the quarter. Despite June’s drop, the S&P 500 is still on track for its best quarter since six years ago, when stocks rocketed out of the crash caused by the COVID pandemic.

Concentrix tumbled 13.1% after the technology company reported profit and revenue for the latest quarter that were just shy of analysts’ expectations.

In the oil market, prices drifted as two U.S. envoys arrived in Qatar for talks with mediators about the implementation of an initial deal to end the war in Iran. The Americans will not be having direct negotiations with Iranian diplomats while in Doha.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, erased an early, modest rise and fell 1.1% to $73.12. The hope is that an end to the war will restore full access to the Strait of Hormuz, allowing oil tankers to move more crude and lower its price.

Expensive oil has already sent inflation jumping around the world, which in turn has raised worries that the Federal Reserve and other central banks may have to raise interest rates. Higher rates would keep a lid on inflation, but they would also slow economic growth and hurt prices for investments.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.41% from 4.38% late Monday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.

Germany’s DAX returned 1.5%, and South Korea’s Kospi climbed 1% for two of the world's bigger gains.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.9% as the value of the Japanese yen dropped near its lowest level against the U.S. dollar in 40 years.

U.S. government bonds are paying much higher yields than their Japanese counterparts, and the possibility of rate hikes by the Fed is putting more pressure on the yen. Speculation is rising that Japan’s government may try to prop up the yen’s value, but Japan’s finance minister said only that the government was ready to “respond appropriately whenever necessary.”

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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

“Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” the l atest book on the Trump presidency, written by political journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, has sold more than 300,000 copies in its opening week, according to publisher Simon & Schuster.

They’re the kind of sales that numerous works about Trump reached during his first term, but had been rare during his second term. Publishers had speculated that the public had tired of Trump books, believing there was little left to know.

The total figures include preorders, print book sales, ebooks, and e-audiobooks and orders that have yet to be fulfilled because of demand, the publishing house said. Simon & Schuster said the book is into its third hard copy printing, with 200,000 copies on order, after it sold out quickly in bookstores and on Amazon. It's the best first-week clip of any hardcover nonfiction book in 2026.

The book covers the first 14 months of Trump's second presidency and takes readers inside the West Wing, White House residence and Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, aboard Air Force One and on foreign trips with the president.

Trump, who has a long history with Haberman from her days covering him as a New York City business and society figure, has trashed the book as “mostly made up.” Haberman and Swan are now New York Times reporters.

Their manuscript depicts meticulous details of Trump's military decisions, how he's wielded the power of the Justice Department against his political opponents, his conversations with other power players, and the time and attention he's devoted to remaking the aesthetics and structure of the White House.

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

Haberman and Swan have been featured regularly across news talk shows promoting the book and sharing details of their reporting, including a sit-down with Trump in which he boasted about being compared to some of history's great villains.

Sean Manning, vice president and publisher at Simon & Schuster, said the book “has entered the national conversation” and will hold up as “a work of historic importance.”

On June 30, we’ll be at the Gleaners Community Food Bank on Trolly Industrial Drive in Taylor to help sort food, and we need volunteers!

We’re looking for 20 people to sign up to help from 9-11:30 a.m., and 20 more to sign up to help from 1-3:30 p.m.

Click here to sign up as a volunteer.

If you want to help, you can either volunteer or make a monetary donation to Gleaners, which will be used to buy needed food items.

Click here to donate.

• Who: WDIV is partnering with Gleaners Community Food Bank, Henry Ford Health, and the Gilbert Family Foundation.
• What: “Go 4 It: Hunger Free Summer”
• Where: 21405 Trolley Industrial Dr, Taylor MI 48180
• When: June 30, 2026
• Why: To help create a hunger-free summer

Minetree, said “Elle” executive producer Lauren Neustadter, “actually recreated her own version of the Harvard admission video featured in the 2001 movie that starred Reese Witherspoon, "and she hit it out of the park.”

The preparation to play Elle in the series debuting on Wednesday, didn't stop there. Minetree says she watched “Legally Blonde” about “200 times at this point,” studying Witherspoon's performance, but steering clear of an outright impression of the Oscar winner.

“Reese brought her essence to the character,” Minetree said. “And that is something that no one could ever replicate. It would be a disservice if I tried to do that, so I tried to bring the parts of myself that I thought were reflected in Elle."

A fish out of water

In “Legally Blonde,” we met Elle as a sorority girl who applies to Harvard Law School, gets accepted, and is a star in her class.

“When I read the script it reminded me a lot of old Goldie Hawn movies, or ‘Working Girl,’ Witherspoon told The AP in 2001. “You think this girl is certainly not very smart because of the way she speaks and the way she looks, and then she just turns the tables on everybody and becomes smarter than everyone, and I just love that.”

Like the film, “Elle” underscores that people don’t have to sacrifice their true selves in order to achieve success.

How we meet Minetree's Elle is at her blowout 16th birthday party, shortly before her parents (played by Tom Everett Scott and June Diane Raphael) break the news that they're all moving to Seattle.

The students at her new school are less than friendly and shun Elle's sunny disposition and pink attire. This is Seattle in 1995 and both grunge music and its culture are everything. Even the cheerleaders wear flannel. It takes time for the student's to warm up to their new classmate, whose ice breaker is “I like iced coffee, the month of July and when people dress kind of tennis-y even if they don't play tennis.”

“Such an integral part of the ‘Legally Blonde' IP is not judging a book by its cover," said Chandler Kinney, who plays Kimberly, one of Elle's schoolmates who is particularly judgy — at first.

The lasting influence of ‘Legally Blonde’

The time seemed right to explore more of Elle's story when Witherspoon noticed the pressures young women feel to live up to unrealistic standards curated online. Studies have linked social media to mental health issues among teens.

Witherspoon “really saw what was happening to young women," said Neustadter of Witherspoon's desire to explore the character as a young woman. "She felt like this was the right moment to give Elle to the next generation.”

"Elle reminds us that we should feel good about being ourselves, feel proud of who we are and to be kind and good to others. It feels like a good reminder for this moment in time.”

Telling an origin story of this character just makes sense, Raphael said. We've seen prequels about all kinds of male characters — but “we rarely get to do that with the iconic female characters that we love," she said.

A surprise cast member

— James Van Der Beek

Viewers will recognize a familiar face in the first season of “Elle.” James Van Der Beek, who died in February after a diagnosis of bowel cancer, plays Dean Wilson, superintendent of Elle's new school and a mayoral candidate.

Raphael had the most scenes with Van Der Beek and says it was an honor to share scenes with him.

”It’s so special to me," she said. "His work on the show is so lovely, and he is such a lovely person. I’d never met him before, and I was so excited to work with him. I was really blown away by his charm and his charisma and mainly his ease."

More ‘Elle’ is coming

Season 2 of “Elle” wrapped filming earlier this month, and Minetree is happy viewers won't have to wait long to see a continuation to the story.

“Honestly, Season 2, it’s so good," Minetree said. “Season 1 is amazing, but season 2 might be better.”

There are also plans to make a third “Legally Blonde” film starring Witherspoon.

“Absolutely, we’re on it,” Neustadter said. "Don’t you worry. We’re in the kitchen we’re cooking something up.”

The multinational chemical producer’s North Works site occupies around 230 acres along the river and is currently being used to manufacture chemicals and other products.

Prior investigations by the EPA and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) have identified several contaminants in the groundwater surrounding the site, which has been used for industrial operations since the 1800s.

Contaminants identified at the site over the years include heavy metals, volatile organic compounds, semi-volatile organic compounds, and PFAS — otherwise known as “forever chemicals.”

The latest remediation plan approved by the EPA includes a “multi-component system to prevent contaminated groundwater flow,” with construction expected to begin in early 2027.

More specifically, the project will entail the construction of perimeter barriers to limit groundwater movement across the site boundary and into the river; a groundwater collection and extraction system to capture contaminated groundwater; and an on-site water treatment facility.

Local residents and community organizations like Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, For Love of Water, and Detroit Riverkeeper have criticized the company’s long-standing pollution for decades, as well as the state’s failure to prevent continued contamination at the site — which borders the Downriver area below Ecorse Creek and sits immediately upstream from Wyandotte’s drinking water intake.

“We’re really concerned that people don’t know what’s happening right in their backyard,” Raquel Garcia, executive director of Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, told Local 4 in 2024. “We see little kids fishing, we see them swimming, we see people enjoying the river and on jet skis, and I think people have a right to know the chemicals that are in the water.”

In a statement sent to Local 4 on Tuesday afternoon, BASF officials called the EPA’s latest’s approval “an important milestone.”

“This approval enables advancement of long-term solutions to address groundwater impacts from historical industrial operations, including those of prior owners at the Wyandotte North Works site,” the statement read. “...BASF remains committed to fulfilling its obligations under the Consent Decree and implementing measures designed to protect human health, safety, and the environment.”

The latest remediation plan will be rolled out in phases, with the project expected to be completed in 2029.

For more information about the site and copies of the phased design plans for the groundwater remedy, visit EPA’s website.

The justices said Tuesday they will hear appeals challenging bans on the AR-15 and similar semiautomatic firearms in Connecticut and the Chicago area.

Similar laws are in place in about a dozen states, covering major cities like New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Congress allowed a national assault weapons ban to expire in 2004, but Democrats have supported renewing it in response to a series of mass shootings. States have also continued to pass their own laws, including recent measures in Virginia and Rhode Island.

It is the latest high-profile dispute over guns to reach the court since its conservative majority handed down a landmark ruling in 2022 that expanded Second Amendment rights and spawned challenges to firearm laws around the country.

Arguments are expected to be heard in the fall.

The Connecticut law was passed after a mass shooter used an AR-15 to kill 26 children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. The state says the guns are a preferred weapon of mass shooters, and they can be banned because they are similar to military-grade weapons.

“These laws are critical public safety measures, and they are consistent with the Second Amendment," said Janet Carter, managing director of Second Amendment litigation at the gun-control group Everytown Law.

Gun rights groups, on the other hand, argue it’s unconstitutional to ban semiautomatic rifles, which are legally owned by millions of Americans.

“The Second Amendment protects arms in common use for lawful purposes, and it’s hard to argue that a type of rifle that potentially outnumbers Ford F-150 trucks in America doesn’t meet that standard,” said Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation.

Four conservative justices on the nine-member court, enough to grant review of a case, had signaled that it was only a matter of time before the court took up the issue.

The ban in Cook County, Illinois, was first passed in 1993. Lower courts have upheld both laws.

“If the Second Amendment does not protect the most popular rifles in the country, it is hard to see how it protects any firearms at all,” aside from handguns kept in the home, the challengers wrote.

Attorneys for Cook County, on the other hand, say the measure does pass constitutional muster. "The trauma that assault weapon massacres have inflicted on the public at large has been staggering,” they wrote.

The Supreme Court backed Second Amendment rights in two cases this term, striking down gun carry restrictions in Hawaii and a broad federal ban on gun ownership by marijuana users. They've previously upheld some restrictions, including a law barring people under domestic-violence restraining orders from having guns.

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

The National Weather Service was blunt: Conditions were “dangerous” as the heat index, a combination of air temperature and humidity, exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius) in some areas. It warned about a risk for heat-related illnesses, especially among people without air conditioning.

Detroit's air temperature was in the high 90s, the Weather Service said, and could even reach 100 at some point through Thursday. The city said a dozen recreation centers were open, some until 11 p.m., for people to cool off. Big chunks of Michigan, as well as Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and much of Iowa, were under an extreme heat warning.

The Northeast, including New York City and Boston, will next feel major heat through the Fourth of July holiday. Norristown, Pennsylvania, 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Philadelphia, canceled a Saturday parade because of the weather.

The Chicago History Museum offered free admission to state residents who wanted a cool space Tuesday. Roads in a few places in Illinois buckled under the heat. When the surface has no room to expand in the heat, it can rise and crack.

At 9:15 a.m., window washer Stephen Mason, 72, was wiping mayflies off glass at a Detroit convenience store. He got an early start to avoid the worst conditions of the day, but it was already 85 (29.4 C).

“It's the only way to beat it. But it's already starting to cook out here,” Mason said.

Adam Schubatis, 36, a runner who was shirtless in Detroit's Indian Village neighborhood, said he was cutting his route to 6 miles (9.6 kilometers).

“I know where all the drinking fountains are,” he said. “My wife thought I was crazy. She offered to pick me up if I got tired or if there was anything I was doing that wasn't safe.”

In Milwaukee, more than 100 firefighters spent hours controlling a fire at a school in the extreme heat. Fire Chief Aaron Lipski said crews were rotating and shedding their thick coats while they rehydrated.

George Liller, 64, was a hero in Grosse Pointe Park, a Detroit suburb. He added air conditioning to his home, so he offered a window unit for free on Facebook — extension cord and remote control included.

“It was probably on my porch maybe 15 minutes,” Liller said. “That air conditioner was given to me. I thought, ‘Somebody needs it.’ I know how it feels to be in an old house when it’s this hot.”

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Associated Press reporters Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, and Kathy McCormack in Concord, N.H., contributed.

The board is proposing paying cash and offering the issuance of new bonds to bondholders that have not settled and are seeking some $8.5 billion in claims.

The proposed settlement represents $1.4 billion more than previously offered.

Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority has been trying to restructure its debt for roughly a decade, after the U.S. territory announced in 2015 that it was unable to pay its more than $70 billion debt load. That prompted U.S. Congress to create the federal board in 2016. A year later, Puerto Rico’s government filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Since then, the board and bondholders of the power company's debt have been at odds over compensation, with multiple mediation attempts failing.

“Puerto Rico must be able to close this last chapter of its fiscal crisis and move forward,” said Robert F. Mujica Jr., the board’s executive director.

He stressed that restructuring the company’s debt “is essential to Puerto Rico’s recovery — to the reliable, affordable electricity and the new investment its residents and businesses deserve.”

The board said it has not yet identified the source to finance the proposed settlement.

Some worry that the source of funds could come from an increase in power bills, which already are among the highest in any U.S. jurisdiction as chronic outages persist.

The board noted that previous agreements reached with several creditors and some bondholders in the power company’s case remain in place.

The board said that overall, it has completed 12 debt restructurings for Puerto Rico’s government, eliminating more than $55 billion in debt payments over 40 years.

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

Alonzo Anthony Lee-Perkins, 18, was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, resisting a police officer and felony firearm.

Lee-Perkins was shot in downtown Detroit on June 22, just hours before the Ford Fireworks show.

Police said the incident began when officers saw a 19-year-old with a rifle and arrested him.

Lee-Perkins, who police said was also armed, allegedly ran from officers and was eventually shot.

Detroit police said an officer feared for his safety and the safety of the public, resulting in him firing his weapon at Lee-Perkins several times.

The shooting happened near an apartment complex near Bates and Farmer streets.

Lee-Perkins was arraigned in court on June 30 and was given a $10,000 personal bond. He is expected to return to court on July 8.

The players return to a homeland still in the grips of an unresolved conflict with Israel and the United States. But their fans say they should be proud.

“I think even though they lost, it gave people a sense of hope,” said Mohammad Modarres, 38, who traveled from San Diego to bid the team farewell.

Heartbreak over missed chances

After its three group stage matches ended in draws, Iran's World Cup future depended on either Algeria or Austria winning their match on Saturday.

Watching from the lobby of their Tijuana hotel, the team erupted in celebration when Algeria took the lead in stoppage time.

“I've never seen a room explode like that,” said Kimia Ranjbar, 25, a lifelong fan of Team Melli who had driven down from the Los Angeles area. But minutes later, Austria tied the game again, leaving the lobby in dismayed silence.

It was the last of many disappointments throughout the tournament, including when a late goal by Shoja Khalilzadeh gave Iran the lead in its last match, against Egypt, before being ruled offside.

Facing challenging circumstances

Distractions abounded off the pitch before and during the tournament, beginning with questions over whether Team Melli would even be allowed to play in light of Iran's war with the U.S. and Israel. What followed was Iran's denied request to move its matches to Mexico, a relocation of its base camp from Arizona, and the U.S.'s refusal to grant visas to key members of the Iranian team's staff. The U.S. also rejected Iran's request to travel to the U.S. two days before its Los Angeles matches, though it relaxed some restrictions for Iran's last match.

During a World Cup security briefing Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters that the U.S. had made several accommodations for Iran's travel and repeated assertions that many of the people Iran originally requested to travel with the team to the U.S. were associated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

“I'm just glad they're done and they're not coming back," Mullin said, adding that he “might have sung a song or two or maybe even danced a happy dance.”

FIFA did not respond to request for comment.

In a statement to The Associated Press on Monday, the Iranian team said Mullin's remarks showed a lack of commitment to international law and the basic standards expected to host a global tournament.

“The fact that he openly celebrates Iran’s elimination says far more about him than it does about our team. It reflects a level of pettiness that cannot even tolerate the presence of a football team competing on the world’s biggest stage,” said the team, which declined requests to interview players and staff.

Before decamping Tuesday, the team thanked Mexico and Tijuana for their “kindness” but questioned its treatment at the tournament by the U.S.

“What we experienced was a series of decisions, logistical arrangements, and circumstances that undermined the sense of fairness — an impression only reinforced by the events of the final matchday of our group,” the team said in a statement.

Members of the Iranian diaspora were also divided about whether supporting the team showed tacit backing for Iran's theocratic government, which many of them oppose. Some wanted to keep politics and sports separate.

“You don't see someone screaming at (U.S. soccer star) Christian Pulisic for something Trump does,” Modarres said.

Though the team spoke out against its travel restrictions, it avoided commenting directly on the war. But it didn't shy away from spotlighting the victims of a deadly missile strike on an elementary school at the start of the conflict.

Players wore pins with the number “168” when they first landed in Mexico, referencing the number of people, mostly children, killed in the attack, which was likely launched by the U.S. They left a note in the locker room at Los Angeles Stadium, calling for peace “among all nations” and with the hashtags #168 and #minab, the school’s name.

Sherry Ghaemi, an Iranian living in Los Angeles, called their stand for the young victims “honorable.”

New friendships are forged

Amid the strife, players tried to focus on the sport. There were high notes, like when goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand made seven saves to hold Belgium to a scoreless draw, and when Ramin Rezaeian scored off the outside of his boot to equalize against New Zealand.

“They’re going home not as losers, they’re going home as winners," said Ghaemi. “We’re proud of them.”

Meeting some of the players was a thrill for Siavash Khosrowshahi, a 32-year-old Iranian American who drove from Los Angeles to Tijuana on Sunday, the day after the team was eliminated.

“It’s been really tough and stressful,” Khosrowshahi said of the months since the U.S. and Israel started the war. There were times during the conflict when he couldn't reach his parents in Tehran — but not Sunday, when he called his mother from the hotel and surprised her by putting Beiranvand on the phone.

“It’s a source of happiness for her,” he said.

Iranians and Mexicans also deepened a bond, as Tijuana embraced the team throughout its visit.

“Irán, hermano, ya eres Mexicano!" fans chanted in Spanish whenever they saw Team Melli: “Iran, brother, now you are Mexican!”

“Iran is taking home the best of our country, and this city, which is the way in which outsiders are received,” said Arely Ramírez, a Tijuana resident who turned up at the team's hotel Sunday hoping to meet some of the players.

The feeling was mutual.

“We’re leaving Tijuana today, but our heart and soul stay here,” head coach Amir Ghalenoei said Tuesday through an interpreter before the Iranian team left for the airport.

On Monday, many players still looked solemn as they passed their last hours in Mexico. A few signed final autographs and stood for photos with fans, their smiles more muted than the week before.

Despite the disappointment, some supporters were already looking ahead. “This whole year has been bad events, bad luck after bad luck” for Iranians, said Ranjbar. But the AFC Asian Cup is six months away, a new chance for Team Melli, she said. “I'll be watching them play for that.”

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Associated Press reporter Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed.

An Oakland County jury found Marc William Aisen, 50, of Hoboken, guilty on May 13 of using a computer to commit a crime — which carries a maximum sentence of four years and/or a $5,000 fine — and unlawful posting of messages, which carries a two-year maximum sentence and/or a $5,000 fine.

According to police, the charges against Aisen stem from a series of emails he sent to Bloomfield Township treasurer Michael Schostak and nearly 200 of his associates beginning in July 2023, making baseless child sexual exploitation accusations against a Boston-based Jewish organization.

When he didn’t get a response from Schostak, he reportedly began emailing other officials, as well as Schostak’s ex-wife, and posting to public message boards accusing him of covering up the alleged abuse.

Three months later, Aisen emailed more than 100 recipients —including Schostak’s children’s school — accusing him of covering up the abuse and being affiliated with Hamas, police said.

“When he went to my family and my children through their school, that’s when I went to police,” Schostak told Local 4 in 2023.

Police say it’s not clear why Aisen began contacting Schostak specifically, as he only responded once to ask Aisen to stop.

“There’s no real motive there on why he was doing it other than he stated he wanted him removed from office because of these horrible accusations that we know not to be true,” said Community Liaison Officer Nick Soley.

Aisen was sentenced to serve 365 days in jail for each of the two counts, to be served concurrently. However, with his credits for time served, he is now scheduled for release.

He was also required to pay court fees and victims rights fees and must avoid all contact with Schostak or his associates.

Shelton was eliminated 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (8), 6-2, 7-6 (9) on Tuesday, losing in the first round at the grass-court Grand Slam for the first time in his young career.

The 23-year-old Shelton led 8-5 in the deciding 10-point tiebreaker against his 140th-ranked opponent and had match point at 9-8 but made an unforced error and then lost the next two points.

“I thought I put myself in a great position to win at the end. He came up with the goods,” said Shelton, who reached the quarterfinals last year at the All England Club.

The left-handed American said he “wasn’t getting many free points.”

“The way that he was playing, hitting the ball, it definitely forced my hand. He’s playing aggressive,” Shelton said. "He wasn’t really making any mistakes. Towards the end, any ball I left semi-hanging, he was ripping a winner, especially in that last game before the tiebreak.

“In the tiebreak,” he continued, “I was trying to get to the net as much as I could, try to really rush him and not allow him to swing away from the baseline.”

The 25-year-old Virtanen came through the qualifying tournament and earned the biggest win of his career in eliminating Shelton, who is ranked No. 5.

“I had a great month. I played a lot of grass matches,” Virtanen said in his on-court interview after 4 hours, 21 minutes on No. 2 Court.

He reached the second round in his Wimbledon debut in 2024 and missed last year's tournament.

Shelton said he'll try not to dwell on the defeat.

“I’m usually the type of person that gets back on the court or in the gym the next day. This is definitely one of the toughest losses of my career, coming here at Wimbledon. First time I’ve lost in the first round here,” he said. “I didn’t even think I played a poor match today. Things just didn’t go my way. ... I’ll be right back on the practice courts in a couple days.”

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

His name is Gadi Eisenkot. On Tuesday in Israel, his centrist political party “Yashar!” or “Straight!” was set to formally launch its election season campaign.

His rise from the highest ranks of the military could sharpen scrutiny of Netanyahu and his stewardship of Israel through multiple wars. Like nearly all of the prime minister’s rivals, Eisenkot has broadly supported Israeli military operations in places such as Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

But he has also accused Netanyahu of strategic failure in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, and said his vision of a more isolated Israel is a threat to the future of the state.

In recent days Netanyahu, who leads Israel’s right-wing Likud Party, has fired back, saying if he had listened to Eisenkot, who was opposed to certain operations in Gaza, then “all of Hamas” would still be in control in the territory.

As a political newcomer, however, Eisenkot “looks like a front-runner because he’s everything Netanyahu is not,” said Gideon Rahat, senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute think tank in Jerusalem.

“He’s not polarizing, he’s not a populist like Netanyahu, and he will try to unify the country,” Rahat said.

An anti-Netanyahu biography

A 66-year-old son of Jewish Moroccan immigrants, Eisenkot stands in stark contrast to Netanyahu, a U.S.-educated elite who is on trial for corruption. He comes from a working-class family. His English is unpolished. He spent four decades in Israel’s military.

He has also never campaigned on having ties to U.S. President Donald Trump. And his 25-year-old son, Gal Meir Eisenkot, was killed in combat in Gaza, while Netanyahu’s son, a podcaster, lived part-time in Florida.

Losing a son — as well as two nephews — to the war has raised Eisenkot’s profile among Israelis and given him credibility as someone who, having paid the ultimate price, won’t needlessly sacrifice soldiers.

“People trust him to be a real person and a patriot. They expect him to take care of the country and not himself,” said Rahat, who is a professor at Hebrew University.

His platform includes a pledge to strengthen Israel’s national security, including through regional cooperation, although he has said that he supports Jewish settlements that are “in line with Israel’s interests” in the occupied West Bank.

He has also adopted the slogan “Service for All,” a nod to mandating military service for Israel’s ultra-Orthodox communities. For Israelis who have grown tired of war or sending their loved ones off to fight, such arguments may resonate.

“He presents as an everyman, a reflection of the ordinary Israeli,” Joshua Leifer, a columnist for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, wrote. He is “a kind of antipolitician,” he said.

In 2024, Eisenkot resigned from Netanyahu’s war Cabinet, citing what he said was the prime minister’s lack of strategy as Israel prosecuted its war in Gaza. He sent a blistering letter to fellow Cabinet members warning that they were mistaking incremental battlefield gains for decisions that could actually neutralize Hamas and make Israel more secure.

But his qualms weren’t with the level of destruction in Gaza or the high civilian toll, both of which drew global outrage. And while at times he has emphasized diplomacy as a way to address Israel’s security challenges, Eisenkot is also credited with formulating Israel’s so‑called “Dahiyeh Doctrine,” named after the area in Beirut’s southern suburbs where the Hezbollah militant group has a stronghold.

He elaborated on the doctrine in a 2008 interview with the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, after serving as a top military official during Israel’s war with Lebanon in 2006.

“What happened in the Dahiyeh quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which shots will be fired in the direction of Israel,” he said. “We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases.”

Despite anti-Netanyahu sentiment, challengers face difficult path to unseating him

In Israel’s fractured multi-party system, prime ministers rarely finish their four-year terms. Coalitions collapse and new alliances are formed. Because of that — and despite Netanyahu’s unpopularity — it would still be difficult for any of the prime minister’s challengers to form a coalition broad enough to unseat him.

If Eisenkot’s party wins more seats than Netanyahu’s, it will still need to form alliances with enough other parties to constitute a majority. Eisenkot has said he will not compromise on legislation mandating military service for the ultra-Orthodox, who also wield political power.

He will also need to decide whether to include Arab-led parties to get over the threshold — something Netanyahu and his far-right allies have already used as an attack line.

According to the police, the crash occurred around 12:40 p.m. and injuries have been reported. Aerial footage from Sky 4 shows two badly damaged vehicles and a semi truck were involved.

Traffic is being diverted off the freeway at Beech Daly Road while the crash investigation is underway.

No additional details about what caused the crash or the extent of the injuries sustained by those involved have been shared.

Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

In a letter sent to New York officials, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General Thomas March Bell accused the state of not securing enough criminal indictments and said millions of dollars in funding would be suspended through at least Sept. 30.

The move is the second suspension of a state Medicaid fraud unit this year by the Republican Trump administration, and part of a barrage of anti-fraud actions it has aggressively promoted in the healthcare sector. They have included the creation of a new task force, targeted investigations, funding deferrals and demands for revalidation of healthcare providers that have touched all states but focused largely on Democratic ones.

The pulled funding also comes after the administration admitted a glaring error in figures meant to help justify a fraud probe into New York’s Medicaid program earlier this year, a mistake critics said revealed a Trumpian tendency to attack first and verify the facts later.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, immediately vowed to fight Tuesday's funding freeze.

“During my time as Attorney General, my office has recovered over $627 million for Medicaid and was recognized by this very administration for leading the nation in anti-fraud efforts,” she wrote. “We are considering all legal options to stop this outrageous action.”

Letter accuses New York of low performance compared to other states

Bell's letter to James and New York MFCU Director Amy Held argues that the unit is moving too slowly on cases and amassing too few indictments and convictions for wrongdoing in the Medicaid system. It notes that compared to four similarly-sized units in other states, it secured the lowest number of criminal fraud convictions between 2023 and 2025.

The letter acknowledges that one reason the state has fewer criminal convictions than other states is that it made a deliberate choice to focus on “high impact, complex fraud cases” rather than smaller-scale individual cases, but says that tradeoff didn't produce sufficient results.

“Enough is enough,” Bell wrote. “The New York MFCU has failed to comply with the terms and conditions of its MFCU grant award.”

Bell said in the letter that the funding suspension could be lifted before Sept. 30 if New York takes corrective action, “showing it has remediated concerns that formed the basis for this suspension.” He said if the state doesn’t fix the problems, the freeze will continue.

New York officials dispute the Trump administration's claims

New York's attorney general's office said in a statement that it has “long been recognized as a national leader in effectively investigating and prosecuting Medicaid fraud schemes,” including by the HHS inspector general's office. A 2025 report from the office notes that New York is one of four states that made up half the total civil recoveries in that year.

A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said most of the unit’s criminal convictions focus on company owners, executives and corporations that would return large amounts to Medicaid.

“This administration’s unprecedented attack on New York is another political distraction,” James said in a statement.

The funding cutoff follows a similar move in Hawaii. In early June, Bell told Hawaii officials that Medicaid fraud funding would be cut off there, saying that it had a three-year stretch without a Medicaid fraud indictment or conviction.

Joan Alker, executive director and co-founder of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, said there's an irony in the federal government cutting off money intended for prosecuting fraud when its stated goal is to do just that.

“If you want to fight fraud, don't take away money from states' fraud control units,” she said. “I chalk this up to more political theater to distract voters from historic Medicaid cuts before the midterms.”

Move follows months of federal warnings and deferrals

For months, the Trump administration has contended that states – especially some Democratic-led ones – have been lax about fraud in social safety-net programs, including Medicaid.

It has demanded at least five states, four of them governed by Democrats, share information about how they identify, prevent and address Medicaid fraud.

The federal government has also withheld some Medicaid funding from Minnesota and California over fraud concerns. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat who was Kamala Harris’ 2024 running mate, accused Trump of making cuts because of retribution.

The fraud-busting efforts have also targeted Medicare programs. Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, announced a six-month moratorium on new enrollments for providers of hospice and home care nationally.

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Associated Press writer Anthony Izaguirre contributed to this report. Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey.

Our normal high for this time of year is 83°. Southeast Michigan will be well above that, reaching the mid-90s to near 100° today, and we’ll stay very warm through the late night.

It will be more of the same Wednesday and Thursday. In addition, it will be very humid, producing heat indices of at least 105° each of those days.

We’ll also have little to no relief at night, with temperatures only falling into the mid-70s through Friday morning. We don’t look to return close to our normal low temperature, 64°, until next week.

Make sure you’re keeping yourself safe in this heat wave and check on those who may be sensitive to the heat or are without air conditioning.

Stay hydrated, limit strenuous activity outdoors if possible, take breaks to cool off, wear lightweight and light-colored clothing, and don’t leave kids or pets in a parked car for any amount of time.

Also try to keep dog walks shorter during the main heat of the day and try to direct them to walk on the grass. Here’s a look at surface temperatures if it’s 95° outside.

On a positive note, a bit of Saharan dust is moving through the Great Lakes. This will give us beautiful, vivid sunsets tonight and Wednesday evening before it exits.

High temperatures will fall to around 95° Friday as we bring in a chance for rain. Rain chances linger through the weekend with highs Saturday and Sunday closer to 90°.

Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on two Mexican men and nine companies involved in transportation, financial services and real estate, accused of being tied to a cartel-linked fuel theft ring intended to evade Mexican taxes while generating tens of millions of dollars annually for the cartel.

Additionally, Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network arm issued an alert to financial institutions that point out red flags of fuel smuggling from the U.S. into Mexico in schemes involving Mexican tax evasion.

“Today’s action highlights the extent to which Mexico’s cartels are expanding beyond traditional drug trafficking to generate revenue for their criminal organizations, which continue to traffic deadly drugs that kill Americans,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a statement.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has acknowledged the New Generation Cartel’s presence in 21 of Mexico’s 32 states, surpassing the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, which is estimated to operate in 19 states. Last year, President Donald Trump designated the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and five other Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Mexican authorities have in recent years seized million gallons of stolen diesel, gasoline and petroleum distillates from states bordering Texas. Organized crime taps pipelines and diverts fuel to service stations forced to buy from cartels or sell it directly in the streets.

U.S. authorities have even accused the Jalisco New Generation cartel of operating its own service stations.

Watch the Trending Tuesday segment above to see more!

The four-time MVP rolled her ankle in the fourth quarter of the Aces' win over the Chicago Sky on Sunday. She came back into the game after a quick trip to the locker room.

“It’s when you get off the court that you realize you probably tweaked it a little worse than you originally thought," Aces coach Becky Hammon said at shootaround Tuesday.

Hammon said that it's just a tweak and that Wilson should need “a few days to move.”

Wilson, who leads the league in scoring at 25.7 points a game, has been remarkably durable in her career. She's now only missed seven games since the 2020 season.

Besides her scoring, defense and rebounding are two areas that Hammon said the Aces will need to focus on against the Liberty, who beat Las Vegas on the road last week.

“Everybody's got to be that much better," Aces guard Chelsea Gray said. “It’s no secret, she’s a big, huge part of our team. She's the best player in the world. Let’s, let’s lock in for this one game and do what we have to do.”

The Aces are no stranger to having to play the Liberty short-handed in big games. Gray and Kiah Stokes were hurt in the 2023 WNBA Finals and the Aces beat New York without them.

“Focusing on ourselves, that’s really the thing,” said New York star Breanna Stewart. “This is one game, winner takes all and you never know what’s going to happen in one game. We need to make sure that we’re our best tonight.”

New York will be missing Satou Sabally, who is in concussion protocol after unintentionally getting hit in the face by an elbow against the Aces.

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

We spoke with the team’s senior director, Kelli Finglass, to discuss the tough parts about picking the team and what viewers can expect to watch in the new season.

Watch the segment above to see more!

Galindo’s, a local taco food truck that will be serving at the festival, joined us on Live in the D to whip up some delicious tacos and give us a taste of what festival-goers can expect at this flavorful event.

Watch the segment above to learn more!

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has officially begun its cosmic survey, meant to capture swathes of the sky in more depth and detail. Perched on a Chilean mountaintop, the telescope will point its eye at the southern sky for the next 10 years, taking hundreds of images per night.

Researchers hope Rubin's observations will help them take a better census of the universe, mapping billions of stars in the Milky Way and billions more galaxies beyond it. It takes pictures quickly and will grab images of the same areas of sky multiple times, allowing scientists to glimpse fainter objects that previously eluded detection.

“We’re going to see large numbers of scientists across the world working with this data set, studying the universe in a way that they haven’t been able to before,” said Phil Marshall, the observatory's deputy director of operations.

Rubin released its first images last year, including colorful shots of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulas located thousands of light-years from Earth. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers).

Since then, researchers have tuned up the equipment so it's ready to take pictures at the depth and accuracy required for the decade-long survey. The images may help scientists discern how galaxies form and cluster over billions of years, and how the universe came to be.

Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy, the observatory is named after astronomer Vera Rubin, who offered the first tantalizing evidence that a mysterious material called dark matter might be lurking in the universe. Researchers hope the effort may yield clues about dark matter as well as an equally puzzling force known as dark energy.

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

Both are Black.

For Esters, the flag represents the opportunities that allowed the great-great-grandson of slaves to find success and flourish. Pistochini, 79, simply says the America identified by the flag is not the same country she saw growing up.

Americans' views of “Old Glory” are divided by politics, age and race, according to a new survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research ahead of the nation's 250th birthday celebration.

Republicans and older, white adults are especially likely to say they fly the American flag, while younger Democrats and Black adults are more likely to say they don't fly it. Views of the flag — and whether it's a unifying or divisive symbol — track with other deep divisions among Americans, who see their country's history and accomplishments very differently.

“A lot of Black Americans see the flag as a symbol of both inclusion and exclusion,” said Matthew Delmont, professor of American history at Dartmouth College. “Black Americans, more so than white Americans, also understand the flag can be used to justify a version of patriotism that is rooted in exclusion, with the flag being used to say ‘you don’t belong here.’”

The survey of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20. It suggests that older white Americans, especially Republicans, are more likely to see the flag as unifying.

About half of U.S. adults said they display the flag at home throughout most of the year, or during holidays. About 7 in 10 Republicans and about 6 in 10 Americans ages 60 and older fly the flag at least during holidays.

About 6 in 10 Democrats and independents, on the other hand, say they “never” fly the U.S. flag. That includes the vast majority, 75%, of Democrats under 45.

Opportunities worth fighting for

Esters, a 64-year-old retired clay sculptor for a Detroit automaker, flies three American flags at his Sherwood Forest home on the city’s west side.

“When these homes were built, Black men like me, my mother and my family ... we couldn’t even buy these homes,” he said. “To me, that’s one reason I fly the flag. We went through a lot to be able to own nice homes, and this is what we fought for.”

The other reason is Moriah Martin, Esters’ great-great-grandmother, who was born into slavery.

“I’m kind of living out her dreams — what I did for a living, having a business, having a nice home,” he said. “I think that’s the American way, but we got to fight for it and we, as Blacks, fought for it.”

He's in the minority among Black adults, according to the survey, which found that only about 3 in 10 Black adults say they ever display the American flag, compared with about half of white and Hispanic adults.

Pistochini says current divisions over political leanings and perspectives, and inequality of opportunities for the poor and people of color are not what she believes the flag should stand for. People confuse flying it with being patriotic, she added.

“Just because you fly a flag doesn't make you a patriot,” Pistochini said. “If there was patriotism, we would not have all this. We can't look at (what's going on) and say this is America.”

For country and freedom

Ben Gaskins, chair of political science at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, says the flag is an important symbol of patriotism for many Americans.

“It is those who are older people, who are white and people who are more conservative,” Gaskins said. “They take it as more central to their identity.”

Nancy Hansen, a 73-year-old retired Customs and Border Protection clerk in Culvertson, Montana, believes “you have to be for the country, no matter what” and that the flag means “freedom.”

“Freedom to live where we want to live, travel where we want to travel, raise our kids where we want to raise our kids,” said Hansen, who is white and identifies as Republican.

Each year around July 4, the American Legion posts flags outside businesses and homes in Culvertson, including Hansen’s home.

Linda and Greg Cunningham also equate the flag with freedom.

The white, conservative Pontiac, Michigan, couple are going all out this summer. The exterior of their home northwest of Detroit is awash in red, white and blue. The flag sits atop a flagpole just feet from their door.

“It's no political thing, at all," said Linda Cunningham, 63. “It's our freedom. I love the American flag. I love the whole concept of it. I love America. I know there’s so much going on in the world, right now, and I know everyone has their own views, and I'm just sad that politics have to be brought into the flag.”

Flag as a ‘painful reminder’

Of those who took the survey, 47% see the flag as a “more unifying” symbol. About 16% call it a “more divisive” icon, while 36% say it's neither divisive nor unifying.

Only 22% of Black adults see the flag as a unifying symbol, compared with 55% of white adults and 42% of Hispanic adults.

“It’s a painful symbol. It’s a reminder of what we could be and how it’s failed to live up to that for Black people, for Indigenous people and people of color,” said Allison Wiltz, a Black author and founder of Writers and Editors of Color.

Paul Walthour, 71, occasionally flies the flag outside his Minneapolis-area home on special occasions and some holidays. Walthour says that when he’s away from home and at his cabin, the flag goes up each morning and is taken down at the end of the day.

“This is antiquated, perhaps,” said Walthour, who is white and a retired advertising agency creative director. “I feel it’s a symbol that you’re proud to be an American.”

“Unfortunately, I kind of think it’s kind of a symbol of dividing more than uniting,” added Walthour, who identifies as a Democrat. “The people who fly it on the far right have one kind of feeling about it, and the people who fly it on the left have a different kind of feeling about it.”

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Williams is a member of AP's Race & Ethnicity team. Sanders and Parwani reported from Washington.

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The AP-NORC poll of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

The court’s six-justice conservative majority, which has repeatedly ruled against transgender Americans in the past year, ruled that state bans in Idaho and West Virginia don’t violate the Constitution. The court unanimously agreed that barring transgender girls and women also doesn't run afoul of the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court that, “states may maintain women's and girls' sports for biological females" to address safety and competitive fairness concerns. “The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America."

More than two dozen other Republican-led states have adopted bans on female transgender athletes, and the decision seems certain to extend to them as well.

Left unresolved by the outcome are lawsuits challenging state laws and regulations in Connecticut, California and elsewhere that permit transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, saying from the bench that the majority opinion was wrong to reject an equal-protection claim from 16-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson.

With the science still evolving, transgender students shouldn't automatically be shut out of team sports, she said. “We just simply do not know scientifically that transgender students pose dangers,” she said, reading from a dissent joined by her liberal colleagues.

Pepper-Jackson, a high school sophomore in Bridgeport, West Virginia, has been taking puberty-blocking medication, has publicly identified as a girl since age 8 and has been issued a West Virginia birth certificate recognizing her as female. She is the only transgender person who has sought to compete in girls sports in West Virginia.

Pepper-Jackson has progressed from a back-of-the-pack cross-country runner in middle school to statewide champion in the shot put. She beat the second-place finisher by two feet in last month's West Virginia championship meet.

In the Idaho case, Lindsay Hecox sued over the state’s first-in-the-nation ban for the chance to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University in Idaho. She didn’t make either squad because “she was too slow,” her lawyer, Kathleen Hartnett, told the court during arguments in January, but she competed in club-level soccer and running.

Prominent women in sports have weighed in on both sides. Tennis champion Martina Navratilova, swimmers Summer Sanders and Donna de Varona and beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings are supporting the state bans. Soccer stars Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn and basketball players Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart back the transgender athletes.

Kavanaugh, who has coached girls' basketball, underlined the importance of women's sports and athletes' dedication. “No student-athlete on either side of the issue, whether a biological female or transgender, deserves to be ostracized or vilified,” he wrote.

In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled LGBTQ people are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace, finding that “sex plays an unmistakable role” in employers’ decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate.

But last year, the six conservative justices on the nine-member court declined to apply the same sort of analysis when they upheld state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

The states supporting the prohibitions on transgender athletes argued there is no reason to extend the ruling barring workplace discrimination to Title IX.

Idaho’s law, state Solicitor General Alan Hurst said, is “necessary for fair competition because, where sports are concerned, men and women are obviously not the same.”

Republican President Donald Trump applauded Tuesday's decision, calling it a “BIG WIN” in a social-media post.

Lawyers for Pepper-Jackson argued that such distinctions generally make sense but that their client has none of those advantages because of the unique circumstances of her early transition. In Hecox’s case, her lawyers wanted the court to dismiss the case because she had forsworn trying to play on women’s teams.

NCAA president Charlie Baker told Congress in 2024 that he was aware of only 10 transgender athletes out of more than half a million students on college teams. But despite the small numbers, the issue has taken on outsize importance.

Baker’s NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women’s sports after President Donald Trump, a Republican, signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to compete only on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people ages 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

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

His decision is perhaps the biggest domino that will fall during the NBA's offseason player movement window, alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo being traded by Milwaukee to Miami — one of James' former stops.

The Lakers released a statement Tuesday thanking James for his eight seasons with the club.

“LeBron James is one of the greatest athletes in history,” said Jeanie Buss, part of the Lakers’ ownership group. “We will always be thankful for his eight years with the Lakers, including the title he led us to in 2020 under the toughest imaginable circumstances, and the countless records he broke in purple and gold. We wish him all the best in the future, both on the court and off. He will always be a cherished part of the Lakers family.”

ESPN, citing James’ longtime agent and Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul, first reported James’ plans.

James can begin talking officially to new clubs after 6 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, when the league’s free agent period opens. He will not be able to sign with a new team until the league’s offseason moratorium is lifted on July 6.

A slew of options will be available to James on the open market, including Golden State. Longtime Warriors forward Draymond Green did not exercise his $27.6 million option for this coming season earlier this week in large part to allow his team flexibility to make other roster moves.

“Personally, I’m always willing to work with the team on whatever is best, especially at this point in my career,” Green said on the latest episode of his podcast, which was released Tuesday. “So my decision to opt out was for a few reasons. As you all know, I’ve always taken the approach of working with the organization. I’ve been in one place for 14 years. It’s more of a family to me than anything.”

It could be the move that convinces James to go to Golden State — a franchise he faced four times with Cleveland in the NBA Finals. He also has close relationships with Green, Stephen Curry and Warriors coach Steve Kerr.

James spent eight seasons with the Lakers, the longest he spent in one stint with one NBA team and led them to the 2020 NBA championship. He became the NBA’s all-time points leader while wearing a Lakers uniform and surpassed a slew of other records while in purple and gold.

He spent the first seven years of his career in Cleveland, then left for four years in Miami where he won the first two of his four championships. That was followed by another four-year stint with the Cavaliers, and in 2018 he joined the Lakers.

James is the NBA’s oldest active player; he turns 42 in December. He was the first player in league history to log 23 seasons; he’ll add at least one more to that this season. He also became the first player in the league to have a son as a teammate, with Bronny James playing alongside him with the Lakers.

The list of James’ accolades to this point are beyond comparison.

He’s a 22-time All-Star, a 21-time All-NBA selection, a four-time Most Valuable Player, a four-time NBA Finals MVP, a three-time All-Star Game MVP, and was part of the NBA’s 75th anniversary team. He’s coming off a season where he averaged 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 7.2 assists per game, and for his career, he’s averaged 26.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 7.4 assists in more than 1,600 games.

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

By a 6-3 vote, the court struck down Trump’s order. A bare majority of five justices, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, held that the long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, makes a citizen of anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions,

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court, citing congressional debate over the amendment, “We keep that promise today.”

A sixth justice, Brett Kavanaugh, disagreed about the constitutional ruling, but pointed to a federal law that he said broadly conveys birthright citizenship.

Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas would have upheld Trump’s proposed restrictions.

“The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a 91-page dissent, more than three times as long as Roberts' opinion. “In doing so, the Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”

The Republican president's restrictions had been blocked by several lower courts and had not taken effect anywhere in the U.S.

Trump said the decision was “too bad for our Country” and wrongly suggested that Congress could “easily” address it with legislation. The majority decision rests on constitutional grounds. It would take an amendment to overcome the decision.

During arguments in April, both conservative and liberal justices questioned the order’s legality in a momentous case that was magnified by Trump’s unprecedented attendance in the courtroom.

The case framed another test of Trump’s assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court with a conservative majority and a robust view of presidential power that has largely ruled in his favor. In the notable exceptions when the court has not, Trump has responded with starkly personal criticisms of the justices.

The justices ruled on Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions.

The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, is part of his administration’s broad immigration crackdown.

Birthright citizenship was the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.

Trump reacted furiously to the late February tariffs decision, saying he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and calling them unpatriotic.

He also seemed to recognize the court was likely to rule against him on birthright citizenship, too, using his Truth Social platform to criticize “dumb judges and justices” and wealthy pregnant women from China and elsewhere who come to the U.S. to give birth so their newborns will have American citizenship.

Trump’s order would have upended widely held views that the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born in the U.S., excluding only the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

The amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” it reads.

In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down Trump's executive order as illegal. The decisions have invoked the high court’s 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.

Roberts, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the three liberal justices, said the amendment's language, the historical context and the 1898 case make clear that children born to parents illegally or temporarily in the U.S. “are citizens at birth.”

But there was only a bare majority of five justices on the constitutional question.

Kavanaugh sided with the majority because of a federal law that makes those children citizens. But he joined the dissenters in finding that Trump's order does not violate the Constitution. His view would enable a future Congress to change the law to restrict birthright citizenship.

The Trump administration had argued that the common view of citizenship is wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.

More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would have been affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.

While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright citizenship restrictions also would have applied to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.

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

The scores of international and domestic teams across Venezuela remain focused on the search for survivors, with the government death toll surpassing 1,700 and new bodies still being hauled out from the rubble.

But a humanitarian crisis is already unfolding among the living. United Nations agencies expressed concern about the health effects of thousands of displaced people sleeping for days in the open or in crowded, unsanitary shelters.

Venezuelan officials say that more than 15,800 people have been affected by the earthquakes — a figure that reflects the official number of displaced people, U.N. refugee agency spokesperson Carlotta Wolf said on Tuesday. Suddenly homeless Venezuelans are sleeping in cars, parks and elsewhere without adequate emergency shelter available.

Wolf said that number would continue to rise. Many of those displaced in the hardest-hit state of La Guaira are suffering from widespread food shortages, she said.

At a media briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, World Health Organization spokesperson Christian Lindmeier warned that displaced Venezuelans without access to toilets, showers, soap or much nourishing food have become increasingly vulnerable to the outbreak of preventable diseases like measles, given the population's low vaccination rates. Conditions are ripe for waterborne infections like dengue, yellow fever and malaria to spread.

The Venezuelan healthcare system, strained by decades of underinvestment and years of economic crisis is “under extreme pressure now, with facilities operating beyond the capacity of the surge of the trauma cases,” Lindmeier said.

According to the government, last week's earthquakes damaged or otherwise compromised 38 hospitals nationwide. WHO said it so far has evaluated 21 of those facilities, three of which are no longer operating. Another six have sustained damage and the rest are now buckling under the influx of injuries.

Many specialist doctors are missing in the ruins, including officials in charge of maternity care in La Guaira, WHO said, compounding the challenges to health care in a country that 8 million people, including many doctors and nurses, have fled in recent years.

“Findings reveal chaotic service delivery and patient flow, marked by overcrowding, growing surgical backlogs ... and a breakdown in biosafety measures,” Lindmeier said. He added that “the collapse of forensic and morgue services and inadequate casualty registration" has made it difficult to gauge the scope of the disaster.

Venezuela's government, which has long retained control over access to information, offers daily casualty updates. Jorge Rodríguez, the president of the National Assembly, announced Monday that the official toll stood at 1,719 people killed and 5,000 injured, and warned the public against sharing information that contradicted authorities.

Experts say the official toll is likely a significant undercount, as many more people remain missing and hopes for finding survivors diminish with each passing day.

NASA estimates that nearly 59,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed by the earthquakes, which would put the number of people affected by the quakes in the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, on Tuesday said 680,000 children are in need of humanitarian assistance nationwide.

Authorities have not offered an official count of missing people, leading many Venezuelans to turn to nongovernmental digital databases to report their loved ones as missing. One such registry listed at least 43,220 people as missing.

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DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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

Michigan Humane President Matt Pepper said dogs like Rigby are often passed over but shouldn’t be.

“Older dogs get overlooked sometimes in a shelter environment,” Pepper said. “When you talk about a dog that is an absolute lover and just wants to be there - this is that puppy.”

Pepper described Rigby as an ideal companion for a laid-back household. The senior dog is not running 5Ks, he said, and prospective adopters should simply be “somebody that understands he’s not going to be as active as a puppy.” Short walks, plenty of cuddles and a cool spot on the couch are all Rigby needs.

The search for Rigby’s new home comes as metro Detroit swelters through dangerous heat - conditions Pepper said pose a serious risk to dogs of all ages.

“Know your dog. When behavior and things change, something is probably not right,” he said. “Look for labored breathing, any type of respiratory distress, heavy panting, just general lethargy, acting different than they normally would.”

If those symptoms appear and don’t improve quickly, Pepper said, owners should not wait.

“Heat exhaustion can escalate quickly and can be fatal, can be very serious,” he said.

His advice for the current heat wave is straightforward: keep dogs inside as much as possible.

“If your dog doesn’t have to be outside in this heat, don’t have it outside. Limit the time outside,” Pepper said. “When the weather’s extreme, limit your time outside. Spend some time inside with the dog. Make sure they always have water, winter, summer — always have water, always have shade, and most of all, just get ‘em inside.”

For those who do need to take their dog out briefly, Pepper cautioned owners to watch for hot asphalt and cement, keep trips short, and always bring water.

Rigby is available for adoption at Michigan Humane. The Mike Morse Law Firm is covering all standard adoption fees for whoever brings him home.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante found that the request to provide the state’s voter registration list did not comply with a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 pertaining to federal election records. His ruling, issued Monday, also found that the Justice Department failed to allege any violation under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which established standards for states’ voting systems and voter registration lists.

That prevents "allowing the Attorney General unrestricted access to New Hampshire’s (voter list) to conduct a line-by-line audit to assess a ‘possible’ violation of a federal statute,” wrote LaPlante, an appointee of former President George W. Bush.

New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican, welcomed the ruling.

“I am committed to protecting the private information of New Hampshire voters to the fullest extent required by law," he said in a statement.

The dismissal in New Hampshire brings to 10 the number of states where the Justice Department has lost similar cases. The department has sued to force release of detailed state voter data — which includes dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers — in 30 states and the District of Columbia.

In addition to New Hampshire, judges have rejected those attempts in Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. In Georgia, a judge dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit because it had been filed in the wrong city, prompting the government to refile elsewhere.

In explaining their push for the records, federal officials have said they need the voter data to ensure that states are complying with federal election laws related to maintaining voter registration lists, even though states already have detailed processes to do that. In the case out of Rhode Island, a Justice Department attorney acknowledged that the department was seeking unredacted voter roll information so it could be shared with the Department of Homeland Security to check citizenship status.

Democratic and some Republican officials have objected to the Justice Department requests for detailed voter data and said such a demand violates state and federal privacy laws.

At least 13 states have either provided or promised to provide their voter registration lists to the department, according to the Brennan Center for Justice and Associated Press reporting: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

“I have this file on my phone of Indian dishes or weird words.” Coffin says. “People come up to me and say, ‘You should say that!’ and I write it down.”

“The hardest thing,” adds Coffin, “is just to find the melody.”

It’s been 16 years since Coffin co-directed Illumination's “Despicable Me.” He has made three more movies in the franchise, directing “Despicable Me 2,” “Despicable Me 3” and “Minions.” But the Minions, like Coffin’s personal version of Frankenstein’s monster, have often remained a deviling, even mystifying force to him.

Coffin, a French Indonesian animator who lives in Paris, where Illumination productions are based, has struggled with both the dictates of Hollywood franchise-building and the strange narrative conundrums of movies based around a supervillain and gibberish-speaking henchmen.

“That’s why I kind of disappeared from the series,” Coffin said in a recent interview from Paris. “I mean, the first one was really good. A bad guy becoming a good guy after contact with three little girls, I could see it. The second one was a little bit more shady because it was like: That guy who’s no longer a bad guy falls in love and there’s a marriage at the end. That’s literally how Chris (Meledandri) pitched it to me. My French sensibility threw up a little bit.”

If you can’t tell, Coffin — the still-mischievous 59-year-old son of a French diplomat and an Indonesian novelist — is unusually candid about the franchise he helped create. Even movies that he directed, he’s highly critical of.

The previous “Minions” spinoff, 2022’s “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” Coffin won’t even talk about because, he says, “I don’t necessarily like it and it’s strange to me.” “Despicable Me 3,” the 2017 sequel was the last movie Coffin directed, but he says he didn't even want to make it. Afterward, Coffin told Meledandri, the Illumination chief executive, that he was done.

“I told him: I got to move on. I did my trilogy, my prequel — I’m good. I can help with the voices, no problem. But I want to move on,” Coffin says. “I worked on separate things, but I always get pulled back by the Minions.”

The Minions have a way of manipulating their bosses, Coffin included. After walking away from them, he's back for “Minions & Monsters,” the third standalone feature for the “Banana!”-shouting little guys.

“All the other ones I had doubts about. I was guided into a direction that I did not necessarily like or understand,” says Coffin of the previous sequels. “But the things were a huge success. I was humbled. OK, there has to be something I don’t understand.

“This one is horrible because I’m thinking I really like it,” Coffin says, laughing. “And I’m thinking, man, maybe I just killed the franchise.”

Making the Minions main characters

On the contrary, “Minions & Monsters,” which opens in theaters Wednesday, may be the best “Minions” movie yet. In it, the Minions turn filmmakers. Alongside Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, they try to make a monster movie in 1920s Hollywood.

The premise, suggested by Meledandri, was too enticing for Coffin to turn down. He even wanted to write the script, which he did with cowriter Brian Lynch. “Minions & Monsters” makes the yellow troublemakers something more than chaos-inducing sidekicks. They’re silent film stars who for the first time feel like actual protagonists.

“This movie has so much for people who were kids when they first encountered the Minions,” says Meledandri. “More than any previous Minion movie, it incorporates all of that wonderful silliness of the Minions but it's also a terrific story.”

Even after seven films and more than $5 billion in box office, the Minions are still revealing themselves to Coffin. They were, in the first place, a product of evolution. For “Despicable Me,” they were first designed like hulking thugs, then more like robots, then more like mole men. Coffin, Chris Renaud and art director Eric Guillon kept refining. Add in some goggles, overalls and names like Stuart and Kevin and, bingo: movie history.

How to speak Minionese

Yet given that the Minions are impossible to understood, except for a word or two, they make for tricky protagonists. Hand them over to a new boss, and you risk making the Minions second bananas again. At the same time, long sections of uninterrupted Minionese can grow tiresome without some human interpreter.

“If it’s too long and annoying to the ear, we just kill it,” Coffin says. “All of these movies, we do until we find the little formula.”

Even just writing for the Minions isn’t a clear process. Coffin, who voices all the Minions, is accustomed to improvising their dialogue back and forth. (For the first “Minions” movie, he'd begin his mornings with two hours alone with a microphone before commuting to the studio.) Putting pen to paper came less naturally.

“Brian didn’t know how to write them,” Coffin says. “He tried writing gibberish. I told him, ‘Don’t write gibberish. I don’t understand what they’re saying. Let’s write them in English.’ It took us a while to establish that dumb thing.”

Coffin can sound almost parental about the Minions. The characters he gave voice to aren’t just in the movies. They're like mascots for Illumination, generated billions in merchandising. Not every treatment nails their singular nature.

“I don’t want to criticize what the others have done with the Minions, but when someone else does something with the Minions, I feel that they’re considering them creatures,” Coffin says. “But they’re not creatures. They’re creatures with a spirit, with a personality.”

Even he’s still figuring them out. In writing “Minions & Monsters,” Coffin wanted to think about the origins of friendships. He began surveying people about how they met their best friends. Many of the replies inevitably went back to when someone was 8 or 10 years old.

“That made it very clear to us: The Minions are kids,” Coffins says. “I discovered that on this movie. It dawned on me. They’re irresponsible, they don’t listen, they make a mess, they don’t listen to authority. From that moment onward, it was very easy.”

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose 0.6 point to 91.2 in June, a figure that is still below its year-ago reading of 95.2. Consumer attitudes worsened after the Iran war caused oil and gas prices to spike, accelerating inflation and causing Americans' inflation-adjusted incomes to decline. Before the pandemic, the index regularly topped 120.

The report suggests that consumer confidence is recovering only slowly from the hit caused by the Iran war. Even so, Americans have continued to spend despite their dour outlook, which has kept the economy growing even as inflation accelerated. Measures of consumer sentiment have been less predictive of how Americans actually shop since the pandemic.

“Consumer confidence inched up in June as falling oil prices in recent weeks provided some relief to consumer inflation fears,” Dana Peterson, the Conference Board's chief economists said in a statement. “Consumer appraisals of current business conditions were slightly more positive compared to last month. However, perceptions of the current labor market softened measurably."

Earlier this month, a government report showed that consumers stepped up their spending in May despite higher gas prices. Analysts expect the steady consumer outlays kept the economy growing at about a 2.5% annual rate in the April-June quarter.

Falling gas prices may also help boost Americans' outlook in the coming months. On average nationwide, gas prices spiked above $4.50 after the U.S.-Iran conflict began Feb. 28. They have since fallen back to $3.85 a gallon, according to AAA.

The survey also found that consumers had a dimmer view of hiring and the job market this month. The proportion of Americans who said jobs are “hard to get” rose to 22.5% from 19.8% the previous month, a noticeable increase.

But on Wednesday the government released a report showing that the number of open jobs remained at a solid 7.6 million in May, indicating that companies are showing more interest in recruiting workers.

The Labor Department will release its monthly jobs report for June on Thursday, and economists forecast it will show that employers added 100,000 jobs, a solid gain. The unemployment rate is expected to stay at a low 4.3%, according to data provider FactSet.

Germany should be getting used to disappointment, but it doesn’t make it any less painful for a traditional soccer heavyweight that had been tentatively hoping for a fifth World Cup title to restore lost pride.

Germany did manage to survive the group stage for the first time since winning the trophy in 2014, but it’s little consolation after Monday’s loss to unheralded Paraguay on penalties sent the team home after the first knockout game.

“We messed it up,” Joshua Kimmich told reporters after the match in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

It was a familiar feeling for the Germany captain who also struggled for explanations after the team’s group-stage exit at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

“As a child, when you watched the national team during tournaments, it was always semifinals, finals, or world champions. There was always lots of success. You grew up with that, cheering them on,” the 31-year-old Kimmich said Monday, when he apologized for the team failing to meet expectations.

“All of us who were on the pitch should feel that, rather than looking to blame someone else. We blew it,” Kimmich said in comments reported by dpa.

Coach under fire

Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann is in the firing line after some contentious calls — particularly after recalling veteran goalkeeper Manuel Neuer from international retirement just before the tournament after months of denials.

The 40-year-old Neuer failed to justify his inclusion at the expense of Hoffenheim’s Oliver Baumann, and was arguably at fault for Ecuador’s winning goal in the last group game.

“I gave it my all,” Neuer said.

Nagelsmann finally bowed to pressure and gave forward Deniz Undav his first start against Paraguay, but the move didn’t pay off as the Kurdish Yazidi player was unable to add to his three goals and two assists from his first two games as a substitute.

Nagelsmann was also criticized for not playing forward Nick Woltemade at all until he sent him on with extra time looming against Paraguay. Woltemade was among three players who missed in the penalty shootout.

False hope

Nagelsmann had raised expectations by saying Germany was aiming to win the title. Ultimately, his team failed to show any justification for such hopes.

Germany played four games at the World Cup, winning two against debutant Curaçao and Ivory Coast, before the losses to Ecuador and Paraguay.

While Paraguay’s win was joyously celebrated on the streets of its capital, Asunción, it was considered a major shock — few German fans knew any of the Paraguayan players before the match, and they were already looking forward to a likely Round of 16 meeting with France, which plays Sweden on Tuesday.

“You have to beat such a team,” Neuer said of Paraguay. “That’s a fact when you want to measure yourself against teams like France.”

Nagelsmann has vowed to stay on as coach, though he was also criticized for his prickly responses to questions after the game.

“I’m still convinced that he’s probably the right one to continue,” Germany team director Rudi Völler said. “It’s not only up to me.”

Serious talks ahead

Bernd Neuendorf, the president of the German soccer federation, said Tuesday he already met “at length” with Nagelsmann, Völler and sporting director Andreas Rettig, and they agreed “our performance at the World Cup fell short of our standards.”

“In the coming days, we will calmly look at the reasons why the team was unable to realize its potential and failed to meet both its own expectations and those of the German football community,” Neuendorf said. “After such a crushing blow, we cannot and do not wish to simply return to business as usual.”

Nagelsmann has a contract running through the European Championship in 2028.

Schadenfreude takes over

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz illustrated the disconnect between the German team’s hopes and reality better than most when he wrote on social media, “What a match, @DFB_Team! You thrilled our country with your commitment and team spirit at this World Cup. We’re proud of you.”

Merz was quickly mocked for his post on X, where many users asked which match he was referring to. The words “which match” began trending.

“I honestly don’t know which was worse. The match or this analysis,” FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann wrote.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Eight other children were injured and being treated at a hospital, senior police official Faisal Kamran said, adding that the owner of the tutoring center and another person have been arrested.

Kamran said rescuers were searching through the rubble after receiving reports that more children could be trapped beneath the debris. He said the tutoring center was housed in an aging building and that the roof of an unfinished second floor apparently collapsed because of poor construction quality.

Building collapses are common in Pakistan, where construction standards are often poorly enforced. Many structures are built with substandard materials, and safety regulations are frequently ignored to reduce costs.

Witnesses said ambulances and rescue workers rushed to the scene after the roof collapsed. Residents also joined the search, using shovels and their bare hands to remove rubble in an effort to reach children trapped beneath the debris.

Hours later, as the bodies of the children were being handed over to their families, scenes of anguish unfolded outside hospitals and in the neighborhood on the outskirts of Lahore where the private tutoring center was located in a house. Parents wept over the loss of their children, while mothers and other female relatives cried and beat their chests in grief.

Most of the victims lived nearby, and funeral prayers were expected later Tuesday.

Grief was mixed with anger as residents demanded stern punishment for the owner of the tutoring center, blaming him for operating classes in what they described as an aging and unsafe building. Dozens of mourners were seen gathering outside the victims’ homes to offer condolences.

“We don’t know whose home to visit first to offer condolences for the loss of their children,” resident Zafar Iqbal said as he moved from one bereaved family’s home to another nearby street.

Lahore is the capital of Pakistan's most populous Punjab province, where many parents send their children to private tutoring centers in the afternoon and evening.

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief over the collapse of the roof of an evening school building in Lahore. In separate statements, they offered condolences to the families of the victims, prayed for the speedy recovery of those injured, and said effective safety measures were needed to prevent similar tragedies.

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Associated Press writer K.M. Chaudhry in Lahore contributed to this story.

Foundation President Dame Louise Richardson said the awards, launched in 2006, have never been meant to be political. Earlier this month, the foundation changed its name from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to emphasize its nonprofit status and connection to famed industrialist Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant.

“We’re not articulating it in response to this moment,” Richardson told The Associated Press. “But it seems especially important at this moment that we celebrate immigrants and their contributions and also that we present a view of immigrants different from the ones so often portrayed in the media.”

The immigration debate continues at the highest levels of power, as President Donald Trump’s administration executes his agenda to increase immigration enforcement and reduce the numbers of legal immigrants and asylum seekers in the country. On the other side, Pope Leo XIV said, “Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border,” as he visited a once-notorious epicenter of the European migration debate in Spain earlier this month.

Richardson — a naturalized American citizen, born in Ireland — said the entire issue has “become so fraught, especially with the movement against legal immigration and, in particular, the visas for highly skilled people.”

“That just strikes me as an act of self-harm on a national level,” she added, “because so many of these people are the engines of the economy.”

CEO Iman Abuzeid wants to inspire other immigrants

Honoree Dr. Iman Abuzeid, co-founder and CEO of the artificial intelligence-driven healthcare career platform Incredible Health, sees the award as recognition not just for her accomplishments, but for everyone who helped her along the way.

“And if my story makes it feel like it’s more possible for someone else, then that’s probably the part that I care about the most,” added the native of Sudan, who now lives in San Francisco.

Abuzeid said she specifically chose to emigrate to the United States after living in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and completing medical school in England.

“It is the best country for what I’m trying to do,” she said. “I think if you’re ambitious and you’re willing to work hard and you’ve got some skills, it is probably the best country in the world for you.”

Being an immigrant, Abuzeid said, has given her the drive to take on risk and bet on her own abilities. It has also influenced her to build Incredible Health in a way that balances the needs of employers looking to hire health care workers with the career needs of the workers, about 20% of whom are immigrants.

“I think being from Sudan does make me a little bit more attuned to topics like bias and diversity,” she said. “Because we’re operating a marketplace at scale, we can see these patterns in our data where workers of certain last names were seeing bias against them. … So when we removed that, we were able to improve that part of the marketplace.”

Conductor Cristian Măcelaru sees immigration as ‘opportunity’

Honoree Cristian Măcelaru, conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, said immigration offers both the immigrant and their new home country a chance to improve their lives.

“This is an opportunity we should hold dear,” the native of Romania said. “It really makes for a unique kind of country.”

It also creates a unique artistic point of view, said Măcelaru, who moved to Michigan to study music at Interlochen Arts Academy when he was 16.

“I’ve met so many incredible people that were supportive of my arrival to the United States and embracing of who I was,” he said. “But, at the same time, there is that nostalgia for what you’ve left behind that accompanies you on a daily basis. … The immigrant experience never leaves you.”

Măcelaru, who conducted the Orchestre National de France during the Paris Olympics opening ceremony viewed by more than a billion people in 2024, said culture becomes stronger when it appreciates the strengths of others.

“I think all of us actually love the cultures of different places,” said Măcelaru, who makes a point of diversifying the music presented by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. “It doesn’t matter where we are on the planet, you end up loving music that is from a different place. You end up loving food that is from a different country.”

Harvard's Gregory Nagy ‘awestruck’ by influx of new cultures

Honoree Gregory Nagy, Harvard University’s Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and a professor of Comparative Literature, takes it a step further.

“To have an influx of new cultures and new ways of looking at things — that variety is the human fabric,” said the native of Hungary who emigrated with his family as a boy following World War II. They first went to Canada, and then to the United States when his father was invited to become a professor of classical piano at Indiana University. “I’m just awestruck by how important the melting pot is.”

Nagy, who prides himself on being “a friendly Midwesterner” after spending his formative years in Bloomington, Indiana, uses the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s thoughts on repetition — how a person changes an idea even if they only repeat it — to back up that belief.

But he also supports it with his ongoing teaching. Nagy’s class on “The Ancient Greek Hero,” which he has taught for more than 50 years and is currently the longest-running class at Harvard, continues to change with the times, while remaining true to its subject matter.

He has studied how “The Oath of the Ephebes,” from more than 2,400 years ago, connects the importance of environmentalism to being a good citizen. He says the ancient Greek idea of heroism is closer to modern comic book heroes than to the idealized, perfect versions many Americans hold dear.

That evolution is driven by young people, as reflected in the election of Péter Magyar as prime minister of Nagy’s beloved Hungary in April, the social changes that followed, and the new perspectives brought by immigration, Nagy said.

“I was very fortunate to become an immigrant,” he said. “And I was lucky enough to achieve puberty in Indiana, so that Americanizes you very well.”

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

Robert Irvin is facing a federal charge of felon in possession of a firearm.

A criminal complaint, filed by a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), was unsealed on June 29, detailing how investigators found that Irvin was allegedly possessing a weapon.

Background

A man was killed, and a child was injured after a shooting in Detroit. The victims were cousins, according to police.

The shooting happened on Burgess near Outer Drive W and Lyndon Street just after 9:30 p.m. on June 24.

No arrests have been made in connection with the shooting.

Read more --> Neighbors call for action after shooting kills man, injures child on Detroit’s west side

Police search home

During the investigation to find a suspect in the shooting, police executed a search warrant at a home in the 20000 block of Plymouth Road in Detroit on June 26.

Irvin was in the home during the search and was detained. According to the criminal complaint, officers recovered multiple items, including Irvin’s phone.

Later that day, Irvin was interviewed by detectives about the homicide. Irvin gave the detective consent to search his phone during the interview.

On June 27, police found a video of what appeared to be Irvin holding an AR-style rifle.

Based on the cellular extraction, the video was created on April 21, 2026, around 5:50 p.m., and was deleted on June 25, 2026.

Police also found a photo of a Radical Firearms, model RF-15, multi-caliber rifle that was taken on June 24, 2026, at around 4:51 p.m. Investigators determined Irvin took the photo based on the phone’s location at the time it was taken.

According to an ATF special agent in the criminal complaint, the rifle seen in the video and photo is capable of shooting 5.56 caliber ammunition, noting that the same caliber of shell casings were recovered from the scene of the shooting on June 24.

On June 28, an ATF special agent traced the rifle and determined that the gun was originally purchased in 2022 in Eastpointe from someone who was not Irvin. Officials also found that the gun was manufactured outside the State of Michigan.

Criminal history

According to the criminal complaint, Irvin has a history of criminal activity.

On March 12, 2013, Irvin was convicted of carjacking, third-degree police officer fleeing and felony firearm. On May 2, 2014, he was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Another charged

Federal prosecutors also filed a criminal complaint against 32-year-old Lonnie Moore, a convicted felon, accusing him of possessing a firearm.

According to court documents, Moore allegedly FaceTimed a witness just hours before the shooting in Detroit and threatened to kill the victims if his chain wasn’t returned within 24 hours.

Agents tied social media posts and the alleged FaceTime threat to Moore.

A new AP-NORC poll shows Republicans and older, white adults are especially likely to say they fly the American flag, while younger Democrats and Black adults are more likely to say they don’t fly it, reflecting deeply divided views on what patriotism means.

And on this final day of a Supreme Court term centering on Trump’s expansive claims of presidential power, the justices have upheld the constitutionality of birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump's effort to deny the right to the children of noncitizen parents. Follow live updates on the rulings.

Here's the Latest:

Court will consider striking down assault weapons bans in Connecticut and the Chicago area

A Supreme Court that has expanded gun rights will consider whether bans on semiautomatic rifles, often called assault weapons, violate the Second Amendment.

The justices said Tuesday they will take up appeals asking the court to strike down bans on the AR-15 and similar semiautomatic firearms in the Chicago area and Connecticut.

Similar laws are in place in about a dozen states, covering major cities like New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Congress allowed a national assault weapons ban to expire in 2004, but Democrats have supported renewing it in response to a series of mass shootings and states have continued to pass their own laws.

The case is expected to be heard in the fall.

Republican Tom Kean Jr. said he was treated for depression during absence from Congress

New Jersey Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. revealed Tuesday that he spent months away from Congress being treated for depression.

“It is physical, it is emotional, and until you experience it yourself, it is difficult to fully understand how powerful this illness can be,” he said on the House floor.

Kean, whose battleground district includes Trump’s Bedminster golf club, missed more than 100 votes in Congress this year. His reappearance comes after he won an uncontested primary on June 2.

“Today I stand before you healthier, stronger and excited to return to the work that I love,” Kean said.

Kean’s office has said he’s still running for reelection against Democratic nominee Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot. Democrats have targeted the district as a prime pick-up opportunity.

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Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump’s proposed limits

The Court ’s ruling released Tuesday upholds a broad conception of birthright citizenship, rejecting President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

The justices relied on a long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, and more recent federal laws in ruling that anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions, is a citizen.

▶ Read more about Tuesday’s Supreme Court rulings

US job monthly openings hold at a surprising 7.6 million despite Iran war shock

May’s job openings were surprisingly strong in the data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing American labor market resilience to the war’s economic shock. Forecasters had expected employers to post just 7 million openings in May.

Rebounding from a miserable 2025, U.S. employers have added nearly 114,000 net jobs a month on average this year, up from just 9,700 in 2025, the weakest outside a recession since 2002.

Because of baby boomer retirements and Trump’s immigration crackdown, fewer people are competing for work, and the United States doesn’t need as many jobs as it used to keep the unemployment rate stable. Economists say the so-called “break-even’’ rate of hiring could be as low as zero jobs a month, down from perhaps 150,000 a year or so ago.

▶ Read more

Supreme Court backs state laws banning transgender girls from sports

The Court ’s conservative majority added to its repeated rulings against transgender Americans by deciding that bans in Idaho and West Virginia don’t violate the Constitution or the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

The ruling seems certain to extend to the dozens of other Republican-led states that have banned female transgender athletes. Left unresolved are lawsuits challenging state laws and regulations in Connecticut, California and elsewhere that permit transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people ages 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

▶ Read more about Tuesday’s Supreme Court rulings

US envoys arrive in Qatar for meetings on Iran, with tensions high over Hormuz

Trump’s special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner plan meetings with mediators about the implementation of an initial deal to end the war in Iran, following more crossfire in the Persian Gulf.

They won’t directly negotiate with Iranian diplomats, instead using mediators as go-betweens, said Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry.

Iran was also sending a delegation to Qatar, but has no plans to meet with the American side at any level, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said. His statement left open the possibility of messages being passed through the Qataris.

▶ Read more

Who flies the American flag for holidays — and who never flies one, according to an AP-NORC poll

American views of “Old Glory” are divided by politics, age and race, according to a new survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday celebration.

Whether people see it as a unifying or divisive symbol tracks with other deep divisions among Americans, who see their country’s history and accomplishments very differently. About 7 in 10 Republicans and about 6 in 10 Americans ages 60 and older fly the flag at least during holidays. About 6 in 10 Democrats and independents, on the other hand, say they “never” fly the U.S. flag. That includes the vast majority, 75%, of Democrats under 45.

Only about 3 in 10 Black adults say they ever display the American flag, compared with about half of white and Hispanic adults.

The survey of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20.

▶ Read more

What the Supreme Court’s Cook ruling means for Federal Reserve independence

The Supreme Court on Monday said the Federal Reserve, unlike any other agency in Washington, has a measure of independence from the presidency and day-to-day politics. But the court didn’t define to what extent.

The case is the latest round in an unprecedented fight between the Fed and Trump. More political interference at the Fed could upend financial markets around the world, which closely follow its interest rate moves.

Trump has repeatedly demanded that the central bank cut its key interest rate to lower borrowing costs for homeowners, businesses, and even the government itself. Trump sought to fire a Fed governor, Lisa Cook, last August after accusing her of mortgage fraud — a charge she denies.

In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the president cannot fire the seven members of the Fed’s board of governors without a clear cause. The decision endorses the Fed’s independent structure even as the court eliminated such protections for leaders of other agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission, whom the president can fire at-will.

▶ Read more

Trump nominates acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling as permanent chief

Trump said Monday he will nominate Keith Sonderling to be the secretary of labor, elevating him from the agency’s acting director two months after Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned amid abuse-of-power allegations.

Sonderling, a lawyer who has held a variety of acting positions and leadership roles across Trump’s government, was previously the deputy labor secretary and a Republican member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“Throughout his career, Keith has proven his dedication to delivering strong results for the Hardworking People of our Country, and I know he will do an incredible job in his new role,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post announcing Sonderling’s nomination.

Sonderling’s nomination is subject to Senate confirmation.

During Trump’s second term, in addition to his Labor Department post, Sonderling has been the acting director of U.S. Office of Government Ethics and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, one of several agencies Trump targeted for closure in an executive order last year.

▶ Read more

The Supreme Court it issue momentous rulings on Trump’s power

The Supreme Court is wrapping up a term that has focused on Trump’s expansive claims of presidential power.

Trump’s efforts to restrict birthright citizenship, fire the heads of most independent agencies at will and remove a sitting Federal Reserve governor are among the remaining eight cases the justices are expected to decide this week, beginning Monday.

The court also is weighing, in cases from West Virginia and Idaho, whether to uphold laws in roughly half the states that prohibit transgender girls and women from playing on their public school and college sports.

Two election-related cases remain, over state laws that allow a grace period for the receipt of mailed ballots, provided they are sent by Election Day, and limits on political party spending in support of candidates for Congress and president.

Also outstanding is a dispute over geofence warrants that collect the location history of cellphone users to find people near crime scenes. Critics say the practice is a fishing expedition that violates civil liberties.

▶ Read more

Here are this year’s finalists:

• Gilly’s Ice Cream in Troy
• Holy Cow! Creamery in Wyandotte
• Modern Cone in St. Clair Shores
• Ray’s Ice Cream in Royal Oak
• Smoothies On 7 Mile Dairy Bar in Redford Township

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.

“I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!” Leo wrote in a letter to the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the superior of the Society of St. Pius X.

Leo issued the last-ditch appeal a day before the society plans to consecrate four new bishops at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland. Under church law, the consecrations constitute a schismatic act, or an intentional rupture of the unity of the Catholic Church, and incur automatic excommunication for the four bishops and the bishop administering the consecration.

Pagliarani responded by writing a formal letter to Leo asking him to take time before deciding any penalty.

“Far be it from us to separate ourselves from the Roman Church. We desire, on the contrary, to serve her by means that are extraordinary, as one would assist a mother in distress who requires particular help, even if such help is not understood by everyone,” Pagliarani wrote.

SSPX asks pope for more time

The ceremony poses the first major crisis for the American pope, who has stressed the need for church unity since the start of his pontificate. He has worked especially hard to heal tensions with traditionalist Catholics who prefer the old Latin Mass, that worsened in some ways during the Pope Francis pontificate.

The society was founded in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the council revolutionized the Catholic Church’s relations with other religions and the laity, and allowed Mass to be celebrated in vernacular languages rather than Latin.

Its members celebrate the ancient Latin Mass and have accused the modern church of being rife with heresies and errors. The society insists that only the SSPX is upholding the true faith of Christ and has justified the consecrations, citing a “state of necessity” to minister to its faithful.

In response to the pope’s letter, Marc-André Mabillard, media manager for the society, expressed “great sadness to not be understood by our leader,” and added: “We are changing absolutely nothing in our plans.”

Asked by phone about the prospect of excommunication, Mabillard said: “We don’t fear it. It pains us immensely, but we believe that the good we seek is greater than the pain that will be inflicted upon us.”

Previous excommunications and outreach

In 1988, SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal consent. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four other bishops, and the group today still has no legal status in the church.

The Vatican in 2009 lifted those original excommunications as part of its outreach to try to bring the group back under its wing. But the Vatican has warned that a similar fate awaits the new bishops if Wednesday's consecrations go ahead.

In his letter, Leo repeated the Vatican's offer of dialogue and said that going through with the consecrations would be counterproductive for the SSPX faithful.

“I urge you to consider carefully the spiritual good of the faithful, because the schismatic act you are about to undertake would deprive them of the licit, and in some cases, even valid reception of the sacraments,” he wrote.

Despite the original 1988 schismatic act, the group has continued to grow and today poses a threat to the Holy See as a parallel, ultra-Catholic, pre-Vatican II church. The SSPX counts two bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities, according to SSPX statistics.

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Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Scorching temperatures, especially combined with high humidity, pose risks particularly for children, older people and those with certain health conditions. Anyone can suffer from heat-related illness.

Climate change is also exacerbating heat waves and heat stress.

So here are some tips to stay safe:

When heat becomes dangerous

Dangers posed by hot weather depend on more than the temperature. The most detailed measurement is called the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), which includes temperature, humidity, cloud cover and wind. The heat index, which measures temperature and humidity, is less descriptive but easier to find on weather apps. Both explain why a shaded soccer field on a 90 degree F day (32 degree C) in arid Phoenix may be less risky than an exposed park on an 80 degree F (27 degree C) day in soupy Little Rock.

Just based on heat index, NOAA has a chart that calculates how dangerous prolonged exposure can be. For example, a day in which temperatures reach 96 degree F (36 degrees C) and 45% humidity would fall into the “danger” category for prolonged exposure or strenuous activity.

The WBGT threshold isn't exact, but recent research suggests that even some young, healthy people can't endure hours of exposure to high heat and humidity.

How to cool down

Overnight temperatures can be a particularly dangerous part of a heat wave, said Ashley Ward, director of the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke University.

“Your body needs a reprieve,” she said. “You don't get that overnight, we start the next day at a deficit.” Heat can worsen labor productivity and lead to more visits to the emergency room.

“When we have overnight temperatures that don't drop below 75 degrees" F (24 degrees C), she said, “you start to see some pretty extraordinary outcomes with respect to heat illness and heat stroke, and even mortality.”

Ward said air conditioning can help, but she acknowledged that not everyone has access.

If you can't afford to cool the whole house, Ward said, create a “cool corner" and sleep there, so your body is prepared to tackle the next day.

Evaporative or “swamp” coolers can help in dry heat, but they increase humidity and can make it more difficult to cool down. In humid places, just use a fan.

If you don't have air conditioning, find public places that do, including movie theaters, malls and libraries. Some communities set up cooling centers.

Depending on where you live, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program can help you buy a window air conditioning unit, according to the National Council on Aging. Some local nonprofits and civic organizations can also help.

Know your rights if you work outside

Knowing what workplace protections you have is important. Some states have them, including Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota and Maryland, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Other states don't have any.

If your state has work rules, try to learn them — though there are still challenges to ensuring regulations are actually enforced, said Bharat Venkat, director of the University of California, Los Angeles Heat Lab.

He notes that sometimes shaded areas are too far away for workers to take breaks without losing wages, or that management can make it impossible for workers to advocate for themselves. “Most workers don’t actually have control over their time or control over where they work," Venkat said.

Within those constraints, finding ways to stay hydrated and lower your body temperature are important. You can do this by drinking lots of fluids, wetting clothing or putting cold water or a cold rag on your hands, feet, armpits and neck. A portable handheld fan or a cooling vest can also help.

If you're exercising, avoid the hottest times of day and bring more water than you think you need.

Knowing heat illness symptoms

Heat illness symptoms can vary by person, Venkat said. Medications or existing health conditions can also make it harder to regulate body temperature or notice you're getting too hot.

Early trouble signs include heavy sweating, muscle cramps and headache. That's when you stop what you're doing and cool yourself off, for example by splashing yourself with cold water or finding an air-conditioned space.

As heat exhaustion sets in, new symptoms arrive, including faster heart rate and dizziness. Next comes heat stroke, which can include confusion, slurred words and fainting. Ward said that's when to call 911.

“Don’t be embarrassed to call 911 or go to urgent care when you think you might have overdone it in the heat,” he said.

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Walling and Wells are former Associated Press reporters.

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

Like other NATO countries, the U.K. is under pressure to increase defense spending to counter a more aggressive Russia and less reliable United States. But its Defense Investment Plan has been repeatedly delayed as military leaders and Treasury officials wrangled over the cost.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the plan reflects a world of conflicts transformed by technology and will keep Britain safe in “a more dangerous and volatile world."

“When the world is arming and aggression is rising, the best way to avoid war is to prepare for it," he said.

But the blueprint does not commit to spending 3% of U.K. GDP on defense by 2030, one of the factors that spurred John Healey to resign as U.K. defense secretary on June 11. Healey accused the government of underspending on the military at a time of “rising threats," citing a British intelligence assessment that Russia could attack a NATO member country by 2030.

In the House of Commons on Tuesday, Healey said that “with European security at stake,” Britain needs "to develop a clear, credible funding plan that will hit 3% and that will meet our NATO commitment of 3.5% by 2035."

Starmer said Healey’s successor, Defense Secretary Dan Jarvis, had worked to “sharpen and strengthen" the plan. Its 15 billion pounds in new spending is more than the 13.5 billion pounds ($18 billion) Healey was offered by the Treasury, but far less than the 28 billion pounds ($37 billion) that defense officials had called for.

UK faces pressure to hit NATO target

Under the plan, defense spending will hit 2.7% of GDP by 2029. Starmer said the 3% target will be reached “in the next Parliament,” a period that could extend to 2034. The U.K. remains committed to hitting NATO’s 3.5% target by 2035, though it's unclear how it will get there.

The government said the new funding will boost spending on defense to almost 300 billion pounds ($400 billion) over the next four years. Big-ticket items include 5 billion pounds ($6.6 billion) for drone technology, 8 billion pounds ($10.6 billion) to build new stealth fighter jets alongside Japan and Italy, and 11 billion pounds ($14.5 billion) to increase weapons stockpiles. The U.K. will also spend 64 billion pounds ($85 billion) modernizing its nuclear weapons.

Starmer said some road and energy projects would be scrapped to help pay for the military.

The U.K. military is seeking to reverse years of decline in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia, which invaded its neighbor Ukraine in 2022 and increasingly tests the defenses of European nations with overt and covert activity.

The U.K. has watched how drones have transformed war in Ukraine, which uses 200,000 of them a month to defend against Russian forces. Britain plans to invest billions in drone systems across all branches of the military. Instead of a planned fleet of new destroyers, the Royal Navy will get hybrid vessels that will act as command hubs for drones.

“The very nature of conflict is changing before our eyes,” Starmer said during a speech at a drone manufacturer near London. He said that, armed with cutting-edge technology, Ukrainian forces have destroyed Russia’s Black Sea fleet, “struck deep into Russian territory and stopped the advance of one of the biggest armies in the world.”

Critics say more money is needed

Britain and other NATO member nations have faced pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to increase military spending. Trump has long questioned the value of the military alliance and complained that the United States provides security to European countries that don’t pull their weight.

The resignations of Healey and junior Defense Minister Al Carns were among a series of blows that prompted Starmer to announce last week that he will resign. A NATO summit in Turkey on July 7 and 8 may be his final overseas trip as prime minister.

His replacement, likely the former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, will be under pressure to stick to the commitments in the defense plan.

“It is a platform on which I know my successor will build," Starmer said.

Opposition Conservative Party defense spokesperson James Cartlidge said the plan was “too little, too late.”

And retired Gen. Richard Barrons, who helped lead a defense review in preparation for the investment plan, said “we have to find more money for defense sooner.”

“We’re not keeping up with our allies, we’re certainly not keeping up with our enemies, and we know that the U.S. is no longer going to come and save European security in the face of a Russian threat,” he told the BBC.

White Lake Township Police and Fire Departments responded to the area of White Lake Rd near Teggerdine Rd on June 29 at around 5 p.m. after reports of a crash.

According to authorities the Dodge Caravan was traveling west on White Lake Rd when it collided with a Harley Davidson motorcycle traveling east on White Lake Rd.

Police say, the driver of the motorcycle, from Holly, 70, sustained severe injuries from the crash and was pronounced deceased on the scene.

Police say, the driver of the Dodge Caravan, from Highland, 54, was transported to a local hospital for injuries.

Authorities say the Highland man was arrested after being cleared by medical staff.

The case was referred to the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office for official charges.

Lively's lawyers disclosed the amount, covering nearly $7.5 million in attorney’s fees from two law firms that represented her and about $500,000 in other expenses, in a court filing Tuesday.

Lively and Baldoni settled last month just before a trial was to start in federal court in Manhattan on Lively’s claims that he engineered an effort to damage her public reputation and credibility after she accused him of sexually harassing her while shooting the movie.

Baldoni, who directed the dark romantic drama and starred in it with Lively, denied her claims.

Lively received no money in the settlement, but a judge subsequently ruled that she is entitled to recover some legal costs she incurred after Baldoni filed a countersuit against her. The judge must still approve the amount she is seeking.

One of Lively’s lawyers, Michael Gottlieb, wrote in a court declaration that he charged her an average hourly rate of $2,187 — a discount from his usual $2,795 per hour. He said he billed 224 hours for work on her defense to Baldoni’s countersuit, totaling $457,000 in fees.

Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios LLC, “employed scorched-earth litigation tactics designed to drain Lively’s resources,” her lawyers wrote in their filing.

“They could have ended it (and offered to reimburse Lively) at any time. Having refused to do so, they should be ordered to reimburse Lively for all of the costs, attorney’s fees, and expenses they improperly forced her to incur,” they wrote.

A message seeking comment was left for Baldoni’s lawyer.

Lively, 38, sued Baldoni, 42, and Wayfarer Studios in December 2024, accusing them of conspiring with publicists to preemptively destroy her reputation after she privately accused him of sexual harassment on the “It Ends With Us" set.

Weeks later, Baldoni sued Lively, accusing her, her husband — “Deadpool” actor Ryan Reynolds — and their publicist of defamation and extortion.

Baldoni denied harassing her or orchestrating a smear campaign. He claimed the complaints about his behavior were made up by Lively as part of an effort to seize creative control of the movie.

Judge Lewis J. Liman threw out Baldoni’s countersuit last year and then dismissed Lively’s sexual harassment claims, saying she could not bring them because she was an independent contractor rather than an employee on the movie set.

In allowing Lively to recover legal costs, the judge cited a California law designed to protect survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination from retaliatory lawsuits meant to intimidate and silence victims.

Liman said the law requires that the plaintiff must pay the defendant’s legal fees and costs if a defamation claim made in response to a lawsuit is dismissed, even if the facts of the case have not been developed through the gathering of evidence.

Liman said an exception would be if Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, could prove malice fueled Lively’s claims, but that they had produced no evidence to show that.

In their court filing, Lively's lawyers said $4.5 million should be paid to Gottlieb’s firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and about $3 million should go to the firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.

The judge rejected Lively's claims to triple any damages and pursue punitive damages as well under the California law, saying that they did not fall within “carefully crafted federal procedural rules designed to protect the rights of the parties.”

“It Ends With Us,” an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel about a relationship devolving into domestic violence, was released in August 2024 and exceeded box office expectations.

Lively appeared in the 2005 film “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and the TV series “Gossip Girl” from 2007 to 2012 before starring in films including “The Town” and “The Shallows.”

Baldoni starred in the TV comedy “Jane the Virgin,” directed the 2019 film “Five Feet Apart” and wrote “Man Enough,” a book challenging traditional notions of masculinity.

The Michigan State University survey found 96,000 fewer Michigan drivers are on their phones while driving.

According to the survey, drivers under 30 remain twice as likely to be on their phones than older drivers.

Before the law passed, you could legally hold your phone behind the wheel; now your phone must be mounted or connected to your car.

The rule applies to red lights too; even if your car is stationary, you cannot hold your phone.

A first violation fine is $100, a second is $250; after three in three years, drivers are required to attend a driving improvement course.

Drivers who crash while holding a phone have their fines doubled.

Steve Kiefer, of The Kiefer Foundation, joined Local 4 Live to tell us more about the impact.

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

Michigan offers State Emergency Relief to help residents with their energy bills.

The program has roughly $10 million for state residents.

Evette Hollins, Vice President and chief customer officer at DTE joined Local 4 Live to tell us more on how Michiganders can handle their next energy bill and how DTE is preparing for the heat wave.

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

The visit by Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald 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.

The envoys won’t be having direct negotiations with Iranian diplomats while in Qatar’s capital, Doha, said Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry. Instead, mediators are working for the time being as go-betweens for the talks, which won’t include any high-level officials, he added.

The U.S. and Iran have held indirect negotiations before. However, the two previous rounds collapsed and preceded the 12-day war Israel launched against Iran in 2025 and this year's war, launched jointly by the U.S. and Iran on Feb. 28.

Iran is also sending a delegation to Qatar this week. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Tuesday that Iran has had no plans for a meeting with the American side at any level in the coming days.

“What will take place in Doha tomorrow is a discussion with the Qatari side about implementing parts of the memorandum of understanding, including the release of Iran’s blocked assets,” Baghaei told journalists at his own briefing.

It is possible the two sides could exchange messages through the Qatari mediators.

The U.S. and Iran agreed to an interim deal earlier this month that calls for Tehran to dilute its stockpile of enriched uranium. It also waives U.S.-backed oil sanctions on the country, calls for free traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and gives each side 60 days to hammer out broader agreements.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Monday that Qatar plans to release $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive negotiations, confirmed the release amount, saying it would be used to buy U.S. food products for the Iranian people.

A fifth of the world's oil was shipped through the Strait of Hormuz before the war began. Iran’s attacks and threats stopped cargo ships and tankers from moving through the strait, creating a global energy crisis.

The strait has long been considered an international waterway despite being in Iran and Oman’s territorial waters.

Both sides traded strikes amid efforts last week to open Oman’s territorial waters in the strait to both inbound and outbound ship traffic from the Persian Gulf. That raised concerns that negotiations to formally end the war could be disrupted.

Iran twice attacked vessels in the strait — including a tanker filled with Qatari crude — and drew retaliatory American airstrikes. Iran also launched drone and missile attacks targeting Bahrain and Kuwait on Sunday.

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AP reporter Josh Boak in Washington contributed.

The parliament published a letter urging the International Olympic Committee to recognize the semi-autonomous territories as “independent National Olympic Committees and to participate in the Olympic Games under their own flags.”

The revival of a longstanding Olympic proposal previously made 20 years ago comes weeks after Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen formed a new coalition government. She has pledged support for Greenland against U.S. President Donald Trump’s wish to acquire the island.

The IOC recognizes 206 national Olympic bodies, which is 13 more than the United Nations has member states, and is unlikely to support Denmark’s request.

The Olympic body's policy since 1996 has been to recognize only independent states, such as Kosovo in 2014 and South Sudan the next year. The Olympic Charter defines “country” as “an independent state recognized by the international community.”

Two biathletes from Greenland competed for Denmark at the Milan Cortina Olympics in February.

The Faroe Islands has competed in qualifying games for international soccer tournaments since the 1992 European Championship and 1994 World Cup.

The Danish parliament said its presidium’s June 18 letter to the IOC would “reflect a clear and current political commitment by Denmark to support enhanced and more equal international participation for both the Faroe Islands and Greenland.”

___

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Police responded to the home in the 31000 block of Middlebelt Road — located at the entrance of the Franklin Knolls neighborhood near Northwestern Highway — around 7:39 a.m. after receiving a 911 call from inside the residence.

Farmington Hills Police Chief John Piggott identified the victim as the suspect’s grandmother, who resided at the home with her two grandsons, both of whom were home at the time.

The victim was found unconscious when police arrived and taken to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead. The suspect was reportedly barricaded in one of the bedrooms.

After failing to negotiate with the suspect to get him to surrender, responding officers resorted to breaking the bedroom window and engaging him with PepperBall rounds to get him to comply.

The suspect was reportedly not armed and was taken into custody without incident, Piggott said. The incident is being investigated as a homicide and police are expected to be on scene for several hours as they work to obtain search warrants to process the crime scene.

“At this point we’re receiving conflicting reports as to what caused the injuries,” said Piggott, who called the incident “a senseless crime.”

Identities of the victim and the suspect are not being released at this time.

Local 4 is on the scene. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

A search was underway for a suspect who fled on foot after the blast late Monday, Prosecutor Stéphane Thibault said, adding that the motive was unclear.

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.

“It appears that the family was specifically targeted,” said Christophe Mirmand, the minister of state for Monaco. He said the suspect “had walked around the area several times while waiting for the victims,” according to surveillance footage.

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 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 Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said its embassy in France, which is also responsible for Monaco, was in touch with local authorities. Ukrainian diplomats were at the scene providing assistance, it said.

Attack shocks glamorous Monaco

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.

Monaco police opened an attempted murder investigation into the attack, but they did not describe it as a terrorism investigation, Thibault told reporters.

The family members are “regular” residents of Monaco, and authorities did not yet know whether they had been threatened in the past, Mirmand said.

The blast occurred around 9 p.m. Monday at the entrance of a residence near the French border.

The woman who was wounded was in life-threatening condition, Thibault said. He did not provide the identities of the people who were hurt.

The woman was being treated at a hospital in Nice, Mirmand told French news broadcaster LCI. Her partner and the 13-year-old child suffered less severe injuries but were still hospitalized Tuesday, he added.

The suspect got away via steps to a small street to the neighboring French town of Beausoleil, according to surveillance footage.

In a picture captured by surveillance cameras and published by French media, the suspect could be seen in a street wearing a black jacket, light-colored pants, white shoes and a black bucket hat that partly concealed his face.

The three people were “apparently returning home peacefully,” Mirmand said, citing surveillance footage. “They were caught in the explosion as they crossed the threshold of their apartment building."

Ukrainian tycoon is a well-known real estate developer

Yermolaiev, a Ukrainian-born businessman originally from the city of Dnipro, built his fortune through the Alef Group, a diversified business that includes commercial real estate, manufacturing and agriculture. He became one of the country’s best-known property developers, leading projects that reshaped parts of Dnipro’s city center. He has regularly appeared in rankings of Ukraine’s wealthiest entrepreneurs.

In an interview with Forbes Ukraine, Yermolaiev said he renounced his Ukrainian citizenship and became a Cypriot citizen in 2017.

In December 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on Yermolaiev as part of a broader package targeting individuals and companies Kyiv said had business links to Russia or Russian-occupied territories.

The Cyprus Registrar of Companies lists a man called Vadym Iermolaiev as the director of Vespano Ltd., a company in the Cypriot city of Limassol first registered in January 2019. Cyprus’ Interior Ministry told The Associated Press it could not provide information about the man’s citizenship status due to confidentiality rules.

A coastal playground for the rich and famous, Monaco is renowned as much for its tax-friendly incentives and Formula 1 Grand Prix as its glamorous royal family. The small principality is widely regarded as one of the safest places in the world, in part because of its network of thousands of surveillance cameras covering most public spaces.

Monaco’s population of 38,000 is multinational, with only a fifth of the population actually citizens of the principality.

___

Associated Press journalists Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine; Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus; and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to this report.

Forecasters had expected employers to post just 7 million openings in May.

The job market is sturdy but not exactly booming. Layoffs rose in May, and the number of people quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their prospects — ticked up only slightly. That's according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Tuesday.

Employers are advertising openings, but they aren't actually doing much hiring. Gross hiring — before counting people who lost or quit their jobs — dipped to 5.17 million in May from 5.26 million in April. When the job market was booming from mid-2021 to mid-2023 after COVID-19 lockdowns, gross monthly hiring regularly topped 6 million.

“The hiring switch needs to fully turn on for the labor market to feel alive again,” ZipRecruiter economist Nicole Bachaud said in a commentary.

After the United States and Israel attacked Feb. 28, Iran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas passes. Energy prices soared, squeezing Americans already frustrated by the high cost of living.

But the American job market has chugged along, continuing to rebound from a miserable 2025. In the first five months of the year, U.S. employers have added an average of nearly 114,000 net jobs a month. That is up from just 9,700 a month in 2025, the weakest hiring outside a recession since 2002.

High interest rates and President Donald Trump's unpredictable economic policies discouraged employers from making hiring decisions last year. Trump's tax cuts and the fact that the United States is an energy producer have limited the economic damage from the war this year.

When the Labor Department releases its jobs report for June on Thursday, it is expected to show that companies, nonprofits and government agencies added another 100,000 jobs and that unemployment stayed at a low 4.3%.

Because of baby boomer retirements and Trump's immigration crackdown, fewer people are competing for work, and the United States doesn't need as many jobs as it used to keep the unemployment rate stable. Economists say the so-called "break-even'' rate of hiring could be as low as zero jobs a month, down from perhaps 150,000 a year or so ago.

Authorities in upstate New York searched for Harbe Nagi and previously said he may need medical attention.

Harbe was reported missing on June 28 in the village of Menands, near Albany. Police said the child was nonverbal and believed to be barefoot.

Authorities described Harbe as approximately 3’7” tall. His clothing description was not immediately available.

Police and emergency crews used multiple search tactics to locate the boy, including deploying an ice cream truck in the hope that its familiar music would draw him out if he is hiding nearby.

Officials have not released additional details about his disappearance.

On June 30, Alharbi said on Facebook that Harbe was found dead.

“Thank you to everyone who helped in the search,” he said on Tuesday.

The circumstances surrounding the child’s death are not known.

Previous report

Known as “Snake the Bigfoot Hunter”, Snake Stuart claims to have found the body while camping.

Snake claims after DNA testing at the Cornell’s Veterinary DNA Lab, his specimen is the first scientifically verified Bigfoot specimen.

Michigan ranks as one of the top in the nation for bigfoot sighting with more than 220 encounters listed in the Bigfoot field researchers organization database.

Most reports in Michigan come from the Upper Peninsula and the northern Lower Peninsula.

Snake Stuart, Bigfoot hunter and author joined Local 4 Live to tell us what he found.

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

According to Madison Heights police, an investigation into the threats made against the Islamic Center in the 27000 block of Dequindre Road revealed the individual’s identity.

“The Madison Heights Police Department takes hate crimes very seriously and remains committed to supporting and protecting all religious and ethnic groups within our city,” the department wrote in a statement. “As such, membership of the Islamic Community Center has been updated on this development.”

No further details have been released as the investigation is ongoing, and charges are being submitted to the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office for review.

Protocols designed to protect tennis from doping are in the spotlight as players open up about their experiences navigating the system in the aftermath of a four-year ban handed to 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova — not for testing positive but for refusing to take a test.

Players are required to provide a 60-minute time slot each day to be available for testing, plus the International Tennis Integrity Agency says that if a doping control officer "locates and notifies a player outside of that hour, they must complete the test.”

Naturally, there's a need for communication between players and testers.

“I’m not going to lie, some of them can be pushy, make you feel like you’re doing something wrong,” Gauff, the No. 7 seed, said after her first-round victory at Wimbledon.

“One time she came outside my time slot. But the way she was speaking to me on the phone, it literally made me cry afterwards," the 22-year-old American said. "I found out I was in the right, and I didn’t have to do anything.”

Ahead of her first-round match Tuesday, Ajla Tomljanovic described her close calls.

“I’m very scared of the system because it feels broken," she said. "I’ve had a few experiences of my own where it was about technicalities and when I speak to people in charge they’re not helpful — I don’t want to say they don’t care — but they weren’t very helpful at all to explain things or just show some sort of compassion when I was nowhere near missing a test or testing positive.”

The Australian player said she was seeking help about how the app works.

“I was new to the whole system. And I was at two fails for a month and I knew if I get a third one accidentally I would be out for at least two, three years,” she said. “It’s in a way, I won’t say no fault of my own but it’s not to the degree of being banned and smearing your name. In that sense, I think there’s so much to improve on.”

Williams, who makes her Wimbledon return on Tuesday, said the testing system was “a big reason why I didn’t want to come back either, because it’s just so hard."

The Vondrousova case

The 27-year-old Czech player, who became Wimbledon’s first unseeded female champion when she beat Ons Jabeur in the 2023 final, refused to take a test in early December 2025 after a doping control officer rang her apartment's intercom at 8 p.m.

This month, following a hearing by an independent tribunal, Vondrousova received the maximum four-year ban for a first offense.

ITIA published a video explainer of the case, saying Vondrousova on the night in question challenged the timing of the test because it was outside her designated time slot.

The agency noted: “If a Doping Control Officer, or DCO, locates and notifies a player outside of that hour, they must complete the test.”

Vondrousova had described the tester as “aggressive” and said the frequent ringing of the intercom “triggered a state of distress," the ITIA video says.

The tribunal's June 22 decision confirmed that Vondrousova refused the test and that the evidence “provided no compelling justification for doing so.”

The ITIA added that under World Anti-Doping Agency rules, “test refusals can be sanctioned as severely as positive tests." One rationale is an athlete who is doping could simply refuse a test and seek a lighter punishment.

Last year, the ITIA said it conducted over 8,000 tests both in and out of competition “and received a handful of complaints. We take all feedback on board and encourage players to share their views with us.” Other organizations, such as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, also conduct player testing.

On possible changes to the system, the ITIA noted that tennis follows WADA rules and processes, which "will be refreshed in 2027. As part of this process, WADA consults with athletes from across global sport.”

“We understand the system can seem challenging," the ITIA said, “but it is there to protect players, not to trip them up. If players are ever unsure about a test, have questions, or would like to provide feedback on their experience, we want to hear about it.”

Some players say a 4-year ban is harsh

Jessica Pegula, the No. 4 seed, said she didn't know the full details of Vondrousova's case but that “I feel, like, for Marketa.”

“For something like that, for four years, you’re ruining someone’s career over something that could have really just been a complete misunderstanding, and I just don’t think that’s fair. I think the sentencing is so harsh," Pegula said.

“I don’t quite understand the difference between that and then obviously what happened with (Jannik) Sinner and Iga (Swiatek),” she said. “They justified what the rules were and why it was the way it was.”

Top-ranked Sinner, the defending men's champion at Wimbledon, accepted a three-month ban in a settlement with WADA in early 2025 following his two positive doping tests from the prior year. WADA had challenged ITIA's decision not to suspend Sinner for what it judged was accidental contamination — entering his system through a massage — by a banned anabolic steroid.

Swiatek, Wimbledon's defending women's champion, accepted a one-month suspension in 2024 after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine, a heart medication. The ITIA accepted her explanation that the result was unintentional and caused by the contamination of a nonprescription medication, melatonin, that Swiatek was taking for issues with jet lag.

___

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

The decision announced over the weekend came as the outbreak of a type of Ebola with no approved treatment or vaccine continues to grow, with 1,307 people infected and 377 dead across three provinces in eastern Congo. It could be the worst Ebola outbreak yet.

Congo’s ministry of interior on Saturday said gatherings and demonstrations were forbidden in the provinces of Kinshasa, Tshopo, Haut-Uele and Bas-Uele as fears grow about the outbreak spilling into new areas. None of the provinces have any confirmed cases.

Separately, the mayor of ​Goma, eastern Congo’s largest city and now under the control of the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, also banned public gatherings and demonstrations, including celebrations linked to sport events, on Monday. Congo is in its first World Cup in over half a century.

Congo’s political opposition has denounced the ban as unconstitutional. Prince Epenge, the spokesperson for the Lamuka coalition, has said the ban aims to prevent a planned demonstration in the capital, Kinshasa, early next month. The protest is against proposed constitutional changes that would allow Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi to run for a third term.

Civil society organizations also condemned the ban in a statement on Monday, citing freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

In a televised address on Monday evening, Tshisekedi announced a $319 million response plan to the Ebola outbreak, and called on people to respect health guidelines, report suspected cases and not give in to misinformation. He did not directly address the bans.

“Ebola is neither a rumor nor a source of shame,” Tshisekedi said. “It is a health emergency that demands responsibility, solidarity, and truth.”

Health workers have reported some skepticism and attacks over Ebola from residents in the affected areas of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.

Cases also have been confirmed in neighboring Uganda, as well as one in France in a doctor who returned from Congo.

The United Nations ​warned in a report on Tuesday that if the virus spreads into other neighboring countries including Rwanda and Angola, it could cost Africa up to $3.6 billion and result in 328,000 job losses.

More than a month into the outbreak, officials believe it continues to outpace response efforts and no one knows its true scale. They are yet to identify patient zero and struggle to trace contact cases.

The World Health Organization has warned that violence from rebels in eastern Congo is complicating the response to the outbreak. In Ituri, attacks by the Islamic State group-backed Allied Democratic Force have cut off access to many villages and forced people to flee their homes, adding to already overcrowded camps of people displaced by years of conflict.

___

Pronczuk reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Janvier Barhahiga in Bukavu, Congo, contributed to this report.

The largest U.S. oil company and its consortium partner, QatarEnergy, consider the most likely option for getting the gas to market would be conveying it through a pipeline to existing processing facilities in Egypt where it can be liquefied for export, ExxonMobil's Vice President of Global Exploration John Ardill said.

Other options including building onshore facilities in Cyprus or a floating one in waters over the deposits are considered too costly at this point.

“Everything you’ve seen between the government of Cyprus and the government of Egypt gives us a lot of confidence that there’s good government to government coordination, the agreements in place to leverage that eastern Mediterranean energy hub concept,” Ardill said.

He was speaking after ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy signed a deal with Cyprus declaring the two deposits commercially viable.

The deposits — dubbed Glaucus and Pegasus — are located in Block 10 of Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and are estimated to hold together roughly 7 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Ardill said the consortium is looking to expand its presence off Cyprus, expressing interest in exploring an area, or block, on the southwestern corner of the EEZ that is adjacent to an area where it already holds drilling licenses.

The consortium will carry out additional drilling at the Pegasus deposit around the end of this year to collect more key data for its development, he added.

“So what we should tell ordinary people is we have been working very diligently together between government and investor to make these discoveries and we’re working very diligently to get the gas flowing for the people of Cyprus,” Ardill said.

Cyprus is trying to position itself as a new energy source for Europe and beyond following the initial discovery of natural gas off its southern shore in 2011.

Apart from ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy, two other consortiums hold exploration licenses in the Cypriot EEZ.

A consortium composed of Italy’s Eni and French TOTAL holds licenses for four blocks where two deposits hold an estimated 5.6 trillion cubic feet of gas combined, while a partnership between Chevron, Dutch Shell and Israeli NewMed is licensed for one bloc where the oldest discovery — Aphrodite — holds approximately 5.6 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Earlier this year, Eni’s Chief Operating Officer Guido Brusco said the company was close to making a final decision on developing the Cronos gas field that could deliver the hydrocarbon to European markets by late 2027 or early 2028.

Novi DaVita dialysis center to reopen following investigation into patient death, hospitalizations

The DaVita dialysis center in Novi will reopen following an investigation into the death of a patient and reports of illnesses.

The center will reopen to patients on Thursday, July 2, after a precautionary closure by state and local health officials.

The center’s closure comes after an investigation into a patient’s death and multiple hospitalizations that were linked to the dialysis center located near Grand River Avenue and Beck Road.

Novi city officials previously said no foul play or criminal conduct was found in the death and illness reports.

Read more here.

Why whale remains have been found in Michigan several times

The remains of whales have been found in Michigan.

It’s not a hoax. It’s not a joke. And I’m not talking about the Basilosaurus that lived here 37 million years ago.

Much more recently. Not the ancient ancestors of whales, but species that are still around in the oceans today. They just happened to live here just a few thousand years ago.

The skeletal remains of a baleen whale were found in Ortonville. Sperm whale remains have turned up in both Lenawee County and Wexford County. A bowhead whale was discovered in 1927 while workers were digging a foundation for a schoolhouse in Oscoda. Finback whale remains have been found in Genesee County.

To understand how whales ended up in the Great Lakes State, it helps to understand Michigan’s history.

Read more here.

Here’s where you can find cooling centers in Metro Detroit

An Extreme Heat Warning is in effect from noon on Tuesday through 8 p.m. on Thursday, with temperatures expected to reach 100 degrees with high levels of humidity and little overnight relief.

The most dangerous conditions are forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, when temperatures are expected to peak and challenge long-standing records across Metro Detroit.

If you need a place to cool off during this week’s extreme heat event, there are plenty of cooling centers open to the public across Metro Detroit.

Read more here.

Cases of Cyclosporiasis confirmed in Monroe County -- here’s what to know

The highly anticipated rematch between Michigan native Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao has been postponed indefinitely as promoters work through a series of legal disputes, contract issues, and scheduling conflicts.

According to Ring Magazine on X, the fight, originally scheduled for Sept. 26, 2026, in Las Vegas, could not proceed due to ongoing issues involving Mayweather’s camp.

The rematch was expected to stream globally on Netflix and serve as a follow-up to the pair’s 2015 showdown, which became the highest-grossing fight in boxing history.

Read more here.

Weather: Extreme Heat Warning issued for Southeast Michigan through Thursday

A 4Warn Weather Alert goes into effect today as Southeast Michigan prepares for a prolonged and dangerous stretch of extreme heat, with an Extreme Heat Warning in effect from noon today through Thursday.

High temperatures are expected to climb into the mid-90s to near 100 degrees, while oppressive humidity will push heat index values above 105 degrees each day. The combination of intense heat and high humidity will create hazardous conditions, increasing the risk of heat-related illnesses for anyone spending extended time outdoors.

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Here are this year’s finalists:

• Briarwood Heating & Cooling
• Mulligan Heating
• R&L Heating and Cooling
• Stier Heating & Cooling
• Zilka Heating and Cooling

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.

The center will reopen to patients on Thursday, July 2, after a precautionary closure by state and local health officials.

“We are proud to serve the Novi community, and the safety and well-being of our patients remain our highest priority. During the temporary closure, multiple third-party entities conducted comprehensive evaluations of center operations, including biomedical equipment reviews and water quality testing. Those reviews are complete and found no issues with the center’s systems or operations. We are confident in the care provided at our center and in our ability to continue delivering safe, high-quality treatment. 

Throughout the temporary closure, all impacted patients continued receiving uninterrupted, life-sustaining dialysis care at nearby DaVita centers."

DaVita spokesperson

The center’s closure comes after an investigation into a patient’s death and multiple hospitalizations that were linked to the dialysis center located near Grand River Avenue and Beck Road.

Novi city officials previously said no foul play or criminal conduct was found in the death and illness reports.

Nadiem Anwar Makarim was convicted of pushing his ministry to buy Google Chromebook laptops for schools during the COVID-19 pandemic as the American tech giant was considering an investment in Gojek's parent company. Makarim denied wrongdoing.

A panel of five judges at Jakarta’s Corruption Court ordered Makarim to repay 809 billion rupiah (about $45.2 million) — a figure prosecutors said represented the value to him of Google's investment in PT Aplikasi Karya Anak Bangsa — and imposed a fine of 1 billion rupiah (about $55,870). Prosectors said the purchasing decision also caused $125 million in state losses.

“The defendant, as a minister who should serve as a role model, abused his authority. His actions were deliberate, structured and systematic,” said presiding Judge Purwanto S. Abdullah, “As a high-ranking official, the defendant exacerbated the situation during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the education sector was already in crisis.”

The court didn't find that Makarim's push to buy Chromebooks actually influenced Google. Three former Google executives testified during the trial that Google’s investment in GoTo was unrelated to the Indonesian government’s decision.

Following the verdict Makarim, 41, criticized what he called an excessive punishment and said he would appeal because “there is not a single part of the accusation by the prosecution that has not been refuted, that has not been proven otherwise, no form of bribery, no conflict of interest, there is no state lost.”

Speaking to The Associated Press in a brief interview after the hearing, he said the policy to select the cheapest laptop based on an operating system that is free has saved at least 3.6 trillion rupiah (about $201 million).

“It’s very disappointing decision today and was shocking because the judges in their decision didn’t mention anything about enriching myself,” he said.

“So, I believe that this trial is about the picture of justice in Indonesia and about how every honest person who wants to serve their country are not save in this country,” Makarim added.

The 10-year sentence was far below the 18 years sought by the prosecution, which had told the court that Makarim had abused his position to influence policy decisions and corporate dealings.

The three-judge panel said they reduced the penalty because Makarim is still in his productive age and the sentence imposed should not deny the defendant the opportunity for rehabilitation and a return to contributing to society. They also ordered the time he has served since he was arrested in September to be deducted from the sentence.

Makarim was detained with two former education ministry officials and a former tech consultant who were sentenced up to four-and-half years in the case, while another staff member is wanted by authorities but remains at large.

The trial, which started in January, has drawn significant public attention, often attended by hundreds of motorcycle taxi drivers showing support for the man who helped create their industry.

The judges said Makarim’s decision to use ChromeOS and Chrome Education Upgrades — products licensed exclusively by Google — was driven by a conflict of interest, disregarding advice from the ministry’s legal bureau and policies that required to prioritizing domestic products.

“The defendant maintained the Chromebook policy by systematically removing officials who opposed it during his tenure as education and culture minister,” Abdullah said.

In a dissenting opinion, a member of the panel, Andi Saputra, argued that there was not enough evidence and Marakim should be acquitted.

Those brightly colored engagement tactics long ago jumped from smartphone games to everything from online shopping to sports betting and classrooms. So it should come as no surprise that many nutrition-tracking apps like MyFitnessPal and Noom also use gaming features to keep users coming back.

But as nutrition apps proliferate, some researchers are raising alarms that gamification features may do more harm than good for some people.

Isabella Anderberg, a psychologist researching digital dieting behavior at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, said calorie tracking can reinforce behaviors associated with body dysmorphia and disordered eating.

“We do know that not everyone’s going to experience harm from using the apps, but there are certainly factors that might increase risk,” Anderberg said. “Approach with caution.”

The case for nutrition tracking apps

Anderberg said there is certainly a place for the apps. Health professionals she interviewed during her research reported that apps can be especially helpful as meal-planning tools for people managing chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. And physical activity apps remind people to move their bodies.

Many users report enjoying them, finding tactics like streak notifications to be motivating.

Angela Drury, an English professor in Woodstock, Georgia, began using MyFitnessPal more than 10 years ago to track protein, fat, carbohydrate and calorie intake when she started CrossFit. She has since cycled through several other apps, including Weight Watchers, Lose It and now Nourish, which is paid for by her insurance and includes blood work and weekly meetings with a dietitian.

Drury said the apps have helped her stay on track with fitness goals and have sometimes steered her away from high-calorie foods when she uploaded photos of meals she was considering eating. She feels a little boost when she gets a badge for continuing a streak for logging meals, but a notification that says she hasn’t entered lunch has the opposite effect.

“Then it felt like it was scolding me,” she said.

Be wary of what the app tells you

The way most apps work, users enter height, weight, age and other information and then set a goal. The app says how many calories or macronutrients are needed to reach that goal, using gamelike elements such as badges, streaks, rewards, points and notifications to encourage user engagement.

Many nutrition tracking apps are free but offer premium versions that users must pay for.

The Centers for Disease Control and others say that how many calories you need depends on factors including your age, sex and level of physical activity. The CDC provides a tool to calculate how many calories an individual needs.

Critics warn that food databases are often inaccurate, with estimated portion sizes and calorie counts that vary widely.

Courtney Simpson, a behavioral psychologist and director of eating disorders at the Evidence-Based Treatment Centers of Seattle, said some apps encourage people to set calorie goals that are far too low for any adult. That's not only unhealthy but can set people up for failure.

The gaming features keep people coming back to unrealistic goals, creating shame that may contribute to binge eating or other behaviors people are trying to change, Simpson said.

“It’s not that gamification itself is bad. It’s about what it is promoting,” she said. “Is that actually going to be beneficial?”

MyFitnessPal and Noom did not respond to several requests for comment.

Listen to your body

Anderberg said people who already believe that thinner is better are more likely to misuse the apps. Calorie and macronutrient tracking can then become obsessional, which creates more negative feelings when daily goals aren’t met.

She urged users to be skeptical of what the apps tell them to do and instead rely on their own intuition. If you feel the need to rest, nurse an injury or treat yourself to something delicious, do so.

“We are sort of losing that ability to read our body cues,” she said.

Simpson noted that focusing on weight as a measure of overall health, besides being inaccurate, makes it more likely to lose and regain weight. Such cycling is linked to worse health outcomes over time.

“If you really want lasting change, then you need to be doing behaviors that are feasible and sustainable for you over time,” she said.

Drury could see how the apps could be harmful for people predisposed to disordered eating, but she said the most important consideration for her is to set realistic goals and listen to your body.

“I’ve ultimately learned that you cannot starve yourself into being in the shape you want to be in,” she said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about wellness, food and travel. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com

Full forecast -->Dangerous heat builds across Southeast Michigan; 4Warn Weather Alert begins Tuesday

The most dangerous conditions are forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, when temperatures are expected to peak and challenge long-standing records across Metro Detroit.

If you need a place to cool off during this week’s extreme heat event, there are plenty of cooling centers open to the public across Metro Detroit.

Check out the list here:

Wayne County

20th District Court

25637 Michigan Ave., Dearborn Heights , MI, 48127

Caroline Kennedy Library

24590 George Street, Dearborn Heights , MI, 48127

Eton Senior Center

4900 Pardee, Dearborn Heights , MI, 48125

Berwyn - Senior Center

26155 Richardson, Dearborn Heights , MI, 48127

John F. Kennedy Library

24602 Van Born Road, Dearborn Heights , MI, 48127

William Ford Senior Activities Center

6750 Troy Street, Taylor, MI, 48180

Garden City Police Department

6000 Middlebelt Road, Garden City, MI, 48185

Booker Dozier Recreation Center

2025 Middlebelt Road, Inkster, MI, 48141

Allen Park Community Center

15800 White Street, Allen Park, MI, 48101

Garden City Public Library

31735 Maplewood Street, Garden City, MI, 48185

Jefferson Barns Community Vitality Center

32150 Dorsey Road, Westland, MI, 48186

Community Center

3525 Dix, Lincoln Park, MI, 48146

River Rouge Police Department

10600 W. Jefferson Avenue, River Rouge , MI, 48218

Kennedy Memorial Building

3240 Ferris, Lincoln Park, MI, 48146

Ethel Stevenson Senior Center

4072 W. Jefferson, Ecorse, MI, 48229

Radcliff Center

1751 Radcliff Street, Garden City, MI, 48185

Westland Fire Station 3

28801 Annapolis Road, Westland, MI, 48185

Taylor Sportsplex

13333 Telegraph, Taylor, MI, 48180

Southgate Senior Center

14700 Reaume Parkway, Southgate, MI, 48195

Southgate Veterans Library

14680 Dix Toledo Highway, Southgate, MI, 48195

Westland Fire Station 1

35701 Central City Parkway, Westland, MI, 48185

Westland City Hall

36300 Warren Road, Westland, MI, 48185

Westland Police Department

36701 Ford Road, Westland, MI, 48185

Kirksey Recreation Center

15100 Hubbard, Livonia, MI, 48154

Copeland Center

2306 4th Street, Wyandotte, MI, 48192

Robert and Janet Bennett Civic Center Library

32777 Five Mile Road, Livonia, MI, 48154

Carl Sandburg Library

30100 Seven Mile Road, Livonia, MI, 48152

Romulus Public Library

11121 Wayne Road, Wayne, MI, 48174

Senior Plaza

2620 Holbrook Street, Hamtramck, MI, 48212

Westfield Activities Center

2700 Westfield Street, Trenton, MI, 48183

Canton Public Library

1200 S. Canton Center Road, Canton Charter Township, MI, 48188

Summit on the Parkway

46000 Summit Parkway, Canton Charter Township, MI, 48188

Grosse Ille Public Safety Building

24525 Meridian Street, Grosse Ile Township , MI, 48138

Flat Rock Community Center

1 McGuire Street, Flat Rock , MI, 48314

Sumpter Township Community Center

23501 Sumpter Road, Belleville, MI, 48111

The Helm 158 Ridge Road, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI, 48236

Click here for more information on cooling centers in Wayne County, contact information and center hours.

Macomb County

Armada Senior Center

75400 North Ave.

Bruce Municipal Office

223 E Gates St.

Center Line City Hall

7070 Ten Mile Road

Center Line Parks and Recreation

25355 Lawrence Ave.

Chesterfield Community Center

48400 Sugarbush Road

Chesterfield Senior Center

47275 Sugarbush Road

Chesterfield Township Library

50560 Patricia Ave.

Clinton-Macomb Main Library

40900 Romeo Plank Road

Clinton-Macomb South Library

35679 South Gratiot Ave.

Fraser Public Library

15260 15 Mile Road 

Harrison Township Public Library

38255 L’Anse Creuse Street – Suite A

Lenox Township Public Library

58976 Main Street

Clinton-Macomb North Library

54100 Broughton Road

Memphis Fire Department

35095 Potter St.

Memphis Public Library

34830 Potter St.

Macomb County Health Department

43525 Elizabeth Road

Macomb County Sheriff’s Office

43565 Elizabeth Road

Salvation Army – Mount Clemens

55 Church St.

Anton Art Center

125 Macomb Pl.

Ray Township Senior Center

64255 Wolcott Road

Lois Wagner Memorial Library

35200 Division Road

Recreation Authority Center

18185 Sycamore St.

Macomb County Health Department

25401 Harper Ave.

Sterling Heights Public Library

40255 Dodge Park Road

Sterling Heights Senior Center

40200 Utica Road

Sterling Heights Community Center

40250 Dodge Park Road

Sterling Heights Athletic Hub (beginning Monday, July 20)

35630 Van Dyke Ave. 

Macomb County Health Department

27690 Van Dyke Ave. 

Warren City Hall

Atrium & Civic Center Library

Busch Branch Library

23333 Ryan Road 

Burnette Branch Library

23345 Van Dyke Avenue

Miller Branch Library

5460 Arden Avenue

Washington Township Government Office

57900 Van Dyke Ave. (1/2 Mile north of 26 Mile Road)

Click here for more information on cooling centers in Macomb County, contact information and center hours.

Oakland County

Aurburn Hills Community Center

3350 E Seyburn Dr, Auburn Hills, MI 48326

Wixom City Hall / Police Department

49045 Pontiac Trail, Wixom, MI 48393

Lathrup Village Community Room

27400 Southfield Rd. Lathrup Village, MI 48076

Robert Bowens Senior Center

52 Bagley St, Pontiac, MI 48341

Southfield Pavilion

26000 Evergreen Rd, Southfield, MI 48076

Berkley City Hall

3338 Coolidge Hwy, Berkley, MI 48072

Click here for more information on cooling centers in Oakland County, contact information and center hours.

Washtenaw County

AADL-Downtown

343 S 5th Avenue Ann Arbor, MI 48104

AADL-Mallets Creek

3090 E Eisenhower Parkway Ann Arbor, MI 48108

AADL-Pittsfield

2359 Oak Valley DriveAnn Arbor, MI 48103

AADL-Traverwood

3333 Traverwood Drive Ann Arbor, MI 48105

AADL-Westgate

2503 Jackson Avenue Ann Arbor, MI 48103

Chelsea Library

221 S Main Street Chelsea, MI 48118

Dexter Library

3255 Alpine Street Dexter, MI 48130

Manchester Library

912 City Road (M-52) Manchester, MI 48158

Milan Library

151 Wabash Street Milan, MI 48160

Northville Library

212 W Cady Street Northville, MI 48167

Saline Library

555 N Maple Road Saline, MI 48176

Salem-South Lyon Library

9800 Pontiac Trail South Lyon, MI 48178

Washtenaw County Human Services Building (Atrium)

555 Towner Ypsilanti, MI 48197

YDL-Superior

1900 Harris Road Ypsilanti, MI 48198

YDL-Whittaker

5577 Whittaker Road Ypsilanti, MI 48197

YDL-Downtown

229 W Michigan Ave Ypsilanti, MI 48197

All county building lobbies in Washtenaw are also available as cooling sites during normal business hours.

Click here for more information on cooling centers in Washtenaw County, contact information and center hours.

Livingston County

Salvation Army Building in Howell

503 Lake St. 48843

Open Monday – Friday from 9 a.m. – Noon and 1 – 4 p.m.

Monroe County

Bedford Branch Library

8575 Jackman Rd, Temperance

Bedford Senior Community Center

1653 Samaria Rd, Temperance

Blue Bush Library

2210 Blue Bush Rd, Monroe

BridgePoint Church

875 Lewis Ave, Temperance

Carleton Library

1444 Kent Street, Carleton

Dorsch Memorial Branch Library

18 East First Street, Monroe

Dundee Area Senior Citizen Center

284 W Monroe St, Dundee

Dundee Branch Library

144 East Main St, Dundee

Ellis Library

3700 South Custer Rd, Monroe

Erie Library

2065 Erie Rd, Erie

Frenchtown-Dixie Library

2881 Nadeau Rd., Monroe

Ida Library

3016 Lewis Ave, Ida

Maybee Library

9060 Raisin Street, Maybee

Milan Seniors Citizen Center for Healthy Living

45 Neckel Ct, Milan

Monroe Family YMCA

1111 W Elm Ave, Monroe

Newport Library

8120 N Dixie Hey, Newport

Opportunity Center at the ALCC

120 Eastchester Street, Monroe

Rasey Memorial Library

4349 Oak, Luna Pier

Robert A Vivian Library

2662 Vivian Rd, Monroe

S. Navarre Library

1135 East second Street, Monroe

Salvation Army Campus of Hope

815 E. First Street, Monroe

South Rockwood Library

5676 Carleton Rockwood Rd, S. Rockwood

Summerfield-Petersburg Library

60 East Center St, Petersburg

The Monroe Center for Healthy Aging

15275 S Dixie Hwy, Monroe

Click here for more information on cooling centers in Monroe County, contact information and center hours.

High temperatures are expected to climb into the mid-90s to near 100 degrees, while oppressive humidity will push heat index values above 105 degrees each day. The combination of intense heat and high humidity will create hazardous conditions, increasing the risk of heat-related illnesses for anyone spending extended time outdoors.

Adding to the concern, overnight temperatures will offer little relief. Low temperatures are expected to remain in the mid-70s, with overnight heat index values hovering near 80 degrees, making it difficult for homes without air conditioning to cool down.

The most dangerous conditions are forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, when temperatures are expected to peak and challenge long-standing records across Metro Detroit. Highs during this period are expected to reach record territory, making this one of the hottest stretches of the summer so far.

Record High Temperatures at DTW:

June 30th: 96° (1931)

July 1st: 98° (1931)

July 2nd: 99° (2011)

July 3rd: 100° (1911)

While the Extreme Heat Warning issued by the National Weather Service is scheduled to expire Thursday, the hot and humid pattern will continue into Friday and the Independence Day holiday weekend. Temperatures will remain well above average, and increasing moisture in the atmosphere will bring a growing chance for isolated afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms. These pop-up storms could provide brief relief from the heat but may also produce heavy downpours, gusty winds, and frequent lightning.

Heat Safety Tips

With dangerous heat expected for several consecutive days, residents are urged to:

• Stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water, even if you don’t feel thirsty.
• Limit strenuous outdoor activities during the hottest part of the day.
• Wear lightweight, light-colored clothing.
• Take frequent breaks in air-conditioned buildings or shaded areas.
• Never leave children or pets unattended in vehicles.
• Check on elderly neighbors, young children, and anyone without adequate cooling.

🍇 Grapevine

☀️ Good morning! On this day in 1805, an act of Congress passed on Jan. 11 of the same year which established the Michigan Territory went into effect, consisting of the entire Lower Peninsula and eastern third of the Upper Peninsula.

Here are a few things to know about for Tuesday, June 30, 2026:

☀️ 4Warn Weather: A 4Warn Weather Alert goes into effect today as Southeast Michigan prepares for a prolonged and dangerous stretch of extreme heat, with an Extreme Heat Warning in effect from noon today through Thursday. Check out the 10-day forecast.

🌡️ Heat Wave: With oppressive heat settling over Metro Detroit, some families are finding creative ways to stay comfortable, including water hoses and inflatable pools. Read more.

🧤 Nonprofit Suffers Setback: A burst pipe in the basement of Mittens for Detroit destroyed thousands of pairs of gloves and mittens intended for children and adults in need. Watch more.

🏗️ Inkster Church Demolished: The demolition has sparked mixed emotions among nearby residents who say the vacant church had become both a historic landmark and a growing hazard. Watch more.

🚨 Lions Release Arnold: The Detroit Lions released cornerback Terrion Arnold following his arrest in connection with an alleged robbery and kidnapping plot in Florida. Read more.

🏊 Morning Dive

Good morning ☀️

Today, we’ll be at the Gleaners Community Food Bank on Trolly Industrial Drive in Taylor to help sort food, and we need volunteers!

We’re looking for 20 people to sign up to help from 9-11:30 a.m., and 20 more to sign up to help from 1-3:30 p.m.

Click here to sign up as a volunteer.

If you want to help, you can either volunteer or make a monetary donation to Gleaners, which will be used to buy needed food items.

Click here to donate.

• Who: WDIV is partnering with Gleaners Community Food Bank, Henry Ford Health, and the Gilbert Family Foundation.
• What: “Go 4 It: Hunger Free Summer”
• Where: 21405 Trolley Industrial Dr, Taylor MI 48180
• When: June 30, 2026
• Why: To help create a hunger-free summer

🗞️ Other headlines to know today

• Here’s where you can find cooling centers in Metro Detroit
• Cases of Cyclosporiasis confirmed in Monroe County -- here’s what to know
• Swan Island bridge weight restriction cuts off Grosse Ile residents from deliveries, trash pickup
• Police search for father who fled motorcycle crash in Detroit, leaving injured 2-year-old daughter
• Livonia house explosion, suspected arson, ends with police shooting, killing homeowner
• Why whale remains have been found in Michigan several times
• Michigan parents charged with murder in death of 7-year-old son who weighed 255 pounds
• Detroit Pistons, Jalen Duren at crossroads as Kings, Lakers enter sign-and-trade talks
• Drive-by shooting leaves man wounded outside gas station on Detroit’s west side
• Police search for missing nonverbal 7-year-old Harbe Nagi, nephew of Hamtramck mayor
• St. Clair County woman accused of locking foster children in dog cages to serve 6-10 years in prison
• ‘I love life’: Wyandotte grandfather, football coach hopes living kidney donor will give him more time
• Detroit Pistons re-sign sharpshooter Kevin Huerter to reported 3-year, $27M deal
• Clinton Township woman among 3 firefighters killed while battling Colorado wildfire, officials confirm
• 60% of traffic restrictions to be lifted in Michigan during Fourth of July travel -- what to expect
• Vote 4 The Best finals: Vote now for your favorite Metro Detroit businesses
• Find more Local News headlines here
• Find more Entertainment headlines here
• Find more Health headlines here
• Check out the latest ClickOnDeals here
• Introducing the ClickOnDetroit Help Desk: How it works and how to use it

🌎 Meanwhile

News from around the world via the Associated Press:

President Donald Trump said Monday he will nominate Keith Sonderling to be the secretary of labor, elevating him from the agency’s acting director two months after Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned amid abuse-of-power allegations.

Sonderling, a lawyer who has held a variety of acting positions and leadership roles across Trump’s government, was previously the deputy labor secretary and a Republican member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Sonderling’s nomination is subject to Senate confirmation. (Read more)

----

The San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese has agreed to pay $395 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by church officials, plaintiffs’ attorneys said Monday.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone will have to write an apology letter to each survivor as part of the settlement.

The settlement also requires the archdiocese to implement a series of child protection and transparency reforms, including creating a list of clergy accused of abuse, said Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing dozens of child sexual abuse victims. (Read more)

----

States that allow mail ballots to be counted after Election Day reacted with relief Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Republican effort to outlaw the practice.

A decision favoring the state of Mississippi over the Republican National Committee delivered an immediate reprieve to the 14 states with grace periods for regular mail ballots, as well as heading off what was expected to be a scramble to alter the practice and inform voters just months ahead of the midterm elections.

At least one state, Ohio, had preemptively changed its law in anticipation of a different result from the high court, and 15 other states have such grace periods specifically for military and overseas voters. (Read more)

---> Find more headlines from around the world right here <---

📝 Word Up

Today’s Word Up is: Impecunious / im-pi-ˈkyü-nyəs / (adjective) — defined as “having very little or no money, usually habitually.”

Example: “As an impecunious college student, I often opted for instant ramen noodles over dining out.”

🧹 Housekeeping

Hey, if you like this newsletter, let us know. We’d love your feedback. We also offer several other newsletters, including 4Warn Weather, All 4 Pets and more. Hopefully, we have one that caters to your interests —unless you’re only interested in Venus fly traps. We don’t have one for that, sorry.

✍🏽 Written and curated by: Jenny Sherman (Have something to say? Feel free to send an email here.)

🍇 Grapevine

☀️ Good morning! On this day in 1805, an act of Congress passed on Jan. 11 of the same year which established the Michigan Territory went into effect, consisting of the entire Lower Peninsula and eastern third of the Upper Peninsula.

Here are a few things to know about for Tuesday, June 30, 2026:

☀️ 4Warn Weather: A 4Warn Weather Alert goes into effect today as Southeast Michigan prepares for a prolonged and dangerous stretch of extreme heat, with an Extreme Heat Warning in effect from noon today through Thursday. Check out the 10-day forecast.

🌡️ Heat Wave: With oppressive heat settling over Metro Detroit, some families are finding creative ways to stay comfortable, including water hoses and inflatable pools. Read more.

🧤 Nonprofit Suffers Setback: A burst pipe in the basement of Mittens for Detroit destroyed thousands of pairs of gloves and mittens intended for children and adults in need. Watch more.

🏗️ Inkster Church Demolished: The demolition has sparked mixed emotions among nearby residents who say the vacant church had become both a historic landmark and a growing hazard. Watch more.

🚨 Lions Release Arnold: The Detroit Lions released cornerback Terrion Arnold following his arrest in connection with an alleged robbery and kidnapping plot in Florida. Read more.

🏊 Morning Dive

Good morning ☀️

Today, we’ll be at the Gleaners Community Food Bank on Trolly Industrial Drive in Taylor to help sort food, and we need volunteers!

We’re looking for 20 people to sign up to help from 9-11:30 a.m., and 20 more to sign up to help from 1-3:30 p.m.

Click here to sign up as a volunteer.

If you want to help, you can either volunteer or make a monetary donation to Gleaners, which will be used to buy needed food items.

Click here to donate.

• Who: WDIV is partnering with Gleaners Community Food Bank, Henry Ford Health, and the Gilbert Family Foundation.
• What: “Go 4 It: Hunger Free Summer”
• Where: 21405 Trolley Industrial Dr, Taylor MI 48180
• When: June 30, 2026
• Why: To help create a hunger-free summer

🗞️ Other headlines to know today

• Here’s where you can find cooling centers in Metro Detroit
• Cases of Cyclosporiasis confirmed in Monroe County -- here’s what to know
• Swan Island bridge weight restriction cuts off Grosse Ile residents from deliveries, trash pickup
• Police search for father who fled motorcycle crash in Detroit, leaving injured 2-year-old daughter
• Livonia house explosion, suspected arson, ends with police shooting, killing homeowner
• Why whale remains have been found in Michigan several times
• Michigan parents charged with murder in death of 7-year-old son who weighed 255 pounds
• Detroit Pistons, Jalen Duren at crossroads as Kings, Lakers enter sign-and-trade talks
• Drive-by shooting leaves man wounded outside gas station on Detroit’s west side
• Police search for missing nonverbal 7-year-old Harbe Nagi, nephew of Hamtramck mayor
• St. Clair County woman accused of locking foster children in dog cages to serve 6-10 years in prison
• ‘I love life’: Wyandotte grandfather, football coach hopes living kidney donor will give him more time
• Detroit Pistons re-sign sharpshooter Kevin Huerter to reported 3-year, $27M deal
• Clinton Township woman among 3 firefighters killed while battling Colorado wildfire, officials confirm
• 60% of traffic restrictions to be lifted in Michigan during Fourth of July travel -- what to expect
• Vote 4 The Best finals: Vote now for your favorite Metro Detroit businesses
• Find more Local News headlines here
• Find more Entertainment headlines here
• Find more Health headlines here
• Check out the latest ClickOnDeals here
• Introducing the ClickOnDetroit Help Desk: How it works and how to use it

🌎 Meanwhile

News from around the world via the Associated Press:

President Donald Trump said Monday he will nominate Keith Sonderling to be the secretary of labor, elevating him from the agency’s acting director two months after Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned amid abuse-of-power allegations.

Sonderling, a lawyer who has held a variety of acting positions and leadership roles across Trump’s government, was previously the deputy labor secretary and a Republican member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Sonderling’s nomination is subject to Senate confirmation. (Read more)

----

The San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese has agreed to pay $395 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by church officials, plaintiffs’ attorneys said Monday.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone will have to write an apology letter to each survivor as part of the settlement.

The settlement also requires the archdiocese to implement a series of child protection and transparency reforms, including creating a list of clergy accused of abuse, said Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing dozens of child sexual abuse victims. (Read more)

----

States that allow mail ballots to be counted after Election Day reacted with relief Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Republican effort to outlaw the practice.

A decision favoring the state of Mississippi over the Republican National Committee delivered an immediate reprieve to the 14 states with grace periods for regular mail ballots, as well as heading off what was expected to be a scramble to alter the practice and inform voters just months ahead of the midterm elections.

At least one state, Ohio, had preemptively changed its law in anticipation of a different result from the high court, and 15 other states have such grace periods specifically for military and overseas voters. (Read more)

---> Find more headlines from around the world right here <---

📝 Word Up

Today’s Word Up is: Impecunious / im-pi-ˈkyü-nyəs / (adjective) — defined as “having very little or no money, usually habitually.”

Example: “As an impecunious college student, I often opted for instant ramen noodles over dining out.”

🧹 Housekeeping

Hey, if you like this newsletter, let us know. We’d love your feedback. We also offer several other newsletters, including 4Warn Weather, All 4 Pets and more. Hopefully, we have one that caters to your interests —unless you’re only interested in Venus fly traps. We don’t have one for that, sorry.

✍🏽 Written and curated by: Jenny Sherman (Have something to say? Feel free to send an email here.)

🍇 Grapevine

☀️ Good morning! On this day in 1805, an act of Congress passed on Jan. 11 of the same year which established the Michigan Territory went into effect, consisting of the entire Lower Peninsula and eastern third of the Upper Peninsula.

Here are a few things to know about for Tuesday, June 30, 2026:

☀️ 4Warn Weather: Summer is turning up the heat across Southeast Michigan, with increasingly hot and humid conditions arriving today ahead of what could become one of the hottest stretches of the season. Check out the 10 day forecast.

🌡️ Heat Wave: With oppressive heat settling over Metro Detroit, some families are finding creative ways to stay comfortable, including water hoses and inflatable pools. Read more.

🧤 Nonprofit Suffers Setback: A burst pipe in the basement of Mittens for Detroit destroyed thousands of pairs of gloves and mittens intended for children and adults in need. Watch more.

🏗️ Inkster Church Demolished: The demolition has sparked mixed emotions among nearby residents who say the vacant church had become both a historic landmark and a growing hazard. Watch more.

🚨 Lions Release Arnold: The Detroit Lions released cornerback Terrion Arnold following his arrest in connection with an alleged robbery and kidnapping plot in Florida. Read more.

🏊 Morning Dive

Good morning ☀️

Today, we’ll be at the Gleaners Community Food Bank on Trolly Industrial Drive in Taylor to help sort food, and we need volunteers!

We’re looking for 20 people to sign up to help from 9-11:30 a.m., and 20 more to sign up to help from 1-3:30 p.m.

Click here to sign up as a volunteer.

If you want to help, you can either volunteer or make a monetary donation to Gleaners, which will be used to buy needed food items.

Click here to donate.

• Who: WDIV is partnering with Gleaners Community Food Bank, Henry Ford Health, and the Gilbert Family Foundation.
• What: “Go 4 It: Hunger Free Summer”
• Where: 21405 Trolley Industrial Dr, Taylor MI 48180
• When: June 30, 2026
• Why: To help create a hunger-free summer

🗞️ Other headlines to know today

• Here’s where you can find cooling centers in Metro Detroit
• Cases of Cyclosporiasis confirmed in Monroe County -- here’s what to know
• Swan Island bridge weight restriction cuts off Grosse Ile residents from deliveries, trash pickup
• Police search for father who fled motorcycle crash in Detroit, leaving injured 2-year-old daughter
• Livonia house explosion, suspected arson, ends with police shooting, killing homeowner
• Why whale remains have been found in Michigan several times
• Michigan parents charged with murder in death of 7-year-old son who weighed 255 pounds
• Detroit Pistons, Jalen Duren at crossroads as Kings, Lakers enter sign-and-trade talks
• Drive-by shooting leaves man wounded outside gas station on Detroit’s west side
• Police search for missing nonverbal 7-year-old Harbe Nagi, nephew of Hamtramck mayor
• St. Clair County woman accused of locking foster children in dog cages to serve 6-10 years in prison
• ‘I love life’: Wyandotte grandfather, football coach hopes living kidney donor will give him more time
• Detroit Pistons re-sign sharpshooter Kevin Huerter to reported 3-year, $27M deal
• Clinton Township woman among 3 firefighters killed while battling Colorado wildfire, officials confirm
• 60% of traffic restrictions to be lifted in Michigan during Fourth of July travel -- what to expect
• Vote 4 The Best finals: Vote now for your favorite Metro Detroit businesses
• Find more Local News headlines here
• Find more Entertainment headlines here
• Find more Health headlines here
• Check out the latest ClickOnDeals here
• Introducing the ClickOnDetroit Help Desk: How it works and how to use it

🌎 Meanwhile

News from around the world via the Associated Press:

President Donald Trump said Monday he will nominate Keith Sonderling to be the secretary of labor, elevating him from the agency’s acting director two months after Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned amid abuse-of-power allegations.

Sonderling, a lawyer who has held a variety of acting positions and leadership roles across Trump’s government, was previously the deputy labor secretary and a Republican member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Sonderling’s nomination is subject to Senate confirmation. (Read more)

----

The San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese has agreed to pay $395 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by church officials, plaintiffs’ attorneys said Monday.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone will have to write an apology letter to each survivor as part of the settlement.

The settlement also requires the archdiocese to implement a series of child protection and transparency reforms, including creating a list of clergy accused of abuse, said Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing dozens of child sexual abuse victims. (Read more)

----

States that allow mail ballots to be counted after Election Day reacted with relief Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Republican effort to outlaw the practice.

A decision favoring the state of Mississippi over the Republican National Committee delivered an immediate reprieve to the 14 states with grace periods for regular mail ballots, as well as heading off what was expected to be a scramble to alter the practice and inform voters just months ahead of the midterm elections.

At least one state, Ohio, had preemptively changed its law in anticipation of a different result from the high court, and 15 other states have such grace periods specifically for military and overseas voters. (Read more)

---> Find more headlines from around the world right here <---

📝 Word Up

Today’s Word Up is: Impecunious / im-pi-ˈkyü-nyəs / (adjective) — defined as “having very little or no money, usually habitually.”

Example: “As an impecunious college student, I often opted for instant ramen noodles over dining out.”

🧹 Housekeeping

Hey, if you like this newsletter, let us know. We’d love your feedback. We also offer several other newsletters, including 4Warn Weather, All 4 Pets and more. Hopefully, we have one that caters to your interests —unless you’re only interested in Venus fly traps. We don’t have one for that, sorry.

✍🏽 Written and curated by: Jenny Sherman (Have something to say? Feel free to send an email here.)

Corum and her wife have made it a priority to teach financial lessons to their three children, using engaging activities to encourage their interest in topics like saving and budgeting.

“My goal is for them to have a healthy relationship with money and not have insecurities,” said Corum, an Austin, Texas-based cybersecurity professional.

Not everyone feels as confident. Money can be a difficult conversation, especially if parents don’t feel totally comfortable with the topic themselves. But Jennifer Seitz, director of education at Greenlight, a family personal finance app, said that's starting to change.

“This generation is really committed to doing better for their kids even though a majority of parents don’t feel equipped,” Seitz said.

There are more banking products available to help parents think about their children's financial futures, including debit cards for kids that can be used under parental supervision and apps that gamify money to make it approachable for kids.

Some people actually start learning while they are parenting, like Naseema McElroy, a nurse who became a money content creator. When McElroy's oldest daughter was a year old, she felt inspired to learn more about personal finance to pay off debt. As she learned more, she started to share her knowledge with friends and then a wider audience online.

“I started just from wanting to share the lessons that I was learning about money with my friends because I felt like we learn so late in life and then we all had daughters,” McElroy said.

Many parents want to start talking about finances with their children because they didn't have financial education growing up, Seitz said.

Here are some expert recommendations if you want to start talking about money with your kids:

Talk about money openly and often

Money conversations can feel uncomfortable, especially if your family didn’t encourage them. But if you want your children to engage with money in a healthy way, it’s best to talk about it, said Carrie Joy Grimes, a personal finance expert and founder of WorkMoney, a personal finance nonprofit.

“Have conversations about money in front of your kid to normalize it,” Grimes said.

In Corum’s family, the topic of money has become part of their daily lives.

“We talk about how we have a budget for the house, that everything that their mom and I bring into the house has an assignment, a job,” Corum said.

A great way to start is by talking about the cost of things, said Courtney Pettway, CEO and founder of KidVestors, a financial literacy platform for children. Pettway recommends asking questions like: What does this item cost? Why do you want this item? Is it a need or a want? And if they're getting an allowance, you could ask: How long would it take for you to save up for this item?

At the dinner table, while you’re at the grocery store, when you travel or shop for clothes, take day-to-day situations and turn them into money lessons.

Teach children how to make money decisions

A key aspect of personal finance is knowing how to make choices with money. This can be taught by giving kids small amounts of money and allowing them to choose how to spend it, Grimes said.

“I gave (my daughter) enough money that she could make choices with it. So she learned early on that she had enough she could save up for something, so she could say no to things and say yes to other things,” said Grimes. “Learning to say no, learning to hold money to yourself for long enough to get the thing you want, it’s a really hard skill.”

When giving children the opportunity to choose, it's crucial parents don't impart judgment on their decisions, said Bobbi Rebell, consumer finance expert at BadCredit.org, a personal finance website. Framing choices as personal preferences rather than right or wrong answers will build children's confidence in their decision-making process, she said.

Parents can find free financial literacy worksheets for children from Hands on Banking, a free financial education service by Wells Fargo.

Teach how to set financial goals

For many children, their first access to money is through an allowance. Whether it’s saving for a new video game or a bicycle, setting a goal for their money can be a good way to teach children the value of saving.

“Recognizing the progress, seeing how close they’re getting to the goal, visualizing the end goal, and then really celebrating when they achieve that goal can help them learn that when they can make small financial goals a reality,” Seitz said.

Tip jars can be an analog way to track progress, Pettway said. Encourage your child to add a portion of the money they receive to a “savings” jar, an “investing” jar and a “giving” jar. As children see their jars getting full, they begin to be motivated to continue adding money.

It can also be beneficial to make children active participants in future plans, recommended Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, financial therapist and founder of Mind Money Balance, a financial wellness service. If, for example, your child wants to go to an expensive sports summer camp, encourage them to save a portion of the cost from their allowance or summer job.

Allow them to make mistakes

It's inevitable that kids will make mistakes while learning about money. These can be approached as opportunities to learn important money lessons that will be useful for their future, Rebell says. However, it’s important that you let your children make the mistakes rather than solve issues for them.

“If you constantly bail them out, they’re not gonna learn to manage it,” Rebell said.

Bryan-Podvin also recommends that you avoid responding to mistakes in a negative way. Showing intense frustration or anger can hurt children's trust and make them feel like they cannot turn to their parents when they make normal mistakes.

“Help them learn how to manage their emotions, help them think about how they might do things differently,” she added.

Get creative

Money can often seem boring, so making it fun, engaging, and entertaining can be the key to keeping your children’s interest alive.

For example, when shopping for things like school supplies, Corum chooses an appropriate amount from her own budget for her daughter to decide which items she wants. However, when shopping for toys or other non-essential items, Corum gives her daughter a portion of her allowance or other extra money she might have from special chores.

Corum gave her children debit cards and uses a family personal finance app connected to the cards to distribute their allowances and monitor their spending. Her children have access to their debit cards through their own app portal where they can see their spending, save, invest and learn more about personal finance topics.

Apps like Acorns Early, Greenlight and BusyKid are among the most popular family personal finance apps.

——

The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the 6-3 court that people don’t forfeit expectations of privacy even when they opt into Google’s location history.

“A cellphone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties—which then can be freely passed on to the government—just by doing the ordinary things cellphone users do,” Kagan wrote.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in dissent that Okello Chatrie had no expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turned over to Google.

The decision is the court’s latest effort to apply a constitutional provision ratified in 1791 to technology the nation’s founders could not have envisioned.

Police obtained a geofence warrant after a bank robbery in a suburb of Richmond, Virginia, and used it to locate cellphones that were near the bank around the time it was robbed in May 2019.

One of those phones belonged to Chatrie, who had eluded the police until they turned to the powerful technological tool.

The warrant kick-started the investigation. After determining that Chatrie was among those near the Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian at the time, police obtained a search warrant for his home. They found nearly $100,000 in cash, including bills wrapped in bands signed by the bank teller.

Chatrie pleaded guilty to robbing the bank and was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison. His lawyers argued on appeal that none of the evidence should have been used against him.

They challenged the warrant as a violation of his privacy because it allowed authorities to gather the location history of people near the bank without having any evidence they had anything to do with the robbery. Prosecutors argued that Chatrie had no expectation of privacy because he voluntarily opted into Google’s location history.

The Supreme Court did not decide Monday whether the search complied with the Fourth Amendment, which bans unreasonable searches and seizures. It sent the case back to a lower court for more work.

A federal judge had ruled that the search violated Chatrie’s rights, but allowed the evidence to be used because the officer who applied for the warrant reasonably believed he was acting properly.

The federal appeals court in Richmond upheld the conviction in a fractured ruling. In a separate case, the federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled that geofence warrants “are general warrants categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.”

The crash occurred on Sunday (June 28) around 8 p.m. in the 12800 block of Braile Street.

Police said the father was riding a motorcycle with his young daughter when he lost control of the vehicle and crashed.

Officials said the father left the scene, leaving behind the motorcycle and the child.

The 2-year-old girl was taken to a Metro Detroit hospital and is listed in stable condition.

Police said the father has been identified and is asking him to come forward for questioning as the investigation continues.

Officials have not released additional details about the circumstances surrounding the crash.

By viewing retirement savings as a five-stage life cycle, investors can minimize the IRS’ take and maximize what stays in their pocket.

1. The seedling stage: The working advantage

The most powerful tool in the tax code is time. If a child has earned income—perhaps from a family business or a summer job—they are eligible to jump-start their future immediately.

The Strategy: Parents should encourage their teens to find a job or even employ them on their own for legitimate work. In 2026, the standard deduction is $16,100. Most teens likely will earn less than that, so they’ll pay 0% in income tax. Furthermore, if they are working for a parent’s unincorporated business, they are typically exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxes until age 18.

The Benefit: The child can contribute up to the amount of their earned income or $7,500, whichever is less, into a Roth IRA. Because they are in a 0% bracket, the “cost” of the Roth is zero, but the reward is massive: decades of compounding where both the principal and the interest are tax-free forever.

2. The early career: Roth renaissance

When a young adult first enters the professional workforce, their tax bracket is usually at its lifetime low. This is the optimal time to prioritize Roth contributions over current tax deductions.

The Strategy: Early-career workers should contribute to a Roth IRA or a Roth 401(k). At a minimum, they should contribute enough to their company’s plan to capture the full employer match—that’s free money!

The Benefit: Paying a 10% or 12% tax rate now (which, for a married couple in 2026, covers taxable income up to $100,800) to secure tax-free withdrawals 40 years from now is a bargain. Investors are effectively “buying” a tax-free future while their “tax price” is at a discount.

3. The peak earnings years: pivot to deduction

As workers hit their 40s and 50s, they typically enter their highest-earning years. Now, the math flips. Their goal shifts from paying taxes now to deferring taxes while they are in a top-tier bracket.

The Strategy: Highly paid workers should shift their focus to traditional IRAs and deductible 401(k)s. In 2026, investors can defer up to $24,500 ($32,500 if over 50) into a 401(k). Every dollar contributed reduces their taxable income today at what is likely their highest marginal rate.

The Benefit: Earners are betting that their tax bracket in retirement—when they no longer have a salary—will be lower than it is today. They save 37 cents on the dollar now and aim to pay it back at a much lower rate down the road.

4. The ‘gap years’: The Roth conversion window

The period between retirement and the start of required minimum distributions, which now begin at age 73 for most, is the golden age of tax planning. Often, investors’ income drops significantly, putting them in an artificially low tax bracket.

The Strategy: Retirees should use this low-income window to enact Roth conversions and move money from their traditional IRA to their Roth IRA, paying the tax at today’s low rates.

The Benefit: This strategy “shrinks” the size of future forced RMDs and builds two distinct pools of capital: one taxable and one tax-free. This flexibility is retirees’ greatest defense against future tax law changes.

5. Late retirement: The legacy and distribution phase

In the final stage, the goal is to maintain the lowest possible average tax bracket while fulfilling charitable and familial goals.

The Strategy: Retirees should draw strategically between their two pools, using the traditional IRA for their taxable floor and the Roth for a spike in expenses (such as a new car or a big trip) to avoid being pushed into a higher bracket.

There’s also a charitable/legacy play retirees can use: Qualified charitable distributions satisfy RMDs tax-free once retirees hit age 70½.

The Benefit: For their heirs, retirees can leave their Roth IRA to their kids (giving them 10 years of tax-free growth) and leave the traditional IRA to charity, which pays zero tax on the distribution.

The bottom line

Retirement planning is a living life cycle. By matching your account type to your current tax reality, you aren’t just saving for the future, you’re outmaneuvering the IRS at every stage of the game.

______

This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance.

Sheryl Rowling, CPA, is an editorial director, financial adviser for Morningstar.

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The International Skating Union said Tuesday it was lifting a ban since February 2022 on skaters and officials from Russia and Belarus taking part in its events, though without their national symbols of flag and anthem.

Still, athletes could face issues getting entry visas from countries hosting ISU events.

In 2027, the world championships of figure skating is hosted by Finland and South Korea hosts in short track. China will host the next speed skating worlds.

The ISU cited the success of some skaters from Russia and Belarus qualifying for and competing at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics “without related incident.”

In figure skating in Milan, Russians Adeliia Petrosian and Petr Gumennik were cleared to compete with neutral status and both finished sixth in their individual events. Viktoriia Safonova of Belarus also competed with Individual Neutral Athlete status.

Guidance from the International Olympic Committee also was noted by the ISU. The IOC advised sports bodies on May 7 to readmit athletes from Belarus without vetting for neutral status.

Skaters approved with neutral status must not have “at any time since February 2022, actively and publicly supported that war,” the ISU said.

The governing body said the decision “does not affect the ISU’s continued condemnation of armed conflict, nor the ISU’s ongoing support for Ukrainian skaters.”

The exclusion of Russian and Belarus skaters since 2022 was, the ISU said, not a punishment for the war but a decision taken “exclusively in the interests of the safety of participants and the integrity of the competition.”

___

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

The event will run July 17-19 at the Willow Run Airport in Van Buren Township.

The show will feature military performers and displays in honor of America’s 250^th.

New this year the show will have a fast-ropes demo team from Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Harrison Township.

The show will be headlined by the United States Air Force F-16 Viper Demo Team, U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey Demo Team, the USMC CH-53 Super Stallion, P-51 Jack Aces Demo Team, warbirds and civilian aerobatic performances.

Click here or the full lineup of performers and additional information about the show.

Tickets for the show are now available and can be purchased here.

Ticket packages range from drive-up general admission to reserved premium seating in luxury catered tents.

Thunder Over Michigan is the premier event for the Michigan Flight Museum.

The Michigan Flight Museum connects visitors to the world of American aviation through hands-on experiences and shares the stories of aviation’s past while inviting exploration and innovation for its future.

Michiganders have one final day to cast ballots for their favorite sticker designs in the state’s official “I Voted” sticker contest for the November 2026 general election. Voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, June 30.

Cast your vote here.

More than 2,000 designs were submitted this year — four times as many entries than the states received in the inaugural 2024 competition.

From those submissions, members of the Michigan Collegiate Student Advisory Task Force will select 30 semifinalists per category.

The contest includes three divisions: elementary and middle school students in grades K-8, high school students in grades 9-12, and a general category open to Michigan residents of all ages.

Three winning designs will be selected from each category, and the winning stickers will be distributed to local election clerks statewide for use at polling locations during the November election.

Winners will be announced later this summer and will receive recognition from the Michigan Department of State.

Additional information about voting in Michigan is available here.

Guo Wengui, who fled China a decade ago and reinvented himself as a U.S.-based Communist Party critic, was sentenced in a Manhattan courtroom packed with his supporters by Judge Analisa Torres. She said he “preyed on those seeking to bring Democracy to China,” taking their money so he could live lavishly.

Before he was sentenced, Guo protested his treatment in jail, saying he was taken to the hospital early Monday. He disputed a prosecutor's portrayal of him as a malingerer faking illness, saying he repeatedly vomited as he was returned to jail before being brought to court.

“When I came here, I said: ‘I have a tummy ache, I need to go to the bathroom, I don’t feel well,’” Guo said through an interpreter of his courthouse arrival. Later, Guo wiped his mouth repeatedly with a tissue.

He only briefly addressed the criminal case, defending his intentions by saying in reference to the Chinese Communist Party: “The reason I came to the U.S. was to destroy the CCP."

The judge, in sentencing him, read snippets of letters she received from victims who described losing their life savings and feeling severely anxious and shamed and having family members turn on them for their poor investment choice.

Torres said Guo “takes no responsibility for his actions and instead insists incredibly his conduct caused no loss and harmed no one.” She said he “has called upon supporters to harass and intimidate those who dare to speak out against him.”

The judge ordered Guo to forfeit $889 million in restitution.

Wei Chen, a victim who testified at trial, told Torres that Guo's fraud "destroyed my life" and that of her family.

As Guo left the courtroom after the sentencing, supporters applauded and shouted toward him.

Before his arrest and detention without bail three years ago, Guo grew so close to conservative political strategist Steve Bannon that they announced a joint initiative to overthrow the Chinese government in 2020. He lived in a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park and had joined President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Florida golf club.

Prosecutors had requested he serve at least 30 years in prison, saying his "astonishing" fraud from 2018 to 2023 “destroyed hundreds of lives” and left “a wreckage of victims and families who have been devastated financially, emotionally, and psychologically.”

Prosecutors said in court papers that his ill-gotten riches fueled “a lifestyle of extraordinary excess and indulgence, a gilded life of mansions, yachts, race cars, designer clothes and luxury furnishings.”

Guo was convicted of nine of 12 criminal charges during a seven-week trial that prosecutors said showcased his deception of thousands of investors in bogus deals that enabled Guo's lavish lifestyle.

In a court filing, Guo's lawyers wrote that he was the victim of the Chinese Communist Party's “grand, pervasive, and life threatening” pursuit of him. They alleged that the party recruited elites in U.S. business, entertainment and politics to conspire against him.

They said in presentence court papers that a lengthy prison term would only validate China's smear campaign and “embolden further efforts to eliminate Chinese dissidents from public life” while defendants in similar cases received prison terms of two-to-four years.

The lawyers noted that a court probation officer wrote to the sentencing judge that Guo, also known as Miles Guo and Ho Wan Kwok, had scars and disfigurements from physical torture he endured in China and subsequent surgeries he underwent from 1993 to 2022 to repair the injuries.

Defense lawyers said Guo's wealth grew as his family became the largest shareholder of China's largest publicly traded securities company, but he became a target of Chinese government officials as he exposed them as corrupt. Eventually, the lawyers wrote, Guo moved to Hong Kong, London and then New York in 2017.

Chinese authorities accused him of rape, kidnapping, bribery and other crimes, but Guo said those allegations were false.

On Monday, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said they had noted the sentencing, and that Guo is wanted by the Chinese government and has an Interpol “Red Notice” on him. The notice is a request to police forces around the world to arrest a suspect, pending extradition.

Prosecutors say Guo convinced hundreds of thousands of people to invest more than $1 billion total in entities he controlled, including his media company, GTV Media Group Inc., and his so-called Himalaya Farm Alliance and the Himalaya Exchange.

Guo, the government alleged in presentence court papers, was “entirely unrepentant” for his crimes after he took advantage of lax U.S. asylum laws to flourish in America.

Bruised around his left eye and across much of his body, 46-year-old Serrano is recovering from the ordeal he endured with his son and mother Wednesday.

The three were buried beneath rubble and twisted steel when their eight-story apartment building collapsed in the city of Caraballeda in La Guaira, the state hardest hit by the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.

“It is a miracle from God,” Serrano said as he recalled how, in total darkness, he clawed through debris with his bare hands before rescuing his 8-year-old son and 69-year-old mother with the help of two passersby.

The two earthquakes have killed more than 1,700 people and injured more than 5,000, according to the government. Hundreds of buildings collapsed or were damaged, primarily in La Guaira. Significant damage was also reported in the capital, Caracas, and in the states of Carabobo, Miranda, Aragua and Yaracuy.

La Guaira — known as Vargas until 2019 — is Venezuela’s second-smallest state but one of its most strategically important. About 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Caracas, it is home to the country’s main international airport and second-largest seaport.

Its roughly 440,000 residents are largely low-income and depend on tourism, commerce and jobs tied to the airport and seaport.

Speaking from his brother's home in Caracas, Serrano recalled the terror he felt last week, his thoughts inevitably returning to Dec. 15, 1999, when he was jolted awake by the screams of their household employee, who had seen a nearby river overflow after days of heavy rain.

From his window, he watched the swollen river sweep away trees, massive boulders and vehicles with people trapped inside, banging on the windows and pleading for help.

Driven by instinct, Serrano fled his fourth-floor apartment with his mother, sister and nanny, climbing to the roof. From there, they watched floodwaters engulf the building’s lower floors as massive trees slammed into its columns, fearing it would collapse like others nearby.

Their fears eased at dawn as the rain stopped and the floodwaters began to recede. After waiting in vain for rescue, the family made their way through mud, rocks, debris and fallen trees to his grandparents’ home in a nearby neighborhood.

The 1999 floods and landslides known as the “Vargas Tragedy” killed 782 people, another 2,000 were reported missing and about 250,000 residents were affected, according to Ángel Rangel, who led rescue operations as director of Venezuela’s Civil Protection agency.

Still shaken by the devastation left by the earthquakes, Serrano believes La Guaira — bordered by the Caribbean Sea and the Ávila mountain range — is under a curse.

“It isn’t normal for such horrible things to happen in the same place,” he said.

Rangel, a disaster specialist, sees it differently. The engineer said the buildings that collapsed in La Guaira were built on terrain formed over centuries by sediment carried down from the surrounding mountains.

“That type of terrain is particularly risky for construction,” Rangel said, adding that building in such areas requires “strict adherence to seismic-resistant engineering standards” adopted after the powerful 1967 earthquake that struck Caracas.

Many of the buildings that collapsed in La Guaira were built in the 1970s, and it remains unclear whether they met those standards.

After losing his home and all his belongings, Serrano said he does not know what comes next. But one thing is certain: He will never live in La Guaira again.

“That’s twice now,” he said. “Sometimes I think if there’s a third time, it’s going to win the battle.”

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

Born in Lebanon to Palestinian refugees, Kabouli had never seen her parents’ homeland. But more than just making pretty designs, the threads in her needle were stitching a connection to her heritage.

It's known as “tatreez,” and Kabouli, 48, started doing the traditional form of Palestinian embroidery in her teens to make money. Besides an economic lifeline, tatreez has provided her with a bridge to the land her parents fled during the 1948 mass displacement that Palestinians call their Nakba, or catastrophe.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or fled their homes in present day Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation. Israel refused their return.

Kabouli's work allows her to send a message of resilience, of survival.

“We’re still here,” she said. “All what has been happening in Gaza … and we’re still standing and we’ll not forget the cause.”

From refugee camps to stitching circles and from museum halls to online classes, many in the Palestinian diaspora communities worldwide engage with tatreez as far more than a decorative aesthetic.

They're finding in it a celebration of cultural heritage, a bridge to their homeland and dispersed communities and — with its myriad embroidered symbols — a visual language of storytelling. To many, refugees or not, it's become a symbol of Palestinian identity and pride, a vehicle for documenting history and a form of resistance.

With the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, some have also used it to raise funds for people there or stitched designs to focus attention on Palestinian suffering in the enclave.

“We had a lot of people who came and they’re like, ‘OK, we want to do a T-shirt with a Gaza chest or we want to do a scarf with the Gaza motif,’” said Ali Jaafar, general manager of Inaash Association, where Kabouli works. The Lebanese organization provides Palestinian women in refugee camps in Lebanon with much-needed income through tatreez, while also aiming to help preserve and promote the heritage. It sells embroidered fashion, home decor and art pieces, and showcases the art form in exhibitions and museums.

Protecting heritage and ‘struggling through culture’

Efforts to preserve and raise awareness about tatreez in Palestinian communities at home and abroad are part of a larger push to safeguard a heritage and connections to a history and a place that many fear are at risk of being erased.

“Palestinian tatreez is an identity and a document of our presence in every Palestinian village and town," said Maha Saca, founder and director of the Palestinian Heritage Center in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, adding that old embroidered thobes, or dresses, show the presence of Palestinians in particular locations before the dispersal of many.

“The Palestinian woman has written the story of her village through motifs from her surrounding environment and her beliefs,” Saca said. “We’re struggling through culture and saying we have roots.”

The Palestinian embroidery art form was added in 2021 to UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

In New York, Lina Barkawi, whose small business teaches tatreez, said the “constant fight for liberation and having a Palestinian identity that’s recognized globally is really what has been driving a lot of this documentation.”

A generational practice and window into history

In Arabic, tatreez refers to embroidery in general as well as the specific Palestinian form, which is often a social practice taught through generations by grandmothers and mothers. Some seek formal training.

With motifs that Palestinian women had historically adopted from their surroundings, the old embroidered thobes can offer clues through stitched patterns, design and color about facets of a woman's personal story, her environment and regional identity, Saca said.

In the Palestinian context, such connections to time and place, including areas now in Israel, gain added importance as testament to what was, she said. “How do we have a Jaffa thobe if we hadn’t been in Jaffa?" she said. "We write history on our thobes.”

There's also an element of continuity. Saca said her grandmother’s embroidered wedding thobe bears the hallmarks of Bethlehem dresses, and that her own granddaughter’s baptism dress included embroideries copied from that dress.

Tatreez also can be political, both through preservation and creation.

“Just being able to have some of the dresses from pre-1948 is a political act,” Barkawi said.

There's also the making of the so-called “intifada thobe” that included embroidered political and Palestinian symbols, such as the flag. It's linked to the “first intifada,” or uprising, which erupted in 1987 against Israel’s occupation and was met with a fierce Israeli response.

Stitching, mourning and documenting

After the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, fashion designer Hama Hinnawi expressed grief through tatreez work. Tatreez is usually colorful, she said. But that was no moment for color.

The result? Black embroidery on black fabric, a statement of mourning for the killings, destruction and displacement in Gaza. She's also experimented with turning some iconic scenes from the war into new embroidery motifs.

“We have a big responsibility on our shoulders to tell this story, not to be buried for the next generations … through tatreez, through art, through speaking.”

Born in Jordan to Palestinian parents, Hinnawi wanted to bring awareness to heritage through her fashion brand by marrying tatreez with contemporary fashion.

To her, tatreez simply means home. It’s “identity, pride, storytelling,” said Hinnawi, who shuttles between Chicago and Jordan.

She's provided embroidery work opportunities to Palestinian women in refugee camps in Jordan and talked in the U.S. about tatreez. Before the war, she also worked with women in Gaza.

Barkawi runs an online community of Palestinian and non-Palestinian embroiderers, some of whom have created designs sold to raise funds for Gaza families. One incorporates a “water and seeds” motif with an embroidered message to “Feed Gaza Now.”

Members in different countries recreated a tapestry that once hung in a bombed Gaza home, each stitching a part and mailing it to another.

Born in the U.S. to a Palestinian father and Panamanian mother, Barkawi said learning about tatreez deepened her Palestinian identity.

New dresses with woven stories

Embroidering her first thobe took two years. Barkawi incorporated motifs with personal meanings, such as palm trees that represent her name in Arabic. She added orchids, the national flower of Panama, for her mom.

Technically imperfect, it was the perfect dress for her Islamic marriage ceremony.

“I embedded my story as a Palestinian in the diaspora into this dress.”

In Lebanon, Kabouli, too, once dreamed of owning a tatreez piece for her wedding trousseau. She couldn’t afford one.

After their parents died, an older sister had turned to tatreez with Inaash to help support the large family. Kabouli learned from her.

Now a production supervisor at Inaash in Beirut, Kabouli sees her younger self in the women working in refugee camps in Lebanon, many in the south, which was hard hit by the latest Israel-Hezbollah war. The vibrancy of tatreez often contrasts with harsh living conditions in camps amid employment and other restrictions the refugees face. Contending with power cuts, women, eager to finish a piece and get paid, may work on rooftops to grasp the last ray of sunlight, Jaafar said.

Besides the income, Kabouli said doing tatreez can be grounding, almost meditative.

She has another yearning: to see her parents’ homeland. They came from an area in what’s now Israel.

For now, tatreez provides her with hope.

“I don’t feel like I am far away. I keep working on Palestinian heritage, following the cause,” she said. “It connects me to my homeland, especially since we’re deprived of it.”

___

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.

With the shootout tied at 2-all after four rounds, Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bounou made a strong save of Crysencio Summerville's attempt, batting it away with his left hand. Saibari then sent the winner into the low left corner as goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen went the other direction. The midfielder tore off his shirt and screamed with joy as he was mobbed by teammates.

Earlier in the shootout with Morocco trailing 1-0, Verbruggen appeared to have stopped an attempt by Soufiane Rahimi, but the goalkeeper couldn’t secure the ball and deflected it over the line with the back of his leg.

“We know when we do everything on the pitch, it’s God that gives something back to us as well,” Morocco head coach Mohamed Ouahbi said. “We give all the energy that we have on the field. Rahimi’s goal could have not been a goal, but it went in thankfully.”

The Netherlands had reached at least the Round of 16 in 11 previous World Cups, including a quarterfinal appearance four years ago in Qatar, when Morocco made a breakthrough run to become the first team from Africa to reach the semifinals. In this year's expanded tournament, 32 teams reached the knockout stage for the first time.

Morocco moves on to face co-host Canada in the Round of 16 on Saturday in Houston. The Atlas Lions previously beat Canada 2-1 in the group stage of the 2022 World Cup.

Morocco was on the front-foot for major stretches of the game Monday. The Netherlands instead focused on counterattacking.

“I think Morocco has gained everybody’s respect now,” said Ouahbi, who took over as head coach in March. “I saw (the Netherlands’ style of play) as a form of respect.”

Cody Gakpo scored in the 72nd minute for Netherlands. After the goal, which was assisted by Summerville, the Dutch bench ran onto the field to embrace the 27-year-old Gakpo, who broke down in tears. Gakpo and his partner, Noa van der Bij, recently announced that they lost their unborn child.

Morocco’s Issa Diop tied it in the 91st. Chemsdine Talbi sent a looping cross into the box from about 28 yards out on the left side and connected with Diop for a clean header that Verbruggen had no chance to stop.

Neither team had a strong scoring opportunity in 30 minutes of extra time at Estadio BBVA.

In the second half of extra time, Netherlands head coach Ronald Koeman used one of his substitutions to bring on Justin Kluivert. Kluivert was one of three Dutch players to miss his penalty.

“The last substitution I made was to bring in Justin (Kluivert) because he’s one of the best at penalty shootouts,” Koeman said. “But he missed his penalty and that’s even more bitter for him and for us.”

It was the third consecutive time the Netherlands has been eliminated from the World Cup in a penalty shootout.

It was the second game of this tournament to conclude with a shootout. Paraguay beat Germany on penalties earlier Monday.

The teams entered with the highest combined ranking of any Round of 32 match. Morocco was sixth in the world and the Netherlands was seventh.

“We need to be telling ourselves that no one can stop us,” Ouahbi said. “Nobody is unbeatable. If we get things wrong, we’ll go home.”

___

Ethan Wilcox is a student in the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

At one fountain, a folk band dipped their toes in the water on Saturday, as festivalgoers clapped along or cooled their hands under the flowing stream.

From Friday to Sunday, singers and alphorn players filled the streets and spontaneous bursts of yodeling echoed through restaurants, where diners initially reacted with surprise before joining in.

In Petersplatz, in central Basel, seamstresses remained on call throughout the festival to repair the traditional Alpine folk costumes worn by participants in case of emergency.

This year, however, it was the fountain rehearsals that became the festival’s defining image, as the city battled record temperatures of around 39 Celsius (102 Fahrenheit).

Around 12,000 performers and nearly 200,000 visitors traveled to Basel for the Eidgenössisches Jodlerfest, Switzerland’s national yodeling festival. It was the first time the northwestern Swiss city hosted the event since 1924.

Swiss yodeling was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2025, making this the first national festival since the tradition received international recognition. It is a distinction many Swiss take great pride in.

Unlike the brighter, more melodic style often associated with Austria and the Tyrol region, Swiss yodeling is slower and more melancholic — an emotionally nuanced tradition rooted in distinct regional dialects.

"I’ve always loved music, and I left here as a child. When I moved back to New Zealand, I wanted to stay connected to Swiss culture, so I joined a New Zealand-Swiss-Kiwi yodeling club,” said Freddie Conquer, a member of Jodlerclub Echo Basel, one of the clubs hosting the festival.

The participants competed in three disciplines: yodeling, alphorn playing and flag-throwing.

The alphorn is a long wooden instrument traditionally used by herdsmen in the Alps. It can stretch to more than 3 meters (10 feet) in length, with its sound carrying across valleys — or, during the festival, through Basel’s streets. It produces all of its pitches using natural harmonics alone, with no valves or keys.

“Everything is down to the mouthpiece, hearing the note in your head, and then using your lips to shape the pitch. The higher the note, the harder you have to blow,” said Pierre-André Karlen, who was rehearsing on a school lawn.

On Sunday morning, participants gathered outside the town hall, eagerly awaiting the competition results. Members of Jodlerklub Balfrin, from the town of Visp in the canton of Valais, were nervously examining the lists and later celebrated loudly after receiving a perfect score of one, one of several such teams.

As flags were carried through the old town during the festival’s closing parade, members of Jodlerklub Muttenz rode past on a tractor to cheers from the crowd. Alphorn players followed — their instruments and costumes almost certainly a burden in the heavy heat, but the smiles remained.

Wednesday's match against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Santa Clara, California, marks the eighth time the U.S. has played in an elimination round in 12 World Cups. But only once, in 2002, have the Americans a won a match in the knockout rounds.

Because this year's tournament was expanded to 48 teams, the first knockout round includes 32, creating an extra round of elimination play.

Here's a look at the short and mostly unsuccessful U.S. record once the World Cup reaches the win-or-go-home stage.

Uruguay, 1930: Semifinals

The first World Cup was played with 13 teams and the U.S. advanced straight to the semifinals as winner of its group. That's where the Americans' tournament ended with a 6-1 loss to Argentina.

Italy, 1934: One and done

The second edition of the World Cup was the only tournament that did not use groups for the early matches. Instead, all 16 teams played a straight knockout format. The U.S. was immediately eliminated with a 7-1 loss to host and eventual champion Italy.

US, 1994: Round of 16

The U.S. didn't qualify for the World Cup from 1954 through 1986, was eliminated in the group stage in 1990 and then got an automatic bid as the host nation in '94. A 1-1 tie with Switzerland and shocking 2-1 victory over Colombia in the Rose Bowl in the group stage earned the Americans a match against Brazil in the knockout round.

Brazil was down to 10 men after a first-half red card: Leonardo threw an elbow that fractured American midfielder Tab Ramos' skull. The Brazilians still controlled the match and won 1-0 on the way to their fourth World Cup title.

South Korea-Japan, 2002: Quarterfinals

The best U.S. showing in the modern era of the tournament. An upset of European heavyweight Portugal and a draw with co-host South Korea sent the Americans to the knockout round against regional rival Mexico. Goals from Brian McBride and Landon Donovan led to a 2-0 victory.

The U.S. run ended in the next match with a tense 1-0 loss to eventual finalist Germany that was decided on Michael Ballack's goal in the 39th minute. Americans remember the match for an infamous no-call when a German player appeared to block a likely U.S. goal with his arm. There was no video review in use at the time.

South Africa, 2010: Round of 16

Donovan's frantic, last-minute goal against Algeria secured a dramatic 1-0 victory in the final group match that sent the U.S. to the next round.

Facing Ghana, the U.S. went down 1-0 after just five minutes. Donovan tied it on a penalty kick in the second half. Asamoah Gyan’s extra-time goal secured a 2-1 victory for Ghana that sent the U.S. home.

Brazil, 2014: Round of 16

The U.S. advanced out of the group stage with a 2-1 win over Ghana, a 2-2 draw with Portugal and a 1-0 loss to eventual champion Germany. Their tournament ended with a 2-1 loss to Belgium.

Qatar, 2022: Round of 16

The U.S. started group play with draws with Wales and England, and advanced with a 1-0 win over Iran on Christian Pulisic's goal. The Netherlands then made quick work of the U.S., winning 3-1.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

With temperatures climbing higher tomorrow, the Detroit National Weather Service has issued an Extreme Heat Warning for noon Tuesday until 8 p.m. Thursday for all of Southeast Michigan.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will feature full sunshine. Each day, Southeast Michigan will reach the mid-90s to 100°.

Adding in the humidity, it will feel like at least 105° during the afternoon hours.

There will be little relief at night with overnight lows only falling to the mid 70s.

Stay hydrated, check on those who are sensitive to the heat, wear light, loose clothing, limit strenuous outdoor activity, and, if you must be outdoors, take breaks in cooler environments. Do not leave kids or pets in a parked vehicle, and direct dogs to walk on the grass on shorter walks.

On the plus side, with mainly clear skies, we’ll have great conditions to see the Strawberry Moon, which peaks this evening.

It won’t be pink but is named for the abundance of strawberries this time of year in North America.

Also of note, Saharan dust will move into Southeast Michigan.

This will give us great sunsets on Tuesday and Wednesday before exiting eastward.

As we finish the week, Friday brings our next chance of rain, which will linger into the weekend.

Friday’s highs will be in the mid 90s. We’ll start to see high temperatures drop back toward 90° on Saturday and Sunday.

It followed back-to-back rulings last week that barred his two sweeping executive orders seeking to change national election rules, more court rulings preventing his Department of Justice from obtaining detailed state voter data and his stalled attempts to get the Senate to pass the SAVE Act. That measure would eliminate nearly all absentee voting, require citizenship documents to register to vote and impose photo identification requirements nationwide right before the midterm elections.

“It’s been a mixed bag for Republicans,” said University of Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller. But the president, he added, “has come up mostly empty-handed.”

Trump's efforts have not been entirely fruitless. Republican-run states have satisfied his demands to redraw congressional district lines, efforts buoyed by the Supreme Court striking down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, and he has been directing his Department of Justice to investigate voting and election operations, which Democrats see as a possible prelude to their involvement in November.

All the activity around how the nation votes and runs its elections is a reflection of the Republican president's long fixation on his false claim that his 2020 election defeat was rigged. He has been so frustrated by the inability of the Senate to pass the SAVE Act that he has refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill.

He weighed in again Monday after the Supreme Court's decision in the mail ballot deadline case, saying on his social media account that he is trying to “save America from crooked elections.” Voting rights groups and Democrats see him abusing power and attempting to suppress legal voters to gain an advantage in the midterms, when control of Congress is at stake.

Regardless, Muller said Trump faces legal and political realities: The Constitution gives the states and Congress authority over elections while providing no such role for the president.

“That’s how federalism works,” Muller said.

Here’s a look at Trump’s efforts to reshape election rules and what options he might have left for the November midterms.

Focus on noncitizens and voter data has met roadblocks

The president has repeatedly said U.S. elections are riddled with fraud in part because of noncitizen voting. Research shows the problem to be rare, accounting for a minuscule percentage of fraud cases. Convictions are measured in the hundreds over periods in which tens of millions of ballots are cast.

Trump’s view resulted in a multiagency push to nationalize voter data and use federal resources to help states remove voters from the rolls. The Department of Justice has sought detailed voter files from multiple states, data that would include dates of birth and partial Social Security numbers. Democratic and some Republican secretaries of state balked, and federal lawsuits followed. The administration has lost every case so far.

Homeland Security citizenship check rejected in court

Trump's Department of Homeland Security, with help from the DOGE effort led by Elon Musk, revamped a government tool called SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements). The program has been a key pillar of his efforts to cull potentially ineligible voters from state rolls.

Last week, a federal judge blocked its use as a mass citizenship check.

The administration, according to its own news releases, had allowed local election administrators to search users by the thousands, using a wider range of metrics rather than DHS-issued identification numbers. At least 67 million registrations, primarily in Republican-controlled states, were analyzed. Tens of thousands were flagged as potential noncitizens or people who have died, but some voters were wrongly identified as ineligible.

U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan ruled that Trump’s changes aggregated Americans’ sensitive personal data in a way that could result in voters being wrongly purged from the rolls.

“All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan said in her order.

Executive orders used in place of legislation

As presidents before him, Trump signed executive orders when Congress would not enact his policy preferences.

Trump’s first order reflected his emphasis on noncitizens. Like the SAVE Act pending on Capitol Hill, it sought to require would-be voters to document their citizenship to be able to register to vote.

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper put a temporary block on the order last year as she considered the case and last week made her decision permanent. The Constitution, Casper wrote, “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections.”

Trump issued a second order in March, as the SAVE Act’s rough path in Congress became obvious. He called for a national voter list using data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration. Further, the order would have empowered the U.S. Postal Service to determine who gets an absentee ballot and threatened local elections officials with prosecution.

Absentee voting is a staple of U.S. elections, but Trump describes the practice, incorrectly, as allowing fraud — even as he has used it himself. A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found that mail voting fraud occurred in only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast.

Democratic secretaries of state sued, and U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani made the same legal assessment as Casper. The provisions, she wrote last week, “unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”

The White House has indicated it will appeal.

Even Trump says the SAVE Act has long odds

Trump on Monday called the Senate logjam “crazy” and one of the holdouts, Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, “Trump-deranged.”

It’s the latest legislative tussle that prompted Trump to demand Republicans scrap the filibuster, which requires most major legislation to get support from 60 of the 100 senators. But that likely wouldn’t matter in this case, with four of the Senate’s 53 Republicans declaring their opposition to the bill itself: Murkowski, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

The president acknowledged Monday that the SAVE Act is “probably not going to happen.”

Trump still has options for the November elections

Both major parties have national operations to monitor elections, including legal teams ready to file challenges.

Despite the Republican National Committee losing the mail ballot case, Chairman Joe Gruters on Monday alluded to those efforts: “We are not going to be deterred by this decision, and the RNC will keep fighting to have elections end on Election Day,” he said.

Meanwhile, Trump has been developing a possible roadmap for more aggressive actions.

His U.S. attorney in Los Angeles said in June that he had opened multiple election fraud investigations, and he sent a prosecutor to the county's vote-tabulation center after California's June primary. Six months earlier, FBI agents executed a warrant and seized ballots and other records from the 2020 election in Georgia's Fulton County, which includes Atlanta.

Muller, the law professor, said local elections officials “already are having conversations about chain of custody disputes” for ballots as they are cast, collected, counted and stored.

He and UCLA law professor Rick Hasen noted that judicial warrants are required for the kinds of actions that happened in Fulton County. Muller predicted “the bar would be even higher” for any warrant the administration requests during a live election.

Hasen added that he's working to educate judges around the country on the importance of chain of custody for ballots.

“Republicans believe him when he says the election is rigged. And then when Republicans try to change voting rules to tighten things up, that causes Democrats to also think that the election system is being rigged,” Hasen said. “So, if what he’s trying to achieve is undermine voters’ confidence in the election process, he seems to have succeeded spectacularly.”

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Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

"Well for a long time, before the civil rights movement, it meant to be more inclined toward states' rights and limited government," says Meacham, the National Constitution Center's Semiquincentennial Scholar. He then pauses, and asks to start over, recalling how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt evoked Jefferson as an “apostle of liberty” who would have supported the U.S. fighting the Nazis in World War II.

You could define it in so many ways. Historians may argue over the “greatness” of individual founders, but as the country's 250th anniversary approaches many agree that no one's life and work resonates like Jefferson's. He embodied the “very best and the very worst” of the United States, Meacham says.

And a great deal in between.

America’s birth is rooted in his most profound contradiction — the man who proclaimed that “all men are created equal” while being a slaveholder to the end of his life. But Jefferson advanced and explored both sides of so many issues and world views that have defined the country's path: agrarian self-sufficiency and worldly innovation, pluralism and separatism, limited government and dreams of an “empire of liberty.”

“There is no more malleable figure in early America than Jefferson,” says Andrew Burstein, a professor of history at Louisiana State University who has summed up Jefferson's legacy in a book he published a decade ago: “Democracy’s Muse: How Thomas Jefferson became an FDR Liberal, a Reagan Republican, and a Tea Party Fanatic, All the While Being Dead.”

“There have been times in American history when just about everyone would have considered themselves ‘Jeffersonian,’" says historian Peter S. Onuf, author of numerous works on Jefferson. “Yet even at those moments, he was a controversial figure.”

It's an argument without end

Jefferson's legacy is debated even in settings that owe their existence to him.

On the campus of the University of Virginia, the college he founded and regarded as a signature achievement, stands a memorial to thousands of enslaved people who lived and worked there.

At Monticello, the mountaintop estate and plantation outside of Charlottesville where Jefferson lived when not in public office, a banner near the entrance features the Declaration and the caption, “After all, our guy wrote it.” But once on the grounds, reminders of his enslavement of hundreds are found throughout, from its “Burial Ground for Enslaved People” that includes dozens of graves to an exhibit dedicated to Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman with whom Jefferson is widely believed to have had six children.

Monticello's director of historic interpretation and audience engagement, Brandon Dillard, cites the staff's mission “to tell unflinching stories of America’s complex origins and fitful progress toward the ideals Jefferson articulated in the Declaration of Independence."

Jefferson regarded Monticello as a refuge from the times, but the times inevitably find their way here. A guide on the gardens and grounds tour points out that a foldable plant Jefferson tried and failed to grow — the “Mimosa Pudica,” or “sensitive plant” — now thrives because of climate change. The visitors' center is LEED Gold-certified for green energy, Dillard says, and geothermal systems have been installed in other buildings for temperature control.

Monticello raises questions old and new about race. Virtually all of the guides are white, an issue Dillard notes is prevalent nationwide. A recent survey released by the American Association for State and Local History found that around just 10% of workers at museums, historic sites and historical societies were nonwhite and that many “Latino/a/x, and multiracial respondents reported higher rates of discrimination and harassment.” (Dillard declined to answer in detail the experience of guides of color at Monticello.)

There is a Jefferson for every occasion

Jefferson’s contradictions date back through much of American history; he was claimed by both sides of the Civil War and both sides of the civil rights movement.

Nineteenth-century Confederates and 20th-century segregationists cited his defense of states' rights, while Abraham Lincoln and civil rights leaders emphasized Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence. In the space of a few months in 1963, he would be invoked in the inaugural speech of Alabama Gov. George Wallace as he vowed defiance of federal efforts to integrate the state’s schools and by the Rev. Martin Luther King as he delivered his “I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington.

Roosevelt enlisted Jefferson as an ideological ally for the New Deal (the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., began as a New Deal project) and a former New Dealer-turned conservative, President Ronald Reagan, held up Jefferson decades later as a foe of wasteful spending. Jefferson has been cited often by free-speech advocates for his crucial support for the Bill of Rights, while President Donald Trump has quoted Jefferson's 1807 lament that “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper” as an implicit endorsement of his modern war against “fake news.”

Jefferson has also been placed on either side of today's divide over immigration. Ibram X. Kendi, author of “How to Be an Anti-Racist,” cites his well-documented belief in colonization for Black people as inspiration for contemporary scapegoating and xenophobia. Meanwhile, at a time when the Trump administration is aggressively trying to restrict immigration and even denaturalize some citizens, Monticello continues its decades-old July 4 naturalization ceremonies, with Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger scheduled as this year's keynote speaker.

“As new citizens share their personal stories every Fourth of July," Dillard says, “we are reminded that the values uplifted in that Declaration are values toward which people from all backgrounds aspire.”

Many Monticello visitors, many reasons to visit

Monticello attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. They come for many reasons.

Erin Porter is a Virginia native in her 40s who until recently had never been to Monticello and wanted to cross it off her bucket list, while Nathan Jaycox of Connecticut is a former nuclear engineer now seeking to absorb history for a class he hopes to teach. Duane Cromwell, a longtime resident of Vancouver, was here on a very personal mission.

Cromwell, 70, grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, where she was taught that slavery was “an economic necessity” and learned nothing about Jefferson's history of enslavement. In town last month for a family reunion, she arrived at Monticello anxious to get past the “whitewashed Southern version” and the myths of evil “yankees” and the victimized rebels who defied them.

“Did you (ever) notice kudzu growing up over trees and buildings while in the South? It is an invasive plant brought to the region to control erosion. Well, it is like racism. It is pervasive, part of the horizon, always there but soon you don’t notice it,” she says.

“Having said that, I do think that people do go along better, there is more interactions, relationships than when I was growing up. Everyone needs each other and in the South, there is a great sense of humor and friendliness that help people navigate the awkward moments.”

For Cromwell, Monticello was a chance to educate herself, to become a better person — and, like countless others before her, using Thomas Jefferson as a prism.

“Isn’t that what it’s all about?”

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AP National Writer Hillel Italie frequently writes about American history.

The pull to return home to help is real. That isn't an option for Contreras at the moment, so on Monday night against Washington, he did what he could to show that what's happening back home isn't far from his mind.

Contreras unleashed a massive bat flip after ripping a 421-foot homer in what became a 6-3 Boston victory. He then broke down in tears in the dugout, the anguish that's been a constant since portions of his homeland were turned into rubble last week pouring out of him.

“Everything that’s going on in Venezuela, it’s not easy to hide,” Contreras told reporters after the game. "It’s not easy just to show up and play with everything that is going on in my country.”

The urge to do something, anything, to help is real. Contreras looked toward the Boston dugout and shouted “Venezuela” before making the trip around the bases following a three-run shot that marked his 18th homer of the season.

“I feel like I could be there helping people and I can’t do that,” Contreras said. “And the homer just represents something that I pray to God for it to happen, because that’s the only thing I can do for Venezuela right now physically. And that’s why I was emotional.”

The 34-year-old Contreras was born in Puerto Cabello, about three hours west of the capital of Caracas. He described frustration over reports of volunteers and aid packages having trouble getting through to those who need it.

“It sucks seeing so many bad things going on in Venezuela,” he said. “I don’t think we deserve all of this. We’re a good people. Good country. We are good people.”

Contreras' night on the field ended a bit early. First base umpire Nic Lentz ejected him in the second inning after Lentz ruled Contreras failed to check his swing on a Miles Mikolas pitch that ended up being a strikeout.

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

The incident occurred on Monday (June 29) when officers from the Detroit Police Department’s 3rd Precinct responded around 10:15 p.m. to the 3700 block of 16th Street for reports of a shooting.

When officers arrived, they said they found the teenager suffering from a gunshot wound.

Investigators believe the shooting was a drive-by, though the investigation remains in its early stages.

Emergency medical personnel transported the teen to a hospital in Metro Detroit.

Police said he is expected to survive.

No information about a suspect or suspect vehicle has been released.

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact the Detroit Police Department’s 3rd Precinct at 313-596-5300 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP.

Tips to Crime Stoppers can be submitted anonymously and may be eligible for a reward.

All tips to Crime Stoppers are anonymous. Click here to submit a tip online.

They are searching for a living kidney donor as his disease advances toward Stage 5 kidney failure.

Sowards was diagnosed with kidney disease last year and now has about 10% to 15% kidney function.

If the disease progresses, he may need to begin dialysis, a time-consuming treatment that can help people survive kidney failure but does not replace full kidney function.

“His numbers just keep declining. Scary. Very scary,” said his wife, Tina Sowards.

Sowards has coached football for about 30 years, from youth leagues through high school, and most recently at Roosevelt High School.

But the physical toll of kidney disease has forced him to step back.

“Even cutting the grass is a whole event now,” said Soward’s son, Brandon Sowards, a former wide receiver at Michigan State University. “So small things like that it opens your eyes.”

A father of three and grandfather of five, Sowards said he worries about missing out on time with his family as everyday tasks become harder.

“Having the grandkids around and watching them run around is harder than it used to be,” Sowards said. “I just want to be able to do those kinds of things with them and get out and about.”

Family spreads the word in search of a donor

His family has posted flyers in local businesses, shared information on social media, and is working on yard signs, hoping someone will step forward and get tested.

“They want the best option for him, and they want it as quickly as possible, so they’ve worked their tails off,” said Brandon Hays, a Give to Live Health transplant ambassador who is helping the family connect with potential donors.

Hays said people who are generally healthy may be able to donate a kidney.

Even if someone’s blood type doesn’t match Sowards’, a donor may still be able to help through a paired donation program, a swap system that matches donors and recipients across multiple families.

“You can step forward and be a paired donor, where you can donate to somebody else, and somebody else can donate to your intended recipient,” Hays said.

Sowards said he is focused on the future he still wants with his loved ones.

“I love life, love my family, I want to continue to do the things that I love to do,” he said.

What to know about living kidney donation

Kidney transplants come from two sources: living donors and deceased donors. Both save lives, but there are key differences.

Deceased donation occurs when a person who has died, and whose family has agreed to donation or who is registered as a donor, donates organs, including kidneys.

Sowards has been put on a list to receive a kidney from a deceased donor, but the average wait time can stretch five years or longer.

Living donation

A living donor gives one of their two kidneys. Most healthy people can live with one kidney, and donors are carefully screened for medical and psychological safety.

Living donation can often be planned in advance, which may reduce time spent on dialysis or help a patient avoid dialysis altogether.

In many cases, kidneys from living donors tend to work sooner after transplant and can last longer than kidneys from deceased donors, according to transplant organizations and medical centers.

Paired donation can expand options when a donor and an intended recipient are incompatible.

In paired exchange programs, a donor gives to a different recipient, and the intended recipient receives a compatible kidney from another donor.

How to help

The family is encouraging anyone interested in learning more about living kidney donation or being screened as a potential donor to contact Brandon Hays at bhays@givetolivehealth.com or 734-219-9240.

Nagi was reported missing on June 28 in the village of Menands, near Albany.

Police said the child is nonverbal and is believed to be barefoot.

Authorities described Harbe as approximately 3’7” tall.

His clothing description was not immediately available.

Alharbi has asked the public to keep the family in their thoughts as the search continues.

Police and emergency crews are using multiple search tactics to locate the boy, including deploying an ice cream truck in the hope that its familiar music will draw him out if he is hiding nearby.

Officials have not released additional details about the circumstances surrounding his disappearance.

Anyone with information about Harbe’s whereabouts is urged to contact local law enforcement immediately.

Previous report

The only baserunner Mize (3-5) allowed came on rookie Spencer Jones’ leadoff double in the third. He struck out 10 for the third time in his major league career and mowed through the Yankees after they tagged him for four runs and eight hits in 5 2/3 innings last Tuesday at Detroit.

Missing injured sluggers Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, the Yankees lost their fifth straight and have been held to three hits or fewer in four consecutive games during a single season for the first time in franchise history.

New York’s .098 batting average is the club’s lowest in a four-game span.

In the longest start of his career, Mize threw first-pitch strikes to 16 of 22 batters and struck out five of his final six.

Tigers rookies Hao-Yu Lee and Kevin McGonigle drove in two runs apiece after errors by third baseman José Caballero and left fielder Cody Bellinger.

Lee hit a two-run single off Ryan Weathers (3-6) during a four-run second inning four batters after Caballero committed a throwing error on a grounder by Matt Vierling that gave Detroit a 2-0 lead.

McGonigle lined a two-run single for a 7-0 lead one batter after Bellinger dropped a flyball by Dillon Dingler near the corner.

Dingler also doubled, scored on a single by Spencer Torkelson in the first and lofted a sacrifice fly in the second.

New York equaled a season high with its fifth straight loss and allowed five unearned runs for a total of 14 during its second five-game skid this year. The Yankees have permitted 20 unearned runs in their last 10 games after giving up 22 in their first 74 games.

Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. left in the fourth after colliding with right fielder Jasson Domínguez while chasing a popup. Chisholm was placed in concussion protocol.

New York starter Ryan Weathers allowed five runs — two earned — and seven hits in a season-low 1 2/3 innings.

Detroit rookie Drew Sommers allowed a three-run homer to pinch-hitter Amed Rosario in the eighth. Drew Anderson tossed a 1-2-3 ninth to finish the three-hitter.

Up next

Tigers LHP Tarik Skubal (3-4, 3.32 ERA) opposes Yankees RHP Cam Schlittler (8-4, 1.62) in a marquee matchup Tuesday night.

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

Portland sent forwards Jerami Grant and Kris Murray to the Grizzlies as part of the deal.

It’s a big swing by the Trail Blazers and could suggest Portland — with new owner Tom Dundon, whose Carolina Hurricanes just won the Stanley Cup — might not be done making moves. Morant adds to a logjam at point guard right now for Portland, with Jrue Holiday, Damian Lillard and Scoot Henderson also on the current roster.

Morant has averaged 22.4 points for his career but has played only 79 games over the last three seasons because of injuries and suspensions — including a 25-game banishment after he was seen on a livestream holding a gun while he was in the passenger seat of a vehicle. That came not long after an eight-game suspension for flashing a gun in a Denver-area nightclub, also captured on social media.

The suspensions, combined, cost Morant — who was Rookie of the Year after being the No. 2 selection in the 2019 draft, as well as the league's Most Improved Player in 2021-22 when he appeared to be on a path toward superstardom — about $9 million in lost salary. He said in April 2025 that he's made his peace with being a lightning rod for constant criticism.

“I’m kind of used to it,” Morant said at that time. “I was pretty much a villain for two years now. Every little thing, if somebody can say something negative about me, it’s going to be out there. So, yeah. I don’t care no more.”

Grant averaged 18.6 points last season for Portland and will be joining his sixth team by going to Memphis. Murray averaged 5.8 points this past season for the Trail Blazers.

Morant's MIP-award year in 2021-22 saw Memphis win 56 games, tying a franchise record. That team was built around a young core four of Morant, Dillon Brooks, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Desmond Bane.

And now, they're all gone. Brooks played only one more season with the Grizzlies after that and has changed teams twice since, Bane went to Orlando last summer and Jackson was traded to Utah in February.

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AP Sports Writer Teresa M. Walker in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.

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

He made his first start a memorable one.

Canale scored on the first sudden-death penalty kick, Orlando Gill made two key saves in the shootout, and Paraguay beat Germany 4-3 on penalties Monday to earn the biggest upset of the 2026 World Cup.

It was a major triumph for the landlocked South American country of 7 million people that's surrounded by soccer giants like Argentina and Brazil. And it was the latest surprising exit by Germany, a four-time champion that has struggled at the World Cup since it last lifted the trophy in 2014.

“I think we deserved one more game and to be honest, considering everything that was said, everything we went through,” Canale said. “What I want to highlight from our team is how united we are. ... Today was a game we really needed to show our true colors.”

Paraguayans celebrated in the streets of the capital, Asunción, screaming, jumping and hugging when the match ended. Some cried and dropped to their knees in disbelief, with the familiar beat of the team’s song “Soy Albirrojo” reverberating through the crowd.

Paraguay became the first team to defeat Germany in a penalty shootout at the World Cup. The Germans missed three of six penalty tries, the last by Jonathan Tah, who blasted his attempt high over the crossbar in the first sudden-death round, setting up Canale for the winner. Tah's miss followed a save by German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer of Fabian Balbuena's attempt that would have won it for Paraguay.

Tah also thought he had the go-ahead goal in extra time. He headed in a corner kick by Nathaniel Brown in the 102nd minute, but officials concluded after a video review that Waldemar Anton has pushed Gill to the ground before the shot and the goal was disallowed.

The Round of 32 match ended 1-1 after extra time. Paraguay took the lead when Julio Enciso scored on a header late in the first half, but Kai Havertz equalized in the 52nd minute for Germany.

“We had to analyze every player, every detail. Thanks to that I was able to only miss two penalties,” Gill said. “This is for all the people of Paraguay.”

Paraguay, which entered the match ranked 41st by FIFA, became the deepest betting long shot to win a match in this World Cup. Germany came in as the 10th-ranked team in the world.

The Paraguayans will face the winner of Tuesday’s match between France and Sweden in the Round of 16 on Saturday in Philadelphia. A win on the 250th anniversary of the United States' founding would send Paraguay back to Foxborough for the quarterfinals on July 9.

Germany had won six of seven penalty shootouts in major tournaments, including six straight since losing to Czechoslovakia in the 1976 European Championship final.

“It’s not enough for German football,” coach Julian Nagelsmann said.

In the only previous World Cup match between the teams, Germany beat Paraguay 1-0 in the round of 16 at the 2002 tournament. Nearly a quarter-century later, Paraguay got its revenge.

Paraguay had appeared in five previous knockout games but failed to score in each. It had advanced only once, winning on penalty kicks against Japan in the round of 16 at the 2010 tournament in South Africa. It fell that year to eventual champion Spain in the quarterfinals.

Monday was Germany’s first knockout game since the 2014 final in Brazil, when the Germans beat Argentina 1-0. The Germans were eliminated in the group stage at the last two tournaments.

“We had very big plans for this World Cup. It’s very difficult to disappoint again,” Havertz said. “It was difficult to create chances and keep the pace.”

Paraguay broke the early stalemate in the 42nd minute Monday with some perfect ball movement to set up Enciso.

Miguel Almiron split Germany’s Aleksandar Pavlovic and Nathaniel Brown with a left-footed pass to Matias Galarza. Galarza sent a cross to Enciso, who was unmarked by Germany’s defenders and easily headed it past Neuer.

In the second half, Havertz took a cross from Florian Wirtz, which he got just enough head on to redirect it past Gill.

Germany, whose 10 goals in the group stage was tied for the most of any team, struggled to find a way through Paraguay’s 4-5-1 setup. The Germans had 78% of the possession in the first half.

Paraguay was without defender Omar Alderete, who left with an injury in the second half of its 0-0 draw against Australia. Canale started in his place.

Paraguay opened the World Cup with a 4-1 loss to the United States, then beat Turkey 1-0 while playing the entire second half with 10 men. A scoreless draw against Australia was good enough for Paraguay to reach the knockout stage as the third-place finisher from Group D.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The firefighters were part of a specialized crew that goes into remote areas by helicopter to quickly put out new and rapidly escalating wildfires, federal officials said Monday.

Their deaths Saturday came almost 13 years to the day since an elite crew of 19 wildland firefighters died when they were trapped in a steep canyon in Yarnell, Arizona.

Like this weekend's victims, the men in Arizona tried to deploy emergency shelters that are a “last resort” for firefighters when there's no other way out. Investigators didn't blame anyone for the deaths in 2013, but cited radio communication problems that contributed to the Granite Mountain Hotshots becoming trapped. Arizona's workplace safety commission also fined the state's forestry division for not pulling them out.

Wildfires have erupted over the past week all across the West, fueled by months of dry weather and a record lack of snow in some places this past winter. Wildfire experts have warned for months that extreme fire dangers are likely this summer.

U.S. Wildland Fire Service Chief Brian Fennessy said he would not speculate about whether the crew overrun by the weekend fire in Colorado should have been where they were.

“I will say the fact that they were there was, I’m 100% sure, based on good decision-making,” Fennessy said during a news conference Monday. “The fires in this region over the decades, you know, killed many firefighters. They weren’t being foolish. They weren’t being careless. They were there because they thought they could do what needed to be done to suppress that fire. And many times the weather changes.”

With more than two dozen large fires burning, almost 8,000 wildland firefighters and dozens of firefighting helicopters have been deployed. About half the largest blazes are in Alaska while the rest are mostly in Western states.

Even as firefighting resources were increasingly strained, evacuations were ordered near seven fires, including in Arizona, Washington state, New Mexico and Utah. About 800 people living in and around the small town of Beulah in eastern Colorado were told to evacuate as a wildfire threatened the area on Monday afternoon, Gov. Jared Polis said.

“We're really at the mercy of the winds,” Polis said.

Firefighters were part of a specialized crew

The U.S. Forest Service and Interior Department identified the firefighters killed as Emily Barker, 38, of Clinton Township, Michigan; Nick Hutcherson, 27, of Glendale, Arizona; and Sydney Watson, 26, of Warrior, Alabama.

Two others who were with them sustained burn injuries. They were in stable condition but remained hospitalized in the Denver area, officials said at Monday's news conference.

“The loss we experience here is not felt by just one agency. It is felt by an entire wildland fire community,” Fennessy said. “We grieve together, we support one another and we continue the mission together.”

A long line of fire trucks and vehicles from a wide array of emergency response agencies made their way slowly through Grand Junction, Colorado, Monday with their lights flashing. A scattering of people, some with their hands on their hearts, watched silently from the sidewalk as they passed.

The procession ended at a cemetery, and the bodies of two of the firefighters draped in American flags were taken into a funeral home as officials from fire agencies saluted.

The three killed were assigned to a Helitack crew that can be dropped into remote areas by helicopters and whose mission is to prevent new fires from growing into out-of-control blazes. But it can be extremely dangerous, often taking place in areas where fires are rapidly expanding.

Watson worked for the Wildland Fire Service and the other two firefighters who died were assigned to the Forest Service. All were part of an interagency response to fires just west of Grand Junction.

The Snyder Fire in the area has burned about 44 square miles (114 square kilometers), authorities said.

Watson's death was the first within the the new Wildland Fire Service, which was created within the Department of Interior earlier this year to coordinate firefighting on public lands.

The deaths are being investigated by the Forest and Wildland Fire services, a process that typically results in recommendations for how to prevent or reduce the risk of a similar accident. Agencies can also convene an accident review board to suggest any further actions.

High wildfire threat for much of this week

More hot, dry and windy weather across the Southwest will elevate the fire threat at least until the weekend, according to the national Storm Prediction Center.

Among the concerns were high winds in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, in the Black Hills of South Dakota and across portions of the High Plains.

Utah already has restricted firework usage going into the July Fourth holiday.

The national “preparedness level” for wildfires was increased to a 4, on a scale of 1 to 5, the National Interagency Fire Center said Monday. That’s a sign resources are beginning to be strained, and officials warned of a high potential for new, large fires in multiple parts of the country in coming days.

There are enough firefighting resources for now across the Rocky Mountains to deal with the blazes, said Mike Morgan, director of Colorado’s Division of Fire Prevention and Control. But that could change quickly if conditions worsen in other parts of the country, Morgan said, adding that crews that battle fires on the ground already are in short supply.

“We know hand crews are always a hot commodity. We're getting a little short on those, so that would be one I would say we're a little concerned with,” Morgan said. “At the moment, I would say I feel pretty good about where we're at, but I'm very concerned about where we go.”

So far this year, wildfires have burned more than 4,800 square miles (12,400 square kilometers) — the most by this point in the year since 2022 and significantly above the 10-year average.

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana, and Seewer from Toledo, Ohio.

U.S. President Donald Trump said the Islamic Republic had requested a meeting with U.S. counterparts and that they planned to convene Tuesday in Doha, Qatar.

But one of Iran's senior negotiators denied talks had been scheduled. And the spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry said Tehran was sending its delegation to Qatar, a key mediator in the negotiations, to discuss terms of the interim deal without involving the U.S.

Hostilities mounted in recent days in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil had been shipped before war began. After four days of trading strikes, both sides appeared to pause their attacks Monday.

The U.S. and Iran agreed to an interim deal earlier this month that calls for Tehran to dilute its stockpile of enriched uranium. It also waives U.S.-backed oil sanctions on the country, calls for free traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and gives each side 60 days to hammer out broader agreements.

Confusion mounts over next round of Iran-US talks

After Trump said Monday morning on social media that the U.S. and Iran planned to meet, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” that special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, were flying to Qatar.

Pakistan, also a key mediator, had said talks between Iran and the U.S. would resume Tuesday.

But Kazem Gharibabadi, a senior negotiator for Iran, said in comments published by Iranian state media that no talks had been confirmed. And Esmail Baghaei, spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said that its delegation was traveling to Qatar this week to discuss the planned release of frozen Iranian assets and other issues related to the deal.

“There are no negotiation meetings with the U.S. side at any level scheduled in the coming days,” Baghaei said.

However, that left open the possibility messages being passed to the Qataris between the two sides.

Increased tension in waterway vital to world energy supplies

During the war that began Feb. 28, Iran’s attacks and threats stopped cargo ships and tankers from moving through the Strait of Hormuz, creating a global energy crisis.

In recent days, Iran has twice attacked vessels in the strait — including a tanker filled with Qatari crude — following efforts to open Oman’s territorial waters to both inbound and outbound traffic from the Persian Gulf.

The attacks drew retaliatory American airstrikes and raised concerns that negotiations to reach a formal end to the war could be disrupted. Iran launched drone and missile attacks targeting Bahrain and Kuwait on Sunday.

The strait has long been considered an international waterway despite being in Iran and Oman’s territorial waters.

The Trump administration was operating Monday on the understanding that the U.S. and Iran are standing down after the recent back-and-forth strikes and that vessels can move freely through the Strait of Hormuz, said a U.S. official who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

Iran's president, U.S. official say $6 billion coming to Iran

The U.S. official also said that Qatar planned to release $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets that would be used to purchase U.S. food products for the Iranian people.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had announced the expected release of funds earlier Monday in comments published by the state-run IRNA news agency.

Pezeshkian, a reformist within Iran's theocracy, is the highest-ranking official within Iran to reference the release of the funds held by Qatar.

Oman, Iran discuss possible fees for ships transiting the strait

Oman's foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, said Monday that Oman and Iran are considering charging service-related fees for commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

Al-Busaidi said services could include water safety measures, pollution prevention, navigational assistance and preparedness for incidents such as fires. He told Radio Monte Carlo that Oman does not support imposing transit fees on ships.

“This is internationally forbidden," he said, "and we are abiding by these rules."

But there had never been any fees charged in the strait — and other Gulf Arab states and the U.S. firmly oppose the imposition of any costs for transit.

Iran and France clash over clearing mines from strait

An Iranian official warned France against “provocations” Monday after French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X that France and others were coordinating efforts to clear mines from the Strait of Hormuz.

Kazem Gharibabadi, an Iranian deputy foreign minister, said on X that under the interim deal “demining is carried out solely by Iran and by no other country.”

Macron's post came after he greeted Sultan Haitham bin Tariq of Oman ahead of high-level diplomatic talks in Paris.

Lebanon's president says it will deploy troops as part of deal with Israel

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun separately said Monday that Lebanon is determined to deploy troops along its entire southern border as part of a framework agreement with Israel signed Friday. He made the remark while meeting with Adm. Brad Cooper, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East.

The deal was rejected by the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, which triggered the latest war with Israel on March 2 when it fired rockets across Lebanon's southern border and into northern Israel.

The Israel-Lebanon deal calls for Hezbollah to be disarmed before Israel will withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon. Israel agreed to withdraw initially from a couple of “pilot zones” where the Lebanese army would then deploy, but no details have been shared about how that will work in practice.

Hezbollah officials have warned that attempts to implement the plan could lead to civil war.

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Boak reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Bassem Mroue and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut; Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.

Dong had been locked up in China several times, including for his activities commemorating the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and past efforts to flee.

“It’s like living in a cage. Very suffocating,” he said in an online video interview with The Associated Press from Toronto, referring to the lack of freedom of expression in China.

After his release from prison, the 68-year-old dissident said he was unable to receive retirement benefits or renew his passport and was under constant police monitoring.

China's Foreign Ministry said the government handles the entry and exit of its citizens in accordance with the law and that Chinese citizens must abide by the Constitution and the law.

Dong attempted to flee at least three previous times: in 2015 to Thailand, where authorities deported him back to China; in 2019 when he tried to swim to a Taiwanese island off China's east coast; and in 2020, when he reached Vietnam, only to be deported back again.

Last month, he tried again.

Dong says he shook off the fear of death

In the early hours of May 24, he set off in a gray rubber dinghy fitted with an engine from Weihai, a coastal city in eastern China’s Shandong province, under fine weather. He was eyeing Japan, confident that the government there would not send him back to China.

But the next day brought fog. When he noticed his phone, which he relied on for GPS navigation, was on its last bar, he became terrified. His power bank also died. He quickly switched to his contingency plan — South Korea.

Dong recalled that dread ran deep because his tiny boat might capsize if the winds and waves picked up. But he had no way to return and shook off the fear of death.

“Living conditions back in the country are so terrible that being alive is little different than being dead. So there is no point fearing death,” he said. “If you move forward, there’s a chance at life.”

In the evening, he saw lights in the distance and moved toward them. The first vessel could not hear his cries for help and left. Later, he encountered a fishing boat that agreed to pull him on board. He asked the fishers to call the police to help him.

The South Korean coast guard detained him for allegedly violating the country’s immigration law. They sought a warrant to formally arrest him, but a court refused, saying it’s “difficult to recognize sufficient grounds and necessity” for his arrest.

From refugee center to Canada

Dong was later sent to a refugee center in Incheon, a port city near Seoul. Earlier this month, the U.N. refugee agency contacted him via video call, he said.

A refugee center manager later asked about his height, weight and his eye color. He was worried at first but it turned out to be a good sign. His lawyer told him it was at the request of the Canadian diplomatic mission, he said.

About a week later, Dong boarded a flight and he arrived in Toronto Friday. He was still unclear what legal procedures were involved in his move, but guessed it was based on cooperation between the South Korean and Canadian governments and the U.N. agency.

“I feel very surprised, extremely surprised. It's like still in a dream. It's very fast,” he said.

He believed the resettlement status in Canada that his family secured in 2015, before Thai authorities deported him back to China, was still valid.

The Canadian Embassy in South Korea declined to comment on Dong's case. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the country handled the case “in accordance with law and principle,” but did not specify Seoul’s role in arranging Dong’s transfer to Canada. The U.N. refugee agency declined to comment on individual cases for reasons of confidentiality and protection.

Dong vows to press on with his activism

Dong said he feels at home after arriving in Toronto, saying he finally tasted freedom for the first time in over a decade.

“There’s not even a hint of fear,” he said.

He hopes to make a living, possibly by being a truck driver or an Uber driver.

But the joy doesn't help Dong let go of the deportations by the Thai and Vietnamese authorities.

In 2015, Dong and his family went to Thailand to seek refugee status from the U.N. refugee agency, but Thai authorities later arrested him and returned him to China, according to Amnesty International. His ex-wife and daughter managed to settle in Canada.

The activist fled to Vietnam in 2020, but was sent back in 2022. He was jailed each time he was returned to China. He said he plans to consult a lawyer to see if he can sue both Thailand and Vietnam.

For Dong, the fight is far from over. He also plans to press on in his call for China's democratization.

In the late 1990s, the former police officer distributed leaflets with his articles on topics such as the Tiananmen crackdown. He was imprisoned for three years in 2001 for inciting subversion of state power.

He also spent more than eight months behind bars over his participation in a memorial for victims of the crackdown after being arrested in 2014, he said.

“My ultimate goal is for China to achieve constitutional democracy,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.